North Gaza hospital targeted by Israel, Syria rebels move to Hama

This live blog has now closed. Thanks for following!

The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that "at least a quarter" of people with injuries in Gaza have suffered "life-changing" injuries from attacks during the war.

In a post on X, UNRWA said that it is supporting people with disabilities by "providing assistive devices, mental health and psychosocial services, and rehabilitation".

Gaza's health ministry reported that over 105,454 people have been wounded during the war.

Medics and rights groups on Tuesday called for the immediate opening of a humanitarian corridor from Gaza to allow the urgent evacuation of patients to hospitals in east Jerusalem.

Israel controls all points of departure from the Gaza Strip which has been battered by over a year of war between Israel and Hamas.

Rare medical evacuations have been organised by international organisations or foreign countries in coordination with Israeli authorities.

But amid mounting casualties from the war, the East Jerusalem Hospitals Network and Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) called for the immediate reopening of the Gaza to east Jerusalem medical corridor, estimating that about 25,000 patients in Gaza were in need of urgent care.

Read more here.

Russia's ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday accused Ukrainian intelligence services of aiding rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, saying some fighters were "openly flaunting" the association.

Rebels fighting with Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) "have not only not concealed the fact that they are supported by Ukraine, but they are also openly flaunting this," Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council.

The envoy said there was an "identifiable trail" showing Ukraine's GUR military intelligence service was "providing weapons to fighters" in northwest Syria.

"Ukrainian military instructors from the GUR are present... training HTS fighters for combat operations," including against Russian troops in Syria, Nebenzia alleged.

A renewed offensive in the past week, led by HTS and its allies, has seen a massive shift in the long-frozen frontlines of Syria's civil war, with the Islamist-led rebels advancing on Syria's fourth-largest city Hama after capturing Aleppo.

The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza said on Tuesday that the hospital was being targeted by Israeli drones and three staff members were injured in attacks, in the latest assault on the medical facility.

In a statement shared by Gaza's ministry of health Dr Hussam Abu Safia said that "drones are dropping bombs filled with shrapnel that hit and harm anyone who moves".

"The situation has become extremely dangerous. Kamal Adwan Hospital has been subjected to a barbaric attack by drones, and once again, the occupation is focusing its attacks on medical teams," the statement went on.

Israeli forces have laid siege to north Gaza, trapping some 60,000 residents which have severely blocked essential supplies from reaching residents.

US forces destroyed truck-mounted rocket launchers, a tank and mortars on Tuesday in eastern Syria, the Pentagon said.

The weapons "presented a clear and imminent threat to US and coalition forces," Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder told journalists, referring to the international coalition against the Islamic State armed group.

"We're still assessing who was operating these weapons, but do know that there are Iranian-backed militia groups in the area that have conducted attacks" in the past, he said.

The US military has around 900 troops in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq as part of the coalition, which was established in 2014 to combat the Islamic State group.

The Israeli military on Tuesday said it killed three Hamas members in an air strike near the occupied West Bank city of Tubas, after the Palestinian health ministry reported two dead.

"Three Hamas terrorists who planned an imminent terrorist attack were eliminated" when the Israeli air force struck vehicles in the Aqaba area near Tubas, the military said.

Following the strike, "soldiers conducted a targeted raid in the vicinity of the strike, locating four weapons," it added.

The Palestinian health ministry had earlier said an Israeli strike on a vehicle in Aqaba killed two Palestinians and wounded one.

All three Palestinians were transported to a hospital in Tubas, it added, but later said Israeli forces raided the same hospital, which the army denied in a statement to AFP.

Islamist-led rebels advanced Tuesday on Syria's fourth-largest city Hama, buoyed by their lightning capture of swathes of the north in an offensive that ended four years of relative calm.

The sudden flare-up in the more than decade-old civil war in Syria drew appeals for de-escalation from across the international community.

Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies met much tougher resistance in the countryside north of Hama than they did in the Aleppo region on Friday and Saturday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Observatory reported the heaviest fighting with government forces so far as the offensive entered its seventh day.

"Clashes have erupted in the northern Hama countryside, where rebel factions managed to seize several cities and towns in the last few hours," the Observatory said.

"Syrian and Russian air forces carried out dozens of strikes on the area."

The Israeli military said its strike on Damascus earlier on Tuesday killed Hezbollah's "representative to the Syrian military" Salman Nemer Jamaa.

"The Syrian regime has actively supported Hezbollah, enabling weapon smuggling to Lebanon and by that endangering Syrian and Lebanese civilians" the military said in a statement.

The strike comes as Syria has been thrown into a new bout of fighting after rebel groups led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham against Bashar al-Assad's government took control of Aleppo and the surrounding province.

Five Palestinians were killed and others injured after an Israeli strike hit an apartment building in Gaza City's Sabra neighbourhood on Tuesday.

Footage shared online, not verified by The New Arab, showed heavy damage to a building with rubble strewn across the street as people rushed to search for survivors.

Other attacks were reported in Beit Lahia where Israeli forces have been detonating buildings and conducting drone attacks.

A monitor of Syria's civil war said Tuesday the toll from a major rebel offensive in the country's north had risen to 602 dead including 104 civilians.

"The number of dead has risen to 602," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said: 299 fighters from rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and allied factions that launched the offensive last Wednesday, 199 soldiers and pro-government fighters, and 104 civilians.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday that he and Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, would co-chair a conference on the establishment of a Palestinian state in June.

"We have decided to co-chair a conference for the two states in June next year," Macron said, referring to Israel and a potential Palestinian state, adding: "In the coming months, together we will multiply and combine our diplomatic initiatives to bring everyone along this path".

The New Arab's Arabic-language sister site al-Araby al-Jadeed reports that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told the outlet on Tuesday that Tehran would consider deploying troops to Syria if requested by Damascus.

He also mentioned plans to visit Russia to discuss the Syrian crisis, though he did not provide a specific timeline for the trip. 

The Palestinian Health Ministry has condemned an Israeli raid on a government hospital in Tubas, located in the occupied West Bank.

The raid resulted in the detention of a doctor and a nurse, as well as the transfer of two bodies and an injured person following an Israeli airstrike on a nearby vehicle.

The ministry denounced the use of live ammunition and explosives inside the hospital, urging international bodies, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, to intervene and halt the assault.

It also reported that Israeli forces stormed the facility, taking control of the first floor and violently assaulting the head of the emergency department.

Israeli forces raided the Turkish Governmental Hospital in the city of Tubas in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.

Israeli soldiers detained numerous hospital workers, including a doctor. Reports indicate that Israeli gunfire erupted inside the hospital's emergency department. pic.twitter.com/E8evBaAAh3

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) December 3, 2024

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the "sharply escalated" situation in Syria in a phone with his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.

Putin stressed the need to end aggression against the Syrian state, including leveraging Ankara's capabilities, it said in a statement, and both leaders noted the importance of further close coordination between Russia, Turkey and Iran on the matter.

"The two presidents will continue to be in contact with each other in the context of seeking steps to de-escalate the crisis," the statement said.

UNIFIL has stated that it is monitoring the situation for any "violations" along the Blue Line, the demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel. The peacekeeping force expressed its readiness to support any agreement aimed at ending violence in the region.

"We will continue to monitor and report on violations of resolution 1701, and urge all actors to abide by the resolution in both letter and spirit," the mission said on X, referring to the 2006 UN resolution intended to end hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel following their conflict.

This statement came in response to comments from Lieutenant General Aroldo Lazaro Saenz, head of UNIFIL, who had met with US Ambassador Lisa Johnson and Major General Jasper Jeffers, overseeing the US-brokered ceasefire.

"We discussed efforts to help restore stability and peacekeepers’ support for the mechanism’s work," Saenz added.

UNIFIL and its peacekeepers stand ready to support any agreement and mechanism that will end the violence across the Blue Line. We will continue to monitor and report on violations of resolution 1701, and urge all actors to abide by the resolution in both letter and spirit. https://t.co/WKu5fOhTAl

— UNIFIL (@UNIFIL_) December 3, 2024

Israeli leaders hailed on Tuesday a pledge by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump that there would be "hell to pay" in the Middle East unless hostages held in the Gaza Strip were released ahead of his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Writing on Truth Social, and without naming any group, Trump said the hostages had to be freed by the time he was sworn in.

If his demand was not met, he said: "Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and many of his ministers publicly thanked Trump for his hard-hitting words.

"President Trump put the emphasis in the right place, on Hamas, and not on the Israeli government, as is customary (elsewhere)," Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Trump's statement had made clear to everyone who was in the right, and who was wrong.

"This is the way to bring back the hostages: by increasing the pressure and the costs for Hamas and its supporters, and defeating them, rather than giving in to their absurd demands."

Responding to Trump's post, senior Hamas official Basem Naim said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had sabotaged all efforts to secure a deal that involved exchanging the hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.

"Therefore, we understand (Trump's) message is directed first at Netanyahu and his government to end this evil game," he told news agency Reuters.

Turkish Airlines has resumed flights from Istanbul to Beirut after a more than two-month suspension prompted by conflict in the Middle East, Turkey's state-owned Anadolu news agency reported on Tuesday.

The airline, Turkey's flag carrier, suspended flights to Beirut on Sept. 21 amid the conflict between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group. The two sides agreed a ceasefire last week, though both accuse the other of violations.

Anadolu said the airline planned one flight per day in the first phase, rising to two daily flights on Friday. It said there would then be four daily flights from December 11 onwards.

Turkish Airlines did not immediately respond following the Anadolu report and its details, but its website showed Istanbul-Beirut flights on sale.

Iraq will not act as a mere spectator in Syria where it believes groups and sects are victims of ethnic cleansing, Iraq's prime minister said on Tuesday, according to a readout from his office of a phone call to Turkey's president.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who discussed the situation in Syria with Turkey's Tayyip Erdogan, said Iraq would exert all efforts to preserve the security of Iraq and Syria, according to the official readout of the call.

"What is happening in Syria today is in the interest of the Zionist entity, which deliberately bombed Syrian army sites in a way that paved the way for terrorist groups to control additional areas in Syria," the Iraqi prime minister's office quoted Sudani as saying.

Mainly Sunni Muslim rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad seized the city of Aleppo last week in their biggest advance in years. Iraq's Shi'ite-led government has close relations with Iran, which is an ally of Assad, and Iraqi militia fighters have fought on Assad's side in the war.

Two Iraqi security sources and a senior Syrian military source told news agency Reuters on Monday that hundreds of Iraqi Shi'ite militia fighters had crossed the border late on Sunday to help Assad's army fight the rebel advance.

The head of Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces, which includes the major Shi'ite militia groups aligned with Iran, said no group under its umbrella had entered Syria.

The Syrian rebels have said their advance over the past week met little resistance, in part because the most powerful of Iran's allies, Lebanon's Hezbollah group, had pulled its forces out of Syria to battle Israel in Lebanon.

Israel, which has long struck what it says are Iran-aligned military targets in Syria, has stepped up such strikes over the past 14 months as it battled Lebanon and Gaza.

Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli drone strike on a southern town killed one person on Tuesday, amid a fragile truce between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah.

"An Israeli enemy drone strike on the town of Shebaa killed one person," a health ministry statement said. The state-run National News Agency described the dead man as a "shepherd".

An Israeli airstrike on a car near Syria's capital Damascus on Tuesday killed Salman Jumaa, a senior Hezbollah figure responsible for liaising with the Syrian army, a Lebanese security source told Reuters.

Syria's state news agency had reported the strike on the airport road but did not offer details on casualties.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel rarely acknowledges its strikes in Syria, where it has carried out a years-long air campaign against Iranian military assets and those of its allies, including Hezbollah.

In a rare announcement last month, it said it struck Hezbollah intelligence assets near Damascus.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that he was "playing with fire" by allowing Iran to transfer weapons to its allies via Syria.

The Biden administration issued a fresh round of Iran-related sanctions on dozens of entities, including oil tankers and shipping companies, the U.S. Department of Treasury website showed on Tuesday.

The death toll in Beit Lahiya has risen to 12 after a deadly attack on a residential building, according to Al Jazeera.

Many wounded individuals are facing a dire situation due to the lack of proper medical care, with some being transported by foot or civilian vehicles.

Meanwhile, Gaza's civil defence stated that drone attacks in Rafah have killed three people, with more injuries reported in areas like al-Geneina and Khirbet al-Adas.

An Israeli air strike targeted a group of civilians in Beit Lahya, north of Gaza. pic.twitter.com/YtMQYbxPjc

— Days of Palestine (@DaysOf_Pal) December 3, 2024

Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini highlights an epidemic of traumatic injuries in Gaza, with many child amputees and a lack of rehabilitation services.

WHO reports 1 in 4 injured Palestinians face life-changing disabilities.

Dr. Munir Al-Barsh, Director of Gaza's Ministry of Health, also reports that 70,000 Palestinians have acquired disabilities due to the ongoing war, further highlighting the region's growing humanitarian crisis.

#Gaza, a pandemic of #disabilities.

Before the war, one in five families surveyed had at least one person with disabilities. Nearly half of them included a child with disabilities.

During this war, people needing special care have suffered in silence.
Their stories rarely… pic.twitter.com/oLh4GDKgi6

— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) December 3, 2024

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati stated that diplomatic efforts have intensified to address Israeli violations of the ceasefire with Hezbollah.

