Israeli far-right minister: “nuking Gaza Strip is one of the possibilities”

Since October 7, Israeli occupation forces have bombed Gaza with 8,000 munitions. Satellite imagery analyzed by The Guardian shows earthquake-like damage caused by the bombings, which left nearly 10,000 craters. Israel launched bombardments on 12,000 targets. In an area half a kilometer wide, the Israeli bombs flattened an entire neighborhood, causing 100 craters in the ground. The Guardian reported that Israel used more munitions in less than a month tan what the U.S. used in a year during its war on Afghanistan.

But this seems not enough for some Israeli politicians.On Sunday morning, the Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu suggested that “nuking” Gaza could be the only answer. He also said that the Palestinian population could go to Ireland or the desert.

“The monsters in Gaza should find a solution by themselves,” he said.

Asked on a local radio show about the likelihood of dropping an atomic bomb on the Gaza Strip, his answer was that “this is one of the possibilities.”

Eliyahu is a member of the Jewish Power party which is led by the right-wing politician and hardline settler Itamar Ben-Gvir. On Sunday afternoon, Eliyahu was suspended from his post after criticism from opposition leaders and families of the Israeli captives held in Gaza.

The resistance movement, the Islamic Jihad, said in a statement that Israel has been “gradually” carrying out the nuke-like destruction of the Gaza Strip. In a horrifying report, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that Israel dropped 25,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip, the equivalent of two nuclear bombs.

“The Israeli army has admitted to bombing over 12,000 targets in the Gaza Strip, with a record tally of bombs exceeding 10 kilograms of explosives per individual,” the Geneva-based human rights organization reported on November 2.

Nearly 10,000 Palestinians killed, 26,000 people wounded

In the past 24 hours, at least 243 people were killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, as Palestinians in Gaza endured yet another night of heavy shelling and airstrikes. At least 45 people were killed on Saturday evening when Israeli warplanes bombed al-Maghazi refugee camp, with a population of 28,000 people.

Wafa news agency reported that Israeli forces also launched heavy raids on the area of western and northern Gaza City, where it began its ground incursion, dropping white phosphorus bombs on al-Shati refugee camp. White phosphorus is a toxic chemical weapon that is deemed “unlawfully indiscriminate,” burning at a temperate of between 800 to 2500 degrees Celsius — enough to melt metal. Israel used it in previous wars on Gaza and in 2006 during its war on Lebanon.

On Saturday, the vicinity of the Indonesian Hospital was targeted with at least 15 raids. Almost all hospitals and health centers in the Gaza Strip were directly or indirectly targeted since October 7. In the past few days, Israel targeted schools and ambulances, leaving no corner safe for Palestinians.

The World Health Organization said that it documented more than 100 Israeli attacks on healthcare centers, which led to the death of 504 people and the damage of 39 facilities and 31 ambulances, Al-Jazeera reported.

On Sunday morning, the thirtieth day of the war, the Municipality of Beit Lahia said that Israel deliberately bombed water wells and tanks, which serve more than 70,000 people in the Tal al-Zaatar area. Al-Jazeera reported that Israeli forces have targeted infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, including water tanks, solar panels, and electricity grids. On Sunday morning, warplanes destroyed a bridge that connects Al-Nuseirat refugee camp with the Al-Mughraqa town in central Gaza.

The Israeli army targeted two mosques in Al-Zaytoun and Al-Sabra neighborhoods, south of Gaza City, on Saturday, followed by targeting another mosque east of Jabalia on Sunday morning. Mosques have been places of refuge for many displaced Palestinians who saw their houses flattened or damaged by the airstrikes.

Wafa reported that rescue teams recovered the bodies of five Palestinians from under the rubble and a number of wounded, belonging to the Abu Hasira family, whose home was bombed west of Gaza on Saturday evening.

Israeli warplanes also bombed the house of the Muheisen family on Al-Hoja Street in Jabalia, killing dozens of people. The house of Ismail Haniyeh, a senior figure in the Hamas politburo, was also targeted in Al-Shati refugee camp. Haniyeh, who served for one year as the Palestinian Prime Minister following the 2006 election, is currently abroad. In the early days of the war, 14 members of Haniyeh’s family, including his brother and nephew, were killed in an airstrike in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health announced on Sunday afternoon that 9,770 were killed and more than 26 thousand were wounded. 4,800 children and 2,550 women were killed since the war began.

