Israel-Hamas war live: IDF confirms it has detained al-Shifa hospital director; no ceasefire and hostage deal before Friday, say officials
[ad_1]
Israeli military confirms it has detained director of al-Shifa hospital for questioning
The Israeli military confirmed today that the director of al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip had been held for questioning. Muhammad Abu Salmiya was reportedly detained while heading to the south of the Gaza Strip.
Reuters reports that Israel said it was questioning him over evidence that the facility had been used as a command and control centre for the Islamist movement Hamas.
“In the hospital, under his management, there was extensive Hamas terrorist activity,” the military said in a statement.
Abu Salmiya had frequently spoken to international media over the course of the conflict about conditions in and around the hospital during the Israeli bombardment and siege of the Gaza Strip.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals as cover for its activities, which Hamas and medical staff have repeatedly denied.
Earlier this week Israel released footage, which showing reinforced tunnels allegedly used by Hamas, with what the IDF said showed a meeting room, kitchen and bathroom.
Key events
Water is one of the most precious resources in Israel and the Palestinian territories. But there is a stark imbalance in how this resource is distributed. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli-owned farms are flourishing, while Palestinians often do not have enough water to drink. And in Gaza, Palestinians are facing deadly levels of water shortage. Josh Toussaint-Strauss examines how Israel took control of the region’s water supply and created a deadly scarcity crisis for Palestinians.
There has been considerable speculation about why the release of hostages and the implementation of a temporary truce has been delayed. The Wall Street Journal has an account, which it sources to senior Egyptian officials. Jared Malsin and Summer Said write:
Senior Egyptian officials said Hamas failed to formally sign off on the mechanism for the hostages’ release, and didn’t provide Israel with a specific list of around a dozen or more to be freed first.
Israel for its part delayed the handover of a list of the first group of Palestinian prisoners it plans to free, according to officials familiar with the talks.
Among the technical issues gumming up the process is access by the International Committee of the Red Cross to the released hostages, and negotiations over the exit through which they will leave Gaza, according to officials familiar with the situation.
Israel had wanted the hostages to be handed over to the Red Cross before their transfer to Israel, while Hamas is now asking for them to be given directly to Egypt, the officials said. Israel has also asked that the Red Cross be given access to those hostages who remain in Gaza after the first exchange, something Hamas hasn’t agreed to.
Here is the full IDF statement on the detention of Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the director of al-Shifa hospital:
The director of the al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip was apprehended and transferred for ISA questioning following evidence showing that the al-Shifa hospital, under his direct management, served as a Hamas command and control centre. The Hamas terror tunnel network situated under the hospital also exploited electricity and resources taken from the hospital. In addition, Hamas stored numerous weapons inside the hospital and on the hospital grounds.
Furthermore, after the Hamas massacre on 7 October, Hamas terrorists sought refuge within the hospital, some of them taking hostages from Israel with them. A pathological report also confirmed the murder of CPL Noa Marciano on the hospital premises.
In the hospital, under his management, there was extensive Hamas terrorist activity. Findings of his involvement in terrorist activity will determine whether he will be subject to further ISA questioning.
The IDF also rereleased the statement from the Israeli military spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, yesterday, in which he said: “Now, the irrefutable truth of Hamas’s exploitation of hospitals in Gaza is on full display to the world. We have an important question to ask the international community: what will you do to stop Gaza’s hospitals from being turned into terror bases in the future? Will you condemn Hamas? Or will you continue to be silent? Will you remain silent? I want to make it clear that Israel is at war with Hamas. We are not at war with the people of Gaza.”
Hamas and medical staff within Gaza’s hospitals have repeatedly denied the Israeli accusation.
Israeli military confirms it has detained director of al-Shifa hospital for questioning
The Israeli military confirmed today that the director of al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip had been held for questioning. Muhammad Abu Salmiya was reportedly detained while heading to the south of the Gaza Strip.
Reuters reports that Israel said it was questioning him over evidence that the facility had been used as a command and control centre for the Islamist movement Hamas.
“In the hospital, under his management, there was extensive Hamas terrorist activity,” the military said in a statement.
Abu Salmiya had frequently spoken to international media over the course of the conflict about conditions in and around the hospital during the Israeli bombardment and siege of the Gaza Strip.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals as cover for its activities, which Hamas and medical staff have repeatedly denied.
Earlier this week Israel released footage, which showing reinforced tunnels allegedly used by Hamas, with what the IDF said showed a meeting room, kitchen and bathroom.
A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross has told Al Jazeera that its staff were fired upon while trying to deliver humanitarian support in northern Gaza.
It said: “Healthcare workers have special protection under international law and we are pressing for immediate protection for all civilians,” adding that hospitals in Gaza had been “turned into cemeteries and war fields”.
Dani Dayan, chair of Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem World Holocaust memorial centre, has told AFP that comparisons between the Hamas attack on 7 October and the Holocaust were “simplistic”, even if “the genocidal intentions, sadism and barbarism of Hamas” had similarities with Nazi atrocities.
He told the news agency: “The crimes that took place on 7 October are on the same level as Nazi crimes, but they are not the Shoah. I do not accept the simplistic comparison with the Holocaust even if there are similarities in the genocidal intentions, sadism and barbarism of Hamas.
“For any Jew who has heard the stories of families putting their hands over a baby’s mouth to stop it from crying, the association of ideas is obvious. We have all thought about it.”
Dayan said, however, that aside from the scale of the events, unlike many of the Jews targeted during the second world war, Israelis are far from defenceless victims, and the state has hit back hard.
“We cannot compare it with the period of the Holocaust because there is an army here, which is fighting and making Hamas pay the price,” he said.
Dayan has previously criticised Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, who pinned a yellow star to his chest insisting he would wear it until the UN security council condemned the Hamas attack. “This act disgraces the victims of the Holocaust,” Dayan said at the time.
He has also criticised the UN secretary general, António Guterres, who had said the Hamas attacks “did not happen in a vacuum”.
“I asked him what context could explain the beheading of children, rapes or shootings of young people at a music festival,” Dayan said.
The memorial centre itself counts some of its own staff among the victims of 7 October. Polish-born Israeli historian Alex Dancyg, 75, who worked at Yad Vashem, was last seen at the Nir Oz kibbutz and is feared to be among the hostages, as is one of the guides, Liat Atzili.
The Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, has been in Kibbutz Be’eri today as part of the delegation visiting with the British foreign secretary, David Cameron. She has posted a video from the location showing one of the burnt-out houses at the kibbutz after Hamas attacked it on 7 October.
Since the horrors of October 7th, Israel has changed.
See for yourself just a snapshot of the level of destruction that the genocidal terrorists of Hamas inflicted on the peace-loving community of Kibbutz Be’eri. pic.twitter.com/1KzumhZYLU
— Tzipi Hotovely (@TzipiHotovely) November 23, 2023
Here is a little more on the apparent Israeli detention of al-Shifa hospital’s director, Muhammad Abu Salmiya.
Al Jazeera reports a spokesperson for the health ministry in Gaza said Abu Salmiya was en route from the northern Gaza Strip to the south with other medics when he was arrested by Israeli forces. Al Jazeera also reports that the Israeli broadcaster Kan said he was questioned by the intelligence service Shin Bet after his arrest.
Hamas has, Al Jazeera reports, issued a statement calling for international organisations to work to have Abu Salmiya and other medical staffed release. It said:
We consider it a despicable act that only comes from an entity that lacks all sense of humanity and morals, in addition to being a crime and a flagrant violation of international conventions that guarantee no attacks against medical personnel at all times.
Israel began its latest campaign against Gaza after the Hamas attack inside Israel on 7 October, which killed at least 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and during which Hamas abducted an estimated 240 hostages.
The Scream franchise star Melissa Barrera has publicly responded to being fired from Scream VII for sharing posts that the film’s production company says were interpreted as antisemitic. The actor said she condemned antisemitism and Islamophobia but would “continue to speak out” on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Barrera, who starred in the fifth and sixth Scream films and was to star in the forthcoming seventh instalment, has been outspoken in support of Palestine on social media, where she has described Israel as committing “genocide” and “brutally killing innocent Palestinians, mothers and children, under the pretence of destroying Hamas”.
On Tuesday, Barrera was fired from Scream VII by the production company Spyglass Media, who confirmed to Variety the decision was due to some of her social media posts, which were interpreted as antisemitic.
“We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech,” a Spyglass spokesperson told Variety. The Guardian has not confirmed which posts Spyglass was referring to.
Read more here: Melissa Barrera, fired from Scream VII over Israel-Hamas posts, responds: ‘Silence is not an option’
Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, has met Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah.
AFP reports that in a statement, Hezbollah said the two men “reviewed the latest developments in Palestine, Lebanon and the region, and … the efforts made to end the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip”.
Amir-Abdollahian, who warned on Wednesday that the war could spiral out of control, left Beirut for Doha after their meeting, Iran’s Nour news agency reported.
