Here is the situation on Wednesday, November 1, 2023:
Latest developments
- Palestinian fighters and Israeli forces are engaged in clashes south of the Zeitoun neighbourhood, southeast of Gaza City.
- An Israeli ministry has drafted a wartime proposal to transfer the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office downplayed the report by the Ministry of Intelligence as a hypothetical exercise, a Hamas spokesperson rejected this displacement.
- Egypt will allow 81 Palestinians in Gaza, who were severely wounded in the weeks of bombardment, to enter the country for complete treatment, according to the Palestinian border authorities in Gaza. The decision came after Egypt condemned Israel’s attack on the Jabalia refugee camp.
Human impact and fighting
- Up to 400 people were killed or injured in the Israeli air raid on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, according to Hamas. The Ministry of Health said at least 50 people were killed in the attack that triggered a global outrage.
- Israel has expanded its ground operations in Gaza recently, with tanks and infantry engaged in battles with Palestinian fighters around the Gaza City in the northern section of the Strip, measuring 10km by 41km (6 miles by 25 miles).
- Palestinian Health Ministry spokesperson warned that the main power generators at al-Shifa Hospital complex and the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza are hours away from running out of fuel and completely shutting down.
Diplomacy
- Bolivia has cut diplomatic relations with Israel to condemn the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip. Additionally, Minister of the Presidency Maria Nela Prada announced the country would send humanitarian aid to Gaza.
- Two other Latin American countries – Colombia and Chile – have also recalled their ambassadors for consultations to condemn civilian deaths in Gaza and to call for a ceasefire. More than 8,500 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in relentless Israeli bombing since October 7.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Israel on Friday for meetings with members of the government and then make other stops in the region, according to the Department of State.
- Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates issued individual statements denouncing the strikes on the Jabalia camp.
Escalation in the West Bank
- Magdy Zakaria Youssef Awad, 65, a physically impaired man, was killed in the occupied West Bank’s eastern district of Tulkarem by Israeli forces, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
- Israeli forces have been carrying out regular air raids in the occupied West Bank, including the Jenin refugee camp. Three other people were killed in the West Bank over the past 24 hours, including a 16-year-old.
- Wafa reported that Israeli forces raided the house in Tulkarem of freed prisoner, Kassab Zaqout, assaulting and rearresting him.
- The death toll in the West Bank has reached 127 since the outbreak of violence on October 7, according to the UN agency OCHA.