The ministry said that 2,660 people are missing under the rubble, 1,270 of whom are children.

‘Ceasefire now’: hundreds of thousands march in Washington D.C. and London

For the fourth consecutive week, hundreds of thousands of protestors marched in the streets of central London calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, while in the U.S., an estimated 300,000 demonstrators walked in downtown Washington D.C. in what has become the largest Palestine demonstration in U.S. history. 

See Mondoweiss’s initial field report from the historic D.C. march here.

Similar rallies took place in Germany, France, Spain, Austria, Holland, Sweden and Denmark. Protests came amid the failure of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to call for a ceasefire, following a meeting with Arab foreign ministers in Jordan on Saturday.

Officials in the U.S., UK, France, and Germany, among other western countries, remain adamant in backing Israel in its war on Gaza, which has resulted in the killing of thousands of people. The U.S. has even dispatched troops to the Middle East, and on Saturday, announced the arrival of the second aircraft carrier, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, to the region.

The flexing of military muscles in the Eastern Mediterranean is meant as a deterrence message to Hezbollah, analysts said. However, Hezbollah’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, told the U.S. in a televised speech that the armed movement is prepared and that “your fleets in the Mediterranean will not scare us.”

He said that Hezbollah has already engaged in a battle with Israel since October 8, warning that “all options are open.” At least 57 Hezbollah fighters were killed in armed clashes or Israeli bombings since October.

On Saturday, Hezbollah said that it attacked five Israeli sites of Jal Al-Alam, al-Jardah, Hadb Al-Bustan, Malkia, and Metula, north of occupied Palestine, near the fence with Lebanon.

It also said that it attacked 19 sites with missiles and artillery shells and launched two suicide drones on the Zabdeen barracks base in occupied Shebaa farms on Saturday. 

For the first time, Hezbollah used Al-Burkan-2h, a short-range scud missile developed in Lebanon and Syria, to target Jal Al-Alam military base. The Israeli army said that it launched strikes on Hezbollah’s site in southern Lebanon. Some of these strikes had caused 130 fires which broke out in 60 villages and resulted in the burning of almost 40,000 olive trees, according to Lebanon’s Minister of Agriculture, Abbas Al-Haj Hassan.

Hassan said that Israeli shells contained white phosphorus chemical weapons, an accusation Israel denied.

Arrests, uprooted trees, and the killing of Palestinians in the West Bank

In the occupied West Bank’s village of Qasra, south of Nablus, Palestinians told Wafa news agency that almost 700 hundred of their olive trees were uprooted by settlers from the illegal settlement of Magdolim, who took the trees to plant them in land near Esh Kodesh settlement.

Israeli settlers also stormed the Al-Aqsa compound, a daily incident that has remained undetected in the media’s radar in light of the ongoing war on Gaza. Some of the settlers performed silent prayers near Bab Al-Rahmeh inside the Al-Aqsa compound, under the protection of military police.

On Sunday, 152 Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers in the occupied West Bank. Israeli forces arrested 46 people in various towns and villages. Rami Ezz Musa Odeh, 17, was shot in the town of Al-Eizariya in occupied Jerusalem during an Israeli raid on Sunday morning. Three Palestinians were also killed in the town of Abu Dis, just north of Al-Eizariya. They were identified as Nabil Abdel Raouf Halabiya, 20, Musa Diya Musa Zaarour, 22, and Muhannad Ahmed Afana, 20. Eyewitnesses told Wafa that large Israeli forces entered the village, and a military bulldozer had demolished part of a besieged house and fired the anti-tank Energa grenade on it, killing Halabiya.

Six Palestinians were wounded, three of them in critical condition.

Ahmed Habis Dababsa, 22, succumbed to his wounds on Sunday. He was shot in the abdomen when Israeli forces raided Nuba, a town northwest of Hebron, to arrest workers from the Gaza Strip who hid in the village when the war broke out.

Israeli army announces death of 30 soldiers, Hamas says 60 captives missing

Sirens were heard on Sunday in Avivim and Netivot settlements near Gaza. Hamas said it attacked Israeli forces with mortar shells and attacked one Israeli tank from a close range northwest of Gaza City and two tanks in Beit Hanoun with the Palestinian-made 105mm Al-Yaseen anti-tank grenade.

Hamas spokesperson Abu Obaida said on Saturday evening that the Qassam Brigades attacked 24 military vehicles, including Merