Updates: Israel kills 85 Palestinians in Gaza strikes

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, has condemned the killing of medical worker Omar Hayek by Israeli forces in Gaza earlier today.

MSF said Hayek is the group’s 14th staff member to be killed in Gaza, where Israeli forces have systematically targeted medical workers and infrastructure throughout the war.

It added that four others also were injured in the strike that killed Hayek.

“MSF strongly condemns the killing of Omar Hayek by Israeli forces this morning in Gaza. Our thoughts are with his family and colleagues,” MSF said in a social media post.

“Omar is our fourteenth colleague to be killed in Gaza since the war started. We call yet again for an end to the genocide.”

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Read here about the discussion on the plight of Gaza’s children on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

The story on today’s Houthi attack on Israel’s Eilat is here.

• Yemen’s Houthi armed group has claimed responsibility for a drone attack on the southern Israeli city of Eilat that injured at least 20 people, saying it was carried out in response to the genocide in Gaza.
• Israeli military chief of staff Eyal Zamir has said that “most of Gaza’s population has already left Gaza City” and that the army “will continue a systematic and thorough advance” into Gaza’s largest urban centre.
• Israel’s prime minister has once again warned that “a Palestinian state will not be established” as a flurry of countries recognise Palestinian statehood at the UN General Assembly.
• Hundreds of protesters have gathered at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport to demonstrate against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he takes off for the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
• The United States is “hopeful … even confident that in the coming days we’ll be able to announce some sort of breakthrough” on the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, US special envoy Steve Witkoff says.
  

  

Spain will send a navy ship to assist a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said, after several boats were targeted by drones off Greece.

“We are concerned, and that is why we will be deploying a ship to ensure that, if necessary, our citizens can be rescued and brought back to Spain,” Sanchez told a new conference in New York, adding that the ship would depart on Thursday.

Italy announced earlier that it had sent a navy frigate to assist the flotilla.

An exhibition of photographs taken by Palestinians in Gaza has opened in London.

Winners of the Photo Humanity Grant, Against Erasure, is a collection of works by 11 photographers and artists that capture the realities of their daily lives under conflict and famine.

Watch our report below:

The Wafa news agency has reported several military raids and attacks by Israelis from illegal settlements across the occupied West Bank:

• A group of settlers fired live bullets at mourners of Saeed Murad al-Nasan, 20, who was killed on Tuesday by armed settlers in the village of al-Mughayyir, north of Ramallah. No injuries were reported.
• Settlers attacked the mayor of the Beita municipality, Mahmoud Barham, and municipal council member Jamil Dweikat as they were conducting an inspection in Jabal Qamas, south of Nablus. Both were beaten and hospitalised.
• Israeli forces stormed the town of Birzeit and the village of Burham, north of Ramallah, and set up a military checkpoint.
• The military raided the village of al-Asakra, east of Bethlehem, and searched several homes without conducting arrests.

In his address to the UN General Assembly, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has called for an immediate end to Israel’s war on Gaza.

“We are among the peoples most deeply aware of the horrors of war and destruction,” he said.

“For this reason, we stand firmly with the people of Gaza, its children and women and all peoples facing violations and aggression. We call for an immediate end to the war,” he said.

The Houthis military spokesperson says their drone force has successfully hit Eilat, or Umm al-Rashrash, as he refers to it. He said this operation comes just 24 hours after a similar operation, during which they also hit Eilat and Beersheba.

So, we’re witnessing a spike of escalation between Israel and the Houthis, who say their operations are in solidarity with the Palestinians.

There’s mounting pressure on the Houthis to hit back at Israel after nearly 1,200 Yemenis have been killed or injured since mid-March until mid-September.

It appears there’s no point of return for both parties. The Houthis say they will continue their operations no matter what they face. Meanwhile, Israel warns it will continue to strike until it undermines the Houthis capabilities.

So far, there’s one demand from the Yemeni people: they want an end to the war on Gaza.

At 17, Hamzah’s life changed forever with a tragic accident that led to a 15-years-to-life sentence in California.

