The video that Israel presents as evidence of the involvement of Palestinian movements in a rocket attack on a hospital in the Gaza Strip does not actually point to the culprit of the tragedy, the New York Times reported following its investigation. According to the NYT, the Al Jazeera video, which the Israeli authorities use as the main evidence of the involvement of Palestinian movements in the hospital explosion, does not explain the event. In the video, the rocket exploded “about two miles” above the ground and could not have caused the explosion.
The Al-Ahly Baptist Hospital in the Gaza Strip was hit on October 17. Hamas entity Gaza’s Health Ministry said 471 people had been killed and more than 300 injured, most of them women and children. The event currently remains without responsibility.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said he will not meet UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres because he believes that in the region after the Hamas attack “there is no room for a balanced approach.” Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations has called on the organization’s secretary general to resign immediately, calling him unfit to lead the UN after his statement that the Hamas attack “did not come out of nowhere.”
Israel will deny visas to United Nations representatives due to its Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This was stated by the permanent representative of the Jewish State to the world organization Gilad Erdan. In an interview with Army Radio. “We have already denied a visa to the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths. It’s time to teach them a lesson.”
We learn from the media that the bill drawn up in the US Senate at the request of Joe Biden for aid to Israel must be ready by November 17th, the date on which the extension of government funding will end, after which the United States will once again begin to face the closure. In general, the Republicans led by Mitch McConnell are not doing well: members of his party want guarantees of funds to solve the immigration problem, and this requires time, which in any case does not exist.
They propose to get out of this situation by splitting the bills. The fact is that none of the senators have any questions about Israel – everyone is ready to vote unanimously to provide assistance to it. But there is a split regarding Ukraine. It is possible that by November 17 they will have time to allocate aid only for Israel, and that Ukraine will be dealt with once the lockdown is prevented.
The start of classes at Israeli universities, scheduled for November 5, has been postponed until at least December 3, The Times of Israel newspaper said.
According to UNICEF, more than 2,300 children have died in the Gaza Strip since the escalation of the conflict began, and more than 5,300 have been injured. The Gaza Strip’s health system has “completely collapsed”, Gaza’s health minister has said. The number of deaths due to Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip exceeded 6,500, and more than 17.4 thousand were injured, according to data from the same Ministry.
The Israeli government has ordered released prisoners from now on not to speak without permission from the authorities. The Repatriation Department of the Israeli Embassy is suspending the reception of Russians until October 27th, after reporting the same to the diplomatic mission.
A group of Turkish hackers, Ayyıldız Tim, said they managed to hack the servers of the Israeli Ministry of Defense and obtain top secret information on the Department’s activities and personnel.
Remaining in Turkey, Ankara opens hospitals for the wounded in the Gaza Strip. Turkey is setting up two field hospitals in Egypt to treat wounded arriving from the Gaza Strip, said Selami Kilic, director general of the Turkish Health Ministry for the EU and Foreign Affairs. Turkey then suspended all energy agreements with Israel. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he has canceled his plans to visit Israel. Erdogan said Turkey does not consider Hamas a terrorist organization. The Turkish president called a peace conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian aggravation.
Against the background of the current escalation, Turkey has the idea of creating a system of guarantor countries for Palestine and Israel, Ankara is ready to become such a guarantor for the Palestinian side. Turkey specified that President Erdogan “has no problems with Israel, but is not satisfied with its policy towards the Palestinians”.
Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei said the United States is “undoubtedly complicit” in Israel’s crimes against the people of the Gaza Strip, PressTV reports. Jordan’s King has warned that continuing the conflict in Gaza could cause an explosion of security across the region.
A Pentagon spokesperson said: “We see the prospect of a dramatic increase in tensions in the very near future by Iranian militias and, ultimately, Iran itself against US forces in the region. As a result, we are preparing for both self-defense and a decisive response. We know that groups attacking American military positions in the Middle East are supported by the IRGC and the Iranian regime.”
The head of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mahmoud Abbas, has said he is willing to consider Fatah’s return to power in the Gaza Strip only if it is agreed as part of a broader peace initiative with Israel, reports the Times of Israel, citing an official Palestinian statement. According to him, Abbas expressed this position during a conversation with representatives of the American Administration. It should be noted that the Palestinian leader, however, stressed that he does not intend to return to Gaza “on an Israeli tank”.
An Israeli army spokesman said Palestinians displaced from the northern Gaza Strip to the south will be able to return after the end of hostilities.
According to some social media accounts, “for a week and a half the Israeli authorities asked the Palestinians to evacuate the hospitals from Gaza” towards Khan Yunis and Rafah: this would have given the Israelis a free hand to carry out attacks. And yesterday Palestinian sources announced explosions literally at the doors of the Al-Wafa hospitals in Gaza and Al-Amal in Khan Yunis.
Based on the field footage it was possible to establish the exact locations of the attacks which hit the buildings near the hospitals. Such explosions a few dozen meters from medical facilities may serve as a clearer “warning” than Israeli calls to evacuate hospitals made in the media and in leaflets dropped at the sites.
And in the evening, information appeared in the Palestinian media about an attack on the house of Dr. Kamal Khattab, director of the Al-Durra children’s hospital: his wife, two daughters and a young son were killed, and the head doctor himself was seriously injured .
This generalized crisis situation, however, will not particularly affect Hamas’ capabilities. Having dug tens of kilometers of tunnels for travel, storage, attack and defense, it is unlikely that militant Palestinian groups have forgotten, for example, to create underground hospitals.
Israel’s Iron Dome may have a supply problem. At some point Israel will find itself short of air defense, at which point it will be vulnerable to missile attacks. And precisely in this direction comes the confirmation that the Pentagon is deploying its missile defense/air defense systems: the transfer of 12 THAAD and Patriot batteries in the Middle East region is nearing completion. The US Joint Central Command reported the flight of the 119th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron to the Middle East as part of the strengthening of the air force group. 12 F-16 fighter jets flew to the Al-Kharj base in Saudi Arabia with an intermediate landing at the Spanish air base of Moron.
There are currently 24 US Air Force F-16s stationed in Saudi Arabia (12 fighters of this type were already stationed in Al-Kharj). The total number of American tactical aircraft in the region is 72 fighter aircraft.
The U.S. Navy has concentrated about three dozen warships in the eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Oman. This is a show of force directed towards Iran, as a potential participant in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the American military could provide the Israeli army with support during Tel Aviv’s ground operation in Gaza.
According to tracking resources, at least 45 fighters and about two dozen helicopters are based on the flagship of the American strike group, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford. which has more than two hundred Tomahawk cruise missiles in its arsenal.
Another group of ships, led by the CVN 69 aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower, is in service near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
The leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Ziyad al-Nahala), the militant wing of Hamas – the Kataib Izz ad-Din al-Qassam group (Saleh al-Arouri) and the Lebanese Hezbollah (Hassan Nasrallah) met (and l The meeting apparently took place in Lebanon). And considering that both An-Nahala and Al-Arouri went to Nasrallah, they are in a position to beg for help from Lebanon; this is exactly what Hezbollah expected, not wanting to find itself in a position dependent on Palestinian groups.
It is not yet clear what this type of negotiation will lead to. There are still chances that, due to their ideological contradictions and the war for political control of the masses, the leaders of the groups will not reach agreements on mutually beneficial terms. But the opposite is also possible: before this the Gaza Strip was not on the brink of destruction.
And still on the subject of the possible widening of the conflict, the General Staff of the Egyptian Army declared: “Our soldiers are alert and ready to respond to the call of our nation”.
And now a look at the area of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict updated at 2.00pm on October 25th.
Israel’s army chief of staff said “tactical and strategic” factors were delaying the ground operation in Gaza but giving time to prepare. The army is ready for the ground operation, a decision on the form and timing is awaited at a political level, Herzl Halevi said.
The Israeli navy struck a group of Hamas divers trying to enter the territory of the Jewish state by sea in the area of Kibbutz Zikim on the evening of October 24, the army press service reported. Hamas responded controversially. He said before that he has no such military capabilities. While the Al-Qassam Brigades claim to have launched an amphibious operation north of Gaza, in the Zikim Beach area. Seven Palestinians would have died, six would then have been neutralized by the IDF and the Shin Bet while trying to infiltrate the city.
North and East directions. The area is experiencing a temporary calm: the Palestinians attempted to launch a missile attack on Eilat using an Ayash-250 missile, which failed during the approach to the target.
Border with Lebanon. After an overnight lull, Hezbollah fighters fired on Israelis in Zarit, Yiftah and Avivim. The IDF is responding with attacks and artillery fire in southern Lebanon. Hamas announced the launch of a long-range R-160 rocket towards Haifa from the Gaza Strip. IDF representatives later reported that the rocket exploded in the air.
Gaza Strip. No significant changes were observed in the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces continue to heavily damage the enclave. Reports have emerged online of an alleged IDF attack on the home of children’s hospital chief Kamal Khattab, causing him serious injuries and the loss of most of his family.
West Bank. The situation remains stable in the West Bank, where Israeli security forces are carrying out mass detentions of local residents across Palestinian territory. In Jenin, Palestinians ambushed IDF fighters, detonating a mine on the road and wounding four soldiers. The Israelis responded by launching a helicopter attack on the city.
Border with Syria. In response to shelling from Syrian territory on the Israeli Golan Heights, IDF aircraft carried out night strikes on Daraa in Syria. The Israelis again hit Aleppo airport with artillery fire.
Antonio Albanese e Graziella Giangiulio