Speaking to the National News Agency, Mikati emphasised the importance of stabilising the situation, facilitating the return of displaced residents, and securing Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanese border towns.

He also highlighted plans to expand the Lebanese army’s southern deployment, noting the recent call to recruit trained soldiers for combat units as part of this strategy.

Qatar is working with Turkey and other partners in the region to bring solutions to end hostilities in Syria, Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said in a press conference on Tuesday.

When asked about reports in Iranian state media that Iran, Russia and Turkey would meet to discuss Syria at the Doha Forum foreign policy conference this weekend, Al-Ansari said he was not aware of any such plans, but that Qatar was always open. 

Mojtaba Amani, Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, made his first public appearance in Beirut since suffering severe injuries in mid-September when a pager he was holding exploded.

Amani visited the site south of Beirut where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on September 27.

He condemned Israel, calling it deserving of "the highest medal for sabotage, terrorism, blood, and killing civilians." The pager attack, which involved around 3,000 simultaneous explosions, killed at least 37 people and wounded over 3,000, mostly civilians.

A day later, a similar attack targeted walkie-talkies.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office later confirmed that the attack was authorised by him.

Israeli forces have detained a doctor and a nurse at the Tubas Government Hospital in the occupied West Bank, according to videos shared by Palestinian media outlets.

News publication Al Jazeera has also confirmed the detentions, following an earlier report that two bodies and an injured individual were brought to the hospital after an Israeli airstrike on a car near the village of Aqqaba in the northeastern West Bank.

Occupation forces storm the emergency department of the Turkish hospital in Tubas, in the occupied West Bank. pic.twitter.com/CbCT2vrqk6

— WAFA News Agency - English (@WAFANewsEnglish) December 3, 2024

Defence Minister Israel Katz warned Tuesday that if a ceasefire reached last week collapses, Israel will penetrate deeper into Lebanon and will no longer differentiate between the Lebanese army and Hezbollah.

"If we return to war, we will act with greater force and penetrate deeper and... there will be no immunity for the state of Lebanon," he said during a tour of Israel's northern border, adding that "until now, we made a distinction between Lebanon and Hezbollah... it will no longer be the case".

The health ministry in Gaza said Tuesday that at least 44,502 people have been killed in nearly 14 months of war.

The toll includes 36 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 105,454 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023.

The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that the Israeli army targeted a car near the village of Aqqaba in the northeastern occupied West Bank, killing two people and leaving another with minor injuries to their lower extremities.

The bodies and the injured individual were taken to Tubas Governmental Hospital, according to the statement.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights voiced concern on Tuesday about the escalation of hostilities in northwest Syria as his office seeks to verify a number of deadly attacks by both pro-government forces and rebels.

"UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk is extremely concerned about the escalation in hostilities in northwest Syria since 27 November, which further compounds the suffering endured by millions of civilians," a spokesperson for Turk, Jeremy Laurence, told a Geneva press briefing.

"Our Office has documented a number of extremely concerning incidents resulting in multiple civilian casualties, including a high number of women and children, stemming from attacks by both Hayat Tahrir al-Shams (HTS) and by pro-government forces," he added, referring to a former al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.

"I've seen some of the data which is coming out and suggests that there are certainly dozens upon dozens who have been killed," he added.

One of the incidents the U.N. rights office is seeking to verify is alleged strikes by HTS against students in Aleppo on Nov. 29 that may have killed four people.

Another is alleged air strikes by pro-government forces in Idlib on Dec. 1 which may have killed 22 civilians at a local market and residential areas.

Islamist-led rebels battled army troops on Tuesday as they advanced towards the city of Hama in central Syria, a war monitor said.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies fought some of the "most violent" clashes with troops in the area since launching a lightning offensive last week, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

Since they launched their offensive last week, they have snatched swathes of territory from the Syrian government, including second city Aleppo.

"Clashes have erupted in the northern Hama countryside, where rebel factions managed to seize several cities and towns in the last few hours," said the Britain-based monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria.

"Syrian and Russian air forces carried out dozens of strikes on the area," it added.

Russia first intervened directly in Syria's war in 2015 with strikes on rebel-held area, and has pledged continued support for President Bashar al-Assad since the latest flare-up started.

State news agency SANA also reported air strikes on Hama province and rebel bastion Idlib in the northwest.

Hama is a strategic city linking Aleppo to the capital Damascus.