During his incarceration, he found faith and resilience, inspired by Malcolm X and his conversion to Islam.

After Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023, and it imposed a siege on Gaza that has cut off food, water and electricity to the enclave, Hamzah donated his entire month’s paycheque of $17.74, earned at 13 cents an hour, to support aid efforts in Gaza.

$17.74 is a short documentary about loss, redemption and the unexpected connections made beyond bars and borders.

Watch a film by Justin Mashouf, produced by Stay Focused Pictures, below:

Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland, has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza in a speech before the UN General Assembly.

“The deepening humanitarian crisis has reached unbearable levels and represents a failure of the international system,” he said. “At the same time, Hamas continues to hold the hostages it has taken, and many have already lost their lives.”

Stubb also said he supports efforts to advance a two-state solution.

“The negotiations must meet the Israeli and Palestinian security needs and Palestinian right to self-determination, its legitimate aspiration for statehood and sovereignty,” he said.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni says the humanitarian flotilla bound for Gaza is a “dangerous, irresponsible” initiative, hours after her government’s defence minister said an Italian navy ship had been redirected towards the convoy for possible assistance.

“There is no need to risk one’s own safety. It is not necessary to go to a warzone to deliver aid to Gaza, which the Italian government and the competent authorities could have delivered in a few hours,” Meloni told Italian media in New York before giving a speech at the UN General Assembly.

The prime minister said her government had proposed handing over the flotilla’s aid to Cyprus and the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem instead.

The flotilla, which currently numbers 51 vessels, aims to break an Israeli siege that has been allowing only a trickle of aid into Gaza.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has repeatedly said the spread of starvation in Gaza is a direct result of the Israeli government’s policy of blocking humanitarian aid.

In August, a UN-backed global hunger monitor declared a famine in the enclave and called it “man-made”.

Hundreds of protesters have gathered at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport to demonstrate against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he takes off for the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Demonstrators have been blaming the government for the failure to reach a deal that guarantees the release of the captives still held in Gaza.

They also held signs decrying Netanyahu’s nomination of David Zini as head of the Shin Bet security service, amid concerns that he is ideologically close to Netanyahu and would not serve as an independent gatekeeper.

Here are the latest developments:

• At least 12 people, including two children, have been killed in an Israeli strike on displaced Palestinians sheltering in a stadium in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
• Israel’s military says a drone launched by Yemen’s Houthis has hit a hotel in the southern Israeli resort city of Eilat. At least 20 people were injured, two seriously, in the attack.
• The UN has called for an independent probe into the attacks on the Global Sumud Flotilla, saying anyone behind the “violations” should face accountability.
• A Danish pension fund has become the latest to divest from Israeli state assets and companies over human rights concerns, according to the Reuters news agency.
• At least 15,600 patients, including 3,800 children, are waiting for medical evacuation from Gaza to receive lifesaving care outside the besieged enclave, the head of the World Health Organization says.
• Spain’s King Felipe VI has called on the international community to act to halt the massacre in Gaza immediately, in a speech before the UN General Assembly in New York.

Defence Minister Israel Katz has threatened the Houthi armed group in Yemen after today’s drone attack on Eilat wounded at least 20 people.

“The Houthi terrorists refuse to learn from Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza, and will learn the hard way,” Katz said on X, listing countries bombed by Israel in recent months.

“Whoever harms Israel will be harmed sevenfold,” he added.

The Palestinian group has released a statement, cautioning Israel against expanding its ongoing ground incursion in Gaza City.

“As we warned you in the past, the more you expand your criminal activities in Gaza City, the greater the danger to your prisoners,” it said. “Retreat immediately.”

Israel believes about 20 living captives are still in Gaza, along with the bodies of 30 others.

Al Jazeera is reporting from Jordan because it has been banned in Israel and the occupied West Bank. 

The Israeli military has launched an investigation as to how and why the two interceptors that were fired missed the target, allowing the drone to make impact.

At least 20 people were injured, two of them seriously.

The Israeli air force says it dispatched helicopters to the southern city to airlift the two seriously injured to hospitals in the central part of the country.