UN: Gaza 'Living Hell’ After Heavy Rains Flood Makeshift Camps

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Facts

  • The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip continues to deteriorate after heavy rainfall washed out tents and flooded some areas. Nearly all of Gaza's population — estimated at around 85% [of the strip's population of over 2M people] — have been displaced by Israeli bombardment and military operations, with hunger and disease increasingly running rampant. The head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees described the situation as a “living hell' as fighting rages across the entire strip.1
  • Israeli officials disputed US Pres. Joe Biden's comments that Israel's bombing campaign has been indiscriminate. One official also rejected an intelligence assessment reported by CNN that 45% of the 29K air-to-ground munitions that Israel has dropped on Gaza since Oct. 7 have been unguided 'dumb bombs,' saying that a bomb's accuracy is determined by the pilot dropping the munition.2
  • US national security adviser Jake Sullivan is expected in Israel on Thursday after traveling to Saudi Arabia to speak with the country’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about regional security, attacks in the Red Sea by Yemen's Houthi rebels, and the possibility of normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. In Israel, Sullivan will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top Israeli military leaders to conduct 'extremely serious conversations' and work on reducing civilian casualties, as well as the return of hostages.3
  • According to two US officials, the Biden admin. is again delaying the licenses for selling more than 20K US-made rifles to Israel due to concerns regarding Israeli settler attacks against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank. The US Dept. of State sent the rifles for another review before being delivered to Israel, as the Biden admin. believes that Israel is not doing enough to tackle settler violence.4
  • In the West Bank, Israeli forces have been operating in the northern city of Jenin since Tuesday, killing 11 Palestinians so far, reportedly including an unarmed teenager inside a medical complex. A video circulated on social media of Israeli soldiers singing Hanukkah songs inside a mosque in Jenin, generating outrage from Palestinians.5
  • Gaza's health ministry reports that the conflict has left nearly 19K people in the Gaza Strip dead, many of whom it claims are children. The official Israeli death toll stands at 1.2K people and there are still over 100 hostages being held in the Gaza Strip.6

Sources: 1Guardian, 2Reuters, 3CNN, 4Axios, 5Al Jazeera and 6BBC News.

Narratives

  • Pro-Israel narrative, as provided by Jerusalem post. Though this has been a tragic war, Israel cannot allow Hamas to survive. Hamas seized upon the temporary pause to mark Israeli positions and prepare itself for continued attacks on Israeli forces in Gaza. Indeed, the pace at which Israeli forces maneuvered in Gaza threw Hamas's military leadership off-kilter, and Israel will have to work intelligently in its campaign in the south of the strip to fully eliminate the terrorist group so it can never launch an attack like Oct. 7 again.
  • Pro-Palestine narrative, as provided by Middle east eye. Israel continues to demonstrate that its war is not against Hamas but against the Palestinian people as a whole. Nowhere in Gaza is safe, and Israel has effectively rendered the north of the strip unlivable. Unfortunately, the temporary ceasefire only gave civilians a few days of relative rest, and now Israel has returned to killing Palestinians at an unprecedented rate. The US, Israel's biggest ally, must exert more pressure to end the war.

Predictions