Hezbollah said on Thursday morning it fired 48 Katyusha rockets at a military base at Ein Zeitim, near the town of Safed in northern Israel. It said it also carried out at least 10 other attacks on Israeli positions near the frontier. The IDF earlier said it had returned fire over the UN-drawn blue line that separates the two countries.
The violence between Israel and Hezbollah has claimed at least 108 lives in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters, but also at least 14 civilians, including three journalists, according to an AFP count.
Six Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed on the Israeli side, according to the authorities.
Paul MacInnes
The English Football Association is to stop lighting the arch at Wembley in support of humanitarian causes after the controversy that followed its decision not to commemorate the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October.
Wembley will be illuminated only for sporting and entertainment purposes, after the FA board reflected on its policy. Speaking last month, its chief executive, Mark Bullingham, said he “recognised the hurt” to the Jewish community caused by the decision to leave the arch unlit during England men’s friendly against Australia in the week after the Hamas attack.
Read more here: FA to stop lighting Wembley arch for humanitarian causes
On its Telegram channel the Israeli military has claimed it has intercepted a number of launches from inside Lebanon which were aimed at Israel.
It wrote:
Following the initial reports regarding sirens sounding in northern Israel, approximately 35 launches were identified crossing from Lebanon toward Israeli territory. The IDF Aerial Defense Array intercepted a number of the launches. In addition, since this morning, terrorists launched a number of anti-tank missiles and mortars at various locations along the border with Lebanon.
There have been frequent exchanges of fires between the IDF and anti-Israeli forces over the UN-drawn blue line that separates Lebanon and Israel.
Earlier it was reported that Hezbollah had claimed to fire 48 rockets into Israeli territory in Upper Galilee. There are no reports of any casualties on the Israeli side.
A doctor at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital has told AFP the facility’s director and several other medical personnel were arrested by Israeli forces on Thursday. [See 7.55am GMT]
Director Mohammad Abu Salmiya has been frequently quoted by international media about the conditions inside al-Shifa.
“Doctor Mohammad Abu Salmiya was arrested along with several other senior doctors,” said Khalid Abu Samra, a department chief at the hospital.
An official in the Hamas-run health ministry told AFP that one other doctor and two nurses had been detained, as well as the hospital director.
In a statement, Hamas said it “strongly denounces” the arrest of Salmiya and his colleagues, calling on the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organisations to work towards their “immediate release”.
The Israeli army has alleged that Hamas fighters use a tunnel complex beneath the facility in Gaza City to stage attacks. Hamas and hospital officials have repeatedly denied the claims.
Al-Shifa hospital has been the scene of an extended Israeli special forces operation as part of its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where the Hamas-run health ministry claims more than 13,000 people have been killed, including thousands of children. Approximately 6,000 Palestinians are said to be missing.
Patrick Wintour
Patrick Wintour is the Guardian’s diplomatic editor:
Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy is teaching a traumatised generation of Palestinians to hate Israel, deliberately undermining the chances of a two-state solution, John Casson, the former foreign policy private secretary to David Cameron at No 10 said on Tuesday.
Casson was speaking as his former boss, now the foreign secretary, arrived in Israel for talks with Netanyahu.
Prior to Cameron’s appointment, Casson was highly critical of British policy saying it had lost leverage by simply following Israeli policy. In a further BBC interview on Tuesday he expressed the hope that Cameron’s appointment will see the UK start to chart some positions ahead of Israel and the Palestinians into which the two sides could then enter.
He also called for a new generation of Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, saying the absence of elections means they have lost legitimacy.
There is no suggestion that Casson, a former British ambassador to Egypt until 2018, is speaking with the foreign secretary’s approval. But knowing Cameron well, he said he thought the foreign secretary was clear-eyed about Netanyahu, but also put great store by personal relationships.
Casson said the UK should scale up the amount of humanitarian aid being sent to the Palestinians, arguing the money offered so far was a fraction of what was offered by the UK three or four years ago.
He also said Cameron needed to impress on the Israelis there was not a solely military solution to defeating Hamas, arguing a military response “has to create space for a strategic response and not undercut it”.
In his key critique, he argued: “When we say we stand with Israelis and say never again to face the terrorist horror of the last month – that is not the same as to say we endorse and enable what prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his partners are saying and doing because the two things are at odds.
“The current approach is not making the Israelis safe and secure for the long term but creating a traumatised generation of Palestinians and teaching them that Israel is their enemy, and it is undermining the prospects of a two-state solution, and deliberately dismantling it.”
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Gaza and Israel.
[ad_2]
