The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced that the death toll of Palestinian martyrs as a result of the Israeli aggression on the Strip had risen to 23,843 martyrs, in addition to the injury of 60,317 people since the seventh of last October.
The ministry added in a statement, "There are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them."
The ministry reported that "the Israeli occupation committed 12 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, claiming 135 martyrs and 312 injuries during the past 24 hours."
The Ministry's announcement comes with the death of dozens of Palestinians and the injury of others in the ongoing Israeli occupation bombing of various parts of Gaza, by air, land and sea, on the ninety-ninth day of the aggression.
According to the Palestinian News Agency (Wafa), on Saturday dawn, civil defense crews recovered the bodies of 20 martyrs, including children and women, following the bombing of a house in the Daraj neighborhood in Gaza City.
Three citizens were also martyred, and others were injured, in an Israeli drone bombardment of the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, coinciding with the arrival of a number of wounded to Nasser Hospital, as a result of violent artillery shelling in the center and south of Khan Yunis.
The occupation aircraft launched a fire belt on Qazan Al-Najjar and Al-Batn Al-Samin in the southeastern areas of the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.
For its part, the Palestine Red Crescent Society announced a complete loss of communication with its crews working in the Gaza Strip due to the Israeli occupation cutting off communications and internet services, which increases the challenges facing its crews in providing their ambulance services and reaching the wounded and injured as quickly as possible.
The communications sector suffers from continuous targeting, and the extent of the destruction reached more than 80%, in addition to the exposure of technical crews to direct targeting, while performing their work, despite prior coordination through international institutions.
This is at least the seventh time that communications with the Gaza Strip have been completely cut off since the start of the aggression on October 7, 2023, noting that the lines, networks and transmission towers were damaged as a result of the massive destruction caused by the aggression to the infrastructure, and the lack of fuel due to the siege. It led to frequent outages, pressure on the network, and poor transmission in various parts of the sector.
United Nations: We are concerned about attempts to change the demographics of Gaza
The United Nations expressed its concern about the statements of Israeli officials regarding sending Palestinians to third countries under the name of “voluntary immigration,” stressing the necessity of strongly rejecting all attempts to change the demographic composition of the Gaza Strip.
This was stated by Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations for Humanitarian Affairs, in a speech during a session of the UN Security Council at the request of Algeria regarding the situation of displaced Palestinians in Gaza.
Griffiths pointed out that the events witnessed by Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories during the past 100 days “did not take into account” civilians, stressing that the situation in Gaza is tragic.
He pointed out that shelter centers were overflowing, and water and food were about to run out, noting that 134 facilities belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) were bombed and 148 UN employees were killed.
Griffiths stated that humanitarian relief facilities were targeted despite informing the Israeli army, which led to exposing humanitarian aid workers to grave danger.
He expressed his dissatisfaction with the "evacuation order" issued by the Israeli occupation army, stressing that the air strikes were concentrated in the places where civilians were asked to "go."
He said: "Our colleagues who were able to go to northern Gaza say that what they saw was indescribably horrific. Bodies were lying on the roads. People suffering from hunger were stopping trucks in order to survive."
He added: "In this context, the statements of Israeli officials regarding sending Palestinians to third countries under the name of 'voluntary immigration' are worrying, and all attempts to change the demographic composition of Gaza must be strongly rejected."
He stressed that the forced and mass deportation of Palestinians would be a clear violation of international law.
For her part, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilse Brands-Keres stated that the mass forced displacement began on October 12, after the Israeli administration issued an “evacuation order” for the northern part of Gaza.
She stated that 90% of society in Gaza faces severe food insecurity, and said: “Starving civil society is prohibited as a method of war.”
Keres stressed the need not to prevent the return of Palestinians who were forcibly expelled from Gaza, noting that a strong guarantee must be provided to enable these people to return to their homes.
Warnings of flooding of Sheikh Radwan pond
With the entry of the depression and heavy rain falling on the Gaza Strip, Palestinian fears are increasing about the overflow of water from the “Sheikh Radwan” pond, north of Gaza City.
