Updates: Lebanon and Gaza hit by relentless Israel air strikes

For more on Palestinian Canadians calling on the government to take concrete action to get their loved ones out of Gaza, check out our story here.

You can watch our latest episode of The Stream, discussing why the Irish are so sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, here.

To read about G20 leaders pressing for “comprehensive” ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon,  see here.

We will be closing this live page soon. Here is a recap of today’s developments:

• Palestinians in northern Gaza face “diminishing conditions for survival” as all UN efforts to provide support have been “denied or impeded” by Israel’s military.
• Gaza’s Civil Defence agency says most of its emergency vehicles have ceased rescue operations because of a lack of fuel, raising concerns about victims trapped after Israeli bombings.
• An official at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza says Israel’s military continues to attack the besieged medical facility as it struggles to deal with many wounded Palestinians hurt in the ongoing strikes.
• Several US senators have called on the Biden administration to halt arms sales to Israel, accusing the United States of playing a key role in the “atrocities” in the war on Gaza.
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Hamas will not govern Gaza after the war ends and that Israel has destroyed the Palestinian group’s military capabilities.
• US envoy Amos Hochstein has visited Lebanon for another round of ceasefire talks, saying that a ceasefire “is now within our grasp” but, ultimately, it is “the decision of the parties to reach a conclusion”.

The UN’s humanitarian office says thousands of Palestinians in the areas of northern Gaza under siege by Israeli forces are struggling to stay alive because there has been virtually no food or humanitarian aid deliveries for more than 40 days.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric delivered the grim report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA.

“OCHA reports that all attempts by the UN to support people in [Beit Hanoon], Beit Lahiya and parts of [Jabalia] – all of which remain under siege – have been either denied or impeded,” he said.

So far in November, OCHA reports that 27 out of 31 planned humanitarian missions were rejected by Israel and the other four were severely impeded, Dujarric said.

“The result is that bakeries and kitchens in north Gaza governorate have shut down, nutrition support has been suspended, and the refueling of water and sanitation facilities has been completely blocked,” Dujarric said.

Food and medical supplies were supposed to be delivered to Kamal Adwan Hospital but “our partners say the team was forced to offload the food at an Israeli military checkpoint before reaching the hospital, and only some of the medical supplies could be delivered to the facility”, Dujarric added.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has denounced Israel’s continuing assaults on places of worship and religious symbols in Gaza.

“The far-right Israeli government has been openly waging a war against not only the Palestinian people in Gaza, but a war on Islam and Christianity. From the destruction of mosques and churches, to the abuse and humiliation of Muslim women, to now urinating on the Holy Quran, the Israeli government has violated every sanctity that Muslims hold dear,” Nihad Awad, CAIR’s national executive director, said in a statement.

“The Israeli military is currently one of the most immoral forces on the world stage, and unfortunately the Biden administration remains steadfastly complicit with its war crimes. We call on Muslim-majority nations to harness their collective power, including their economic influence, and take concrete action to confront this out-of-control government and end its genocide.”

Gaza’s Media Office has condemned the international community for its ongoing “silence” during Israel’s “extermination” of Palestinians in the war-ravaged territory.

Israel’s military “continues to escalate the campaign of extermination that it has focused on 45 days in the northern Gaza Strip”, it said in a statement.

The office highlighted “ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, starvation, a complete siege, and horrific massacres committed daily” against tens of thousands of trapped residents.

It accused Israel of forcing northern Gaza’s Palestinians to leave their land with the implementation of its “Generals’ Plan“.

The World Health Organization has expressed grave concern for hospitals in war-battered northern Gaza where one hospital director described the situation as an “extreme catastrophe”.

“We are very, very concerned, and it’s getting harder and harder to get the aid in. It’s getting harder and harder to get the specialist personnel in at a time when there is greater and greater need,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told journalists in Geneva.

She said the organisation is “particularly concerned about Kamal Adwan Hospital” in Beit Lahiya, which was again attacked on Tuesday by Israeli troops.

“A large number of children and elderly people continue to arrive suffering from malnutrition,” hospital director Dr Hussam Abu Safia said, accusing Israel of “blocking the entry of food, water, medical staff and materials destined for the north”.

Harris estimated that between November 8-16, “four WHO missions we were trying to get up to go were denied”.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has provided a situation update on Gaza.

Here are the key points from the report:

• Palestinians in northern Gaza face “diminishing conditions for survival” as all UN efforts to provide support have been “denied or impeded” by Israel’s military.
• Between 100,000-131,000 people displaced from north Gaza have relocated to different parts of central Gaza City.
• The number of households in central and southern Gaza experiencing severe hunger is rapidly increasing.

A handful of left-leaning senators have called on the Biden administration to halt arms sales to Israel, accusing the United States of playing a key role in the “atrocities” in the war on Gaza.

The four senators gave the media conference ahead of a Wednesday vote on resolutions condemning the US weapons sales – measures expected to fail given the large number of lawmakers who support Israel.

The resolutions were put forth by progressive Senator Bernie Sanders alongside several other Democrats.

The Vermont representative told reporters that “what is happening in Gaza today is unspeakable”, pointing in particular to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in the Palestinian territory.

“What makes it even more painful is that much of what is happening there has been done with US weapons and with American taxpayer support. The United States of America is complicit in these atrocities. That complicity must end and that is what these resolutions are about.”

Gaza’s Civil Defence agency says most of its emergency vehicles have ceased operations because of a lack of fuel.

“We declare the cessation of operations for most civil defence vehicles in Gaza governorate due to insufficient fuel. Currently, we are operating with only one water tanker and one rescue vehicle,” the agency said in a statement.

Since mid-November, emergency crews have been unable to respond to many citizen distress calls or reach the sites of Israeli attacks.

“We warn of the expansion and consolidation of the humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip due to the continued depletion of fuel, especially with the displacement of thousands of citizens from the northern Gaza Strip,” it said.

A hospital official in northern Gaza says Israel’s military continues to attack the besieged medical facility as it struggles to deal with many wounded Palestinians hurt in ongoing strikes.

“The hospital has been targeted with harmful sound bombs. These explode and spread shrapnel – which can break bones – and they destroyed, for the 10th time, the water tanks and sewage systems,” said Ahmed al-Kahlout, director of the intensive care unit (ICU) at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya.

“The situation is very dire. Here at the ICU unit, many of our patients are elderly… This hospital is unable to deal with their cases. The attacks on the health facility coupled with the shortages of medical supplies and equipment is making our work very difficult.”

At least eight Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a building in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, the official news agency Wafa reports.

According to witnesses, the attack targeted a residential building housing members of the al-Kahlout family and displaced civilians.

Emergency responders managed to pull out some of the victims and transfer them to Kamal Adwan Hospital, Wafa said.

However, reports indicate several people remain trapped under the rubble with rescue teams unable to access the site because of ongoing air strikes and the scale of the destruction.

A 30-day deadline to allow more aid into Gaza has come and gone. Aid agencies say Israel has failed to act on the demands of its biggest ally. So why isn’t the US holding Israel to account?

And are Washington’s words of concern about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza just words?

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Turkiye refused to allow his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog to use the country’s airspace to travel to the COP29 UN Climate Change Conference in Azerbaijan.

“We did not allow the Israeli president to use our airspace to attend the COP summit. We suggested alternative routes and other options,” Erdogan told reporters at the G20 Summit in Brazil.

“But whether he was able to go or not, I honestly don’t know.”

Herzog said earlier this week he was unable to attend the climate summit because of “security concerns”.

Turkiye withdrew its ambassador in Israel for consultations after Israel launched its war on Gaza a year ago. But Turkiye has not officially severed its ties with Israel and its embassy remains open and operational.

Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister, says “failure by the international community to act has allowed Israel to violate international law and use starvation as a method of war” in Gaza.

Safadi made his comments during a visit from the UN’s Senior Humanitarian Coordinator Sigrid Kaag, with whom he discussed efforts to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to the besieged coastal enclave.

“Numerous UN organizations have warned that little to no supplies are entering Gaza, particularly northern Gaza, where famine is the brutal reality,” Safadi said. “Yet Israel is maintaining the siege. This brutality should not stand. The aggression has to end. Supplies must be allowed into Gaza.”

I discussed efforts to ensure delivery of life-saving humanitarian supplies to Gaza with the UN’s Senior Humanitarian Coordinator @SigridKaag. Immediate action is needed to end the humanitarian catastrophe the Israeli aggression has brought on Gaza. Numerous UN organizations have… https://t.co/sexkedbJnQ

— Ayman Safadi (@AymanHsafadi) November 19, 2024

Mahmoud Qamati, deputy chairman of Hezbollah’s political council, spoke to Al Jazeera about the ongoing war in Lebanon:

Here is a translated summary:

• If it weren’t for the strength of the resistance, the US would not have wanted to seek a solution to the conflict.
• We expect the approach used in Gaza towards Hamas will continue in Lebanon.
• The Lebanese people are being killed by US-made weapons.
• We will not offer any information about the ongoing negotiations as we believe this harms the negotiation process.
• The Zionist enemy has sabotaged attempts at a political solution in Gaza, and we expect the same to happen in Lebanon.
• Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri faces a difficult and complex task with the negotiations, but he has the necessary competence and is equipped to lead talks.

Palestinian Canadians have renewed their calls for Canada to take concrete action to get their loved ones out of the Gaza Strip, slamming a temporary Gaza visa scheme launched this year as a failure.

“It’s been over a year now, and I’m still asking that my family – stranded in Gaza, under the continuous threat of losing their lives at any moment – be treated with the same urgency, the same humanity, that Canada extended to others,” said Omar Omar, a representative of the advocacy group Gazan Families.

Read the full story here.

Josep Borrell will travel to Jordan, Cyprus and Lebanon as part of his Middle East visit starting on Wednesday to discuss a way forward towards sustainable ceasefires in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

Discussions will also focus on a longer-term process based on a two-state solution between Palestine and Israel, according to a statement from his office.

Borrell is expected to have an audience with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in the capital Amman followed by a keynote speech he’ll deliver at the University of Jordan.

The head of the West Bank haulers’ union says he is concerned about truck drivers and aid not reaching people in need after nearly 100 trucks carrying food for Palestinians were violently looted on November 16 after entering Gaza.

“Of course, we get worried for the Gazan driver that comes to transfer the aid, so he leaves his home risking his life not knowing if he will go back home,” said Adel Amr.

The convoy transporting food provided by United Nations agencies was instructed by Israel to depart at short notice via an unfamiliar route from Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) border crossing, said Louise Wateridge, senior emergency officer for the UN  Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Ninety-eight of the 109 trucks in the convoy were raided and some of the transporters were injured during the incident, she said.

Al-Aqsa TV channel quoted Hamas interior ministry sources in Gaza as saying more than 20 gang members involved in looting aid trucks were killed during an operation carried out by security forces.

It said anyone caught aiding such looting would be treated with “an iron fist”.