Palestinians look for survivors following Israeli airstrike in Nusseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023.
ISRAELI air strikes on a refugee camp near Gaza City killed dozens of people, levelled apartment buildings and left huge craters behind today as ground troops continued to push through the Strip.
At least six strikes flattened the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza; footage by news agency AFP following the explosion shows at least 47 bodies recovered from the rubble.
Dozens of people were searching for survivors at the time of writing.
The camp is the largest of Gaza’s eight refugee camps and contains 26 schools, a food distribution centre, two health centres, a library and seven water wells.
Several images by a Reuters photographer show dead or seriously injured children.
Palestinians try to rescue a girl stuck under the rubble of a destroyed building following Israeli airstrikes in Nusseirat refugee camp, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023.
APUBLIC health catastrophe is imminent in Gaza, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned today as supplies of water, food and fuel reach critical lows.
Hospitals are also running out of medicine and power.
WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier called for fuel to be allowed into Gaza to allow a water desalination plant to operate.
He said: “It’s an imminent public health catastrophe that looms with the mass displacement, the overcrowding, the damage to water and sanitation infrastructure.”
It came after the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said that an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza has become “a matter of life and death for millions of people.”
UN relief agency commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini accused Israel of exacting “collective punishment” on Palestinians and forcibly displacing civilians.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer delivers a speech on the situation in the Middle East at Chatham House in central London. Picture date: Tuesday October 31, 2023.
Labour leader refuses to back ceasefire despite revolt
FLOUNDERING Sir Keir Starmer declared that war is peace today in an Orwellian speech trying to retrieve Labour’s position on the Gaza crisis.
Defying mounting opposition within the party, the Labour leader asserted that a ceasefire in Gaza would encourage further violence and that only a “humanitarian pause” could be considered.
But his pose for peace was further undermined by the suspension of MP Andy McDonald from the Labour whip in the Commons.
Mr McDonald’s offence was to have told a ceasefire rally at the weekend that “we won’t rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty.”
A Labour spokesperson called the remarks “deeply offensive” but the Labour Muslim Network attacked the suspension as “obscene.”
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Palestine Solidarity Campaign called the idea of a pause “a wholly inadequate response” to the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza, where over 8,000 have already died in the latest Israeli attack.
PSC director Ben Jamal said Sir Keir’s “words and actions render him complicit in Israel’s ongoing commission of war crimes.
“Those who believe in the primacy of international law and respect for all civilian life should condemn his remarks and demand a reversal of the Labour Party position.”
A Momentum spokesperson argued that “Keir Starmer hasn’t shifted one inch: his speech today still backs Israel’s war on Gaza and opposes the ceasefire demanded by everyone from the UN to Save the Children.
The Labour leader Keir Starmer has reaffirmed his opposition to a ceasefire in Gaza in a major speech today. Starmer made the speech to set out the Labour Party’s position on the ongoing situation in the Middle East amidst deep divisions in his party.
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Starmer’s speech has received a mixed response.
A spokesperson for Labour’s left wing faction Momentum said: “For all the fine words, Keir Starmer hasn’t shifted one inch: his speech today still backs Israel’s war on Gaza and opposes the ceasefire demanded by everyone from the UN to Save the Children.
“Thus Starmer backs a pause in hostilities – then a resumption of Israeli bombing which has already killed more than 3,000 children. To call this ‘humanitarian’ is an insult to the Palestinian people.”
Deputy leader of the Green Party Zack Polanski said: “Keir Starmer siding with the Conservatives by refusing to call for a ceasefire. He says that he’s not saying this to start “a new round of arguments or hand wringing.” If there’s any justice, they won’t get away with this. The UK population calling: we need a ceasefire now.”
“One child’s death is one too many, but these are grave violations of epic proportions,” said the humanitarian group Save the Children. “A cease-fire is the only way to ensure their safety.”
Over just a three-week period, the Israeli military has killed at least 3,195 children in the Gaza Strip—a death toll that surpasses the annual number of children killed in all of the world’s armed conflict zones since 2019.
That’s according to a disturbing new analysis by Save the Children, which observed that kids make up more than 40% of the total death toll in the Gaza Strip since October 7, when Hamas launched a deadly attack on Israel that was met with a massive bombing campaign and an intensifying ground attack.
The humanitarian group noted that, according to the United Nations, at least 1,000 Gazan children have been reported missing and may be trapped under rubble, meaning the reported death toll is almost certainly an underestimate. UNICEF has called child deaths in Gaza “a growing stain on our collective conscience” and demanded a cease-fire.
Save the Children did the same on Sunday. Jason Lee, Save the Children’s country director for the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a statement that “three weeks of violence have ripped children from families and torn through their lives at an unimaginable rate.”
“The numbers are harrowing and with violence not only continuing but expanding in Gaza right now, many more children remain at grave risk,” Lee added. “One child’s death is one too many, but these are grave violations of epic proportions. A cease-fire is the only way to ensure their safety. The international community must put people before politics—every day spent debating is leaving children killed and injured. Children must be protected at all times, especially when they are seeking safety in schools and hospitals.”
Save the Children cites the most recent three annual reports from the U.N. secretary-general, which have found that 2,985 children were killed across two dozen countries last year, 2,515 were killed in 2021, and 2,674 were killed in 2020. More than 4,000 children were killed in global conflicts in 2019.
3,195 children killed in #Gaza in just three weeks has surpassed the annual number of children killed across the world's conflict zones since 2019. We are calling for an immediate ceasefire. pic.twitter.com/vrEQ846tPB
— Save the Children International (@save_children) October 29, 2023
The group’s analysis was released days after it warned that Israel’s expanded ground assault on the Gaza Strip has put children “at heightened risk of loss of life, physical harm, severe emotional distress, and protracted displacement.”
Israeli troops and tanks advanced toward Gaza City on Monday and “blocked one of the main roads connecting the northern part of the Gaza Strip to the south,” The Wall Street Journalreported, “a major advance that appeared aimed at encircling the enclave’s biggest population center.”
More than a million Gazans had already been displaced by Israeli airstrikes before the country launched its fresh ground attack late last week. Israeli bombing has also destroyed or damaged at least 45% of Gaza’s housing units.
On Friday, as Israel ruthlessly bombed northern Gaza and knocked out the territory’s internet and communications, a Save the Children team member in Gaza warned in a message that “we could all die, we could survive, we could survive, we could… pray for us.”
Save the Children said later in the day that it lost contact with its team on the ground in Gaza.
“This is pure horror for all children and their parents,” Lee said Friday. “Across the Gaza Strip, more than one million children are trapped in the middle of an active conflict zone with no safe place to go and no route to safety. With communications down, children are cut off from the world, more isolated than ever before. They are unable to speak to loved ones, or even to call an ambulance.”
“Despite Save the Children and thousands of other voices calling for an urgent cease-fire, we are seeing an increase in military operations,” he continued. “We call on all parties to the conflict to take immediate steps to protect the lives of children, and on the international community to support those efforts, as is their obligation.”