It was a bastion of opposition to the Assad government early on in the civil war and the site of frequent mass protests.

Israel's military said on Tuesday that it attacked a "terrorist" cell in Lebanon's Aqabah village in Bekaa province.

"Details to follow," the military's statement said. 

An Israeli strike hit a car on Syria's Damascus Airport road, the Syrian state news agency reported on Tuesday, citing a police source.

There was no immediate information on casualties. 

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said its operations in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun had now been halted for nearly four weeks due to Israeli attacks on their teams and to fuel shortages.

On Tuesday it said 13 of 27 vehicles in central and southern Gaza Strip were also out of operation due to fuel shortages.

It said 88 members of the Civil Emergency Service had been killed, 304 wounded and 21 detained by Israel since the war started.

Lebanon's Health Ministry initially reported five fatalities and two injuries following Israeli attacks on Haris, southern Lebanon.

However, the latest update from the National News Agency (NNA) confirms six deaths and two injuries.

This brings the total casualties from Israeli strikes in Lebanon to 12 since last week's ceasefire agreement

BREAKING:

Israel just dropped bombs on civilian houses in the village of Haris, South Lebanon, wiping out two entire Lebanese families who had just returned home.

Terrorism. pic.twitter.com/GShneSQGLQ

— sarah (@sahouraxo) December 2, 2024

 Israeli military strikes killed at least 14 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, most of them in the town of Beit Lahiya on the northern edge, medics said, as the army issued new evacuation orders in the south of the tiny enclave.

Medics said eight people had been killed in a series of strikes in Beit Lahiya while four others were killed elsewhere in Gaza City.

An Israeli air strike later killed two people and wounded others in Jabalia, the largest of Gaza's eight historic refugee camps, in the northern Gaza Strip, medics said.

The Israeli army has been operating in Jabalia and also in the towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun since October.

Palestinians have accused Israel's army of trying to drive people from the northern edge of Gaza with forced evacuations and bombardments to create a buffer zone. 

The Israeli army issued evacuation orders on Tuesday to residents in northern districts of Khan Younis, a town in the south of the Gaza Strip.

The orders prompted the hurried exodus of families, mostly before dawn, in a westerly direction.

"For your own safety, you must evacuate the area immediately and move to the humanitarian zone," the army said in a statement on X.

Gaza's ruling group Hamas and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party have agreed to create a committee to jointly administer post-war Gaza, negotiators from both sides said Tuesday.

Under the plan, which needs Abbas's approval, the committee would be composed of 10 to 15 non-partisan figures with authority on matters related to the economy, education, health, humanitarian aid and reconstruction, according to a draft of the proposal seen by news agency AFP.

The Syrian army and allied forces confronted an attack launched by forces affiliated with the Syrian Democratic Forces alliance on villages in the northern countryside of Deir Al Zor province on Tuesday, state news agency (SANA) reported.

The SDF is a Kurdish-led alliance in north and east Syria which worked with the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State.

Spearheaded by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and including Arab fighters, it holds a quarter of Syria, including oil fields and areas where some 900 U.S. troops are deployed.

Turkey, Syria's northern neighbour, considers the YPG and the SDF by extension to be "terrorist" groups. 

Iraq's powerful Iran-aligned Kataeb Hezbollah armed group has called on Baghdad to send troops to Syria to support the Damascus government against a rebel offensive.

Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades, made the appeal in a statement shared on pro-Iranian Telegram channels late Monday. Excerpts were also posted on its official website.

The rebel offensive, led by Islamists, has seized the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, stirring concern in political and security circles in neighbouring Iraq.

A spokesman for Kataeb Hezbollah, part of the Iran-backed "axis of resistance", said the group had not yet decided to deploy its own fighters but urged Baghdad to act.

"We believe the Iraqi government should take the initiative to send regular military forces in coordination with the Syrian government, as these groups pose a threat to Iraq's national security and the region," the spokesman said.

Kataeb Hezbollah has previously fought in Syria alongside forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

In Iraq, it is part of the Hashed al-Shaabi, a coalition of former paramilitary forces now integrated into the regular armed forces.

This coalition, under the Iraqi prime minister's command, denies involvement outside Iraq's borders.

Iraq remains scarred by the rise of the Islamic State group in 2014, which saw the operaives capture nearly a third of the country before being defeated in 2017.

On Monday, Iraq said it had sent armoured vehicles to bolster security along its 600-kilometre (370-mile) border with Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported the deployment of about 200 pro-Iranian Iraqi fighters in Syria's Aleppo region to back government forces.