al jazeeraThe sun is rising in Gaza, but there’s no let up in the Israeli bombardment of the enclave, as live pictures show smoke rising in Gaza City.
More on Human Rights Watch’s claims that Israel has used banned white phosphorus in Gaza and south Lebanon in the past few days.
HRW’s Ahmed Benchemsi explained to Al Jazeera that his organisation had been able to verify videos that showed white phosphorus that had been fired aerially on October 10 and 11, and conducted interviews with witnesses, as well as using experts and specialists to analyse witness descriptions and the videos.
Benchemsi said that white phosphorus can be used for “various military tactics, either for marking or signalling or obscuring as a smokescreen, or as a weapon to set fire”.
“As such, it can severely burn people, houses and fields and civilian buildings – whatever is in the vicinity.”
Benchemsi explained that when the substance is fired aerially over a wide area, “it exposes more civilians and infrastructure than a localised ground burst”.
“It can have very harmful effects, it ignites when exposed to oxygen, basically to the atmosphere, and creates a very intense heat, up to 815 degrees Celsius [1,500 degrees Fahrenheit],” Benchemsi added.
“It can burn the human flesh down to the bone. It can also enter the bloodstream and cause organ failure. That’s why even minor burns with white phosphorus can be fatal to humans.”
An ominous warning from the Israeli military, which, according to the Reuters news agency, has told the United Nations that all Palestinians north of Wadi Gaza, which lies roughly in the centre of the Gaza Strip, must relocate to the south of the enclave in the next 24 hours.
A UN spokesperson said that the demand encompasses 1.1 million people, around half of the population of Gaza, and said that the UN strongly appealed for the order to be rescinded.
“The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
Dujarric said that the order could “transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation”.
He added that the order applied to all UN staff and those sheltering in UN facilities, including schools, health centres and clinics.
The north of the Gaza Strip includes the biggest population centre, Gaza City, as well as the Jabaliya refugee camp and the areas of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun.
The warning raises fears that an Israeli ground operation could be imminent after days of Israeli bombing killed more than 1,500 Palestinians.
North Korea has denied that weapons it produced were used by Hamas in the recent attacks against Israel and has accused the US of making “false accusations”.
North Korea’s state-run news agency published an article on Friday in which analysts blasted attempts to link Pyongyang to the war between Israel and Hamas.
“What cannot be overlooked is that the US is once again sticking to its malicious slander campaign against our republic in a bid to connect us to the latest conflict in the Middle East,” the North Korean analyst, Ri Kwang-song, was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said that the weapons link was made by a US media outlet which cited a video clip purportedly showing a Hamas fighter armed with “an F-7 high-explosive fragmentation rocket”.
The North Korea-manufactured rocket was exported to the Middle East in the past, Yonhap reported, though it was not known if such weapons were “directly supplied to Hamas or whether they were provided through transactions involving other countries”.
Earlier in the week, North Korea said Israel was responsible for the conflict with Hamas, which was a “consequence of Israel’s ceaseless criminal actions” against the Palestinian people.
Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, has said it is capable of fighting off an Israeli land invasion of Gaza.
“We reassert our readiness – with God’s help – in the defence aspect. And the enemy’s suggestion of widening the aggression via land will push us to activate new options that will mount massive losses on the enemy,” spokesperson Abu Obeida said in a video message.
He added that Hamas’s military infrastructure enables an “effective defence” of the Gaza Strip that Israel has not witnessed before.
Israel has been amassing troops and military equipment outside the Palestinian territory, but so far, Israel has only been bombing Gaza from the air relentlessly.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is warning that Gaza’s health system has reached a “breaking point” and there is little time to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.
Injuries and fatalities are rising amid Israel’s air, land and naval attacks on the densely populated Gaza Strip, which is home to more than two million people, and the enclave’s badly overburdened hospitals are suffering acute shortages of medical supplies.
“Without the immediate entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza – especially health services, medical supplies, food, clean water, fuel, and non-food items – humanitarian and health partners will be unable to respond to urgent needs of people who desperately need it. Each lost hour puts more lives at risk,” the WHO said in a statement.
“WHO calls for an end to hostilities and the protection of health care and civilians against attacks,” the organisation said.
“WHO also calls for the immediate opening of a humanitarian corridor to ensure unimpeded access for health and humanitarian supplies, as well as for personnel, and the evacuation of patients and the injured.”
Biden has once again voiced support for Israel, sharing a photo of the White House lit up in the blue and white colours of the Israeli flag.
“The United States stands with Israel in the aftermath of the acts of sheer evil perpetrated by Hamas,” he wrote on X.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Gaza, says that Israeli forces are firing illumination rounds over Gaza to provide light for their attacks as residential areas have been plunged into darkness since power to the Palestinian enclave was cut due to Israel’s total blockade of fuel, food and water.
Michael Omer-Man, director of research for Israel-Palestine at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a rights group, has said that if Palestinians are granted safe passage out of Gaza, there is concern about their future.
Omer-Man noted that most Gaza residents are refugees or descendants of refugees who were forcibly displaced from their homes during the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
He said talks of fleeing the Palestinian territory triggers trauma for many people in Gaza.
“There’s a lot of fear that a safe passage and encouraging Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip while Israel is bombing it could lead to a situation where they’re not allowed to return,” Omer-Man told Al Jazeera.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is visiting the region, has been lobbying for a safe passage for people in Gaza, likely to Egypt.
US lawmaker Maxwell Frost, the first Gen Z member of Congress and a rising Democrat, has decried Israel’s use of white phosphorus in Gaza.
“My heart breaks as more innocent lives are killed. People in Gaza are calling it hell on earth. [Two] million people live there, half of them being children,” Frost wrote in a social media post.
“Israel must follow international law which prohibits the use of white phosphorus, bombing civilians and collective punishment.”
Human Rights Watch had confirmed earlier that Israel had used white phosphorus in Gaza and south Lebanon in recent days.
International law prohibits deploying the highly incendiary munition in densely populated areas because of the risk it poses to civilians.
Mr.BadGuy
Publisher
Mr.BadGuy
Publisher
These soldiers are from a country whose president is a Jew Zelensky. Orthodox churches are also being destroyed in this country. Synagogues are not touched. Surprisingly, it turns out that Jews get along well with the Bandera Nazis.