Sheikh Radwan Pool is the largest place for collecting rainwater in Gaza City, but the Israeli occupation army’s destruction of the conveying sewage lines led to wastewater leaking into it and turning it into a sanitary hazard.
The Gaza Municipality also lost the ability to provide basic services in the city due to the continuation of the Israeli war, the depletion of fuel, and the Israeli army’s targeting of most of its equipment and headquarters, which led to the cessation of water drainage from the pond.
It calls on the whole world to intervene and provide relief to Gaza and provide the municipality with fuel to operate the pumps and prevent an imminent disaster.
For his part, Hosni Muhanna, spokesman for the Gaza City municipality, warned of the danger of flooding the Sheikh Al-Radwan pond and flooding hundreds of surrounding homes with sewage, after the accumulated water level reached critical levels.
Muhanna said, "Continuing rainfall in Gaza City for one or two days will inevitably lead to the overflow of pond water, causing massive losses of life or property, and deepening the health and environmental crises."
He added: "This pond is designated for collecting rainwater, but the Israeli army's targeting of sewage pipelines in the surrounding areas led to sewage leaking into it, mixing with rainwater and polluting it."
He explained that running out of fuel needed to operate the pond’s pumps in order to pump and discharge water towards the seashore makes the situation more dangerous and complicated, stressing that the municipality has not received any quantities of fuel since last November.
The municipality spokesman called on international and international institutions to intervene urgently and provide the necessary fuel to operate rainwater and sewage pumps and remedy the crisis.
“Tel Aviv has been confused.” Lieberman threatens South Africa: It will pay the price for filing a lawsuit against Israel
Former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdro Lieberman stressed on Saturday the need for South Africa to pay the price for filing a lawsuit against his country before the International Court of Justice on charges of committing “genocide” crimes in Gaza.
This came in a blog post by Lieberman, head of the “Israel Our Home” party, on his account on the “X” platform, in which he said: “They must pay the price.”
Lieberman added: “The price must be paid for the anti-Semitic farce currently taking place in The Hague, which was started by South Africa.”
He added: “First and foremost, diplomatic relations must be severed with any country that supports terrorist organizations in the world, especially Hamas and Hezbollah,” as he put it.
He considered that his country should "call on the Jews in South Africa to immigrate to Israel and not wait for the outbreak of anti-Semitism, which will include persecution and harm to the Jews," he said.
The number of the Jewish community in South Africa is about 77,500 people, which is the largest Jewish community on the African continent, and most of them are concentrated in the cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, according to Hebrew media.
'Confused Israel'
In the same context, Zeki Ari Turk, a lawyer and researcher at the Faculty of Economic, Administrative and Social Sciences at Rumali University in Istanbul, said that the “genocide” case brought by South Africa against Israel has confused Tel Aviv.
Ari Turk stressed the importance of distinguishing between the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, noting that the latter was established by member states of the Rome Statute to try people accused of "genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity."
On the other hand, the International Court of Justice is one of the judicial bodies of the United Nations, which prosecutes countries within the framework of the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” according to Ari Turk.
The Turkish jurist reported that both courts are located in the Dutch city of The Hague.
He pointed out that there has been a case filed in the International Criminal Court, since December 2009, against the officials of the Israeli “Cast Lead” operation in Gaza, indicating that no progress has been made in it to date.
On Friday, Israel refused to accuse it of committing “genocide” against the Palestinians, and claimed that what it is doing in the Gaza Strip is “self-defense.”
On Thursday and Friday, the International Court of Justice in The Hague held two public hearings as part of the start of consideration of the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel on charges of committing “genocide crimes” against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
On December 29, South Africa filed an 84-page lawsuit, presenting evidence that Israel, the occupying power, violated its obligations under the United Nations Charter and was involved in “committing acts of genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”
In the coming days, the International Court of Justice is scheduled to determine its future steps regarding the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel.
Since last October 7, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza that, as of Saturday, has left 23,843 martyrs, 60,317 injured, and “massive destruction of infrastructure and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” according to the Gaza Strip authorities and the United Nations.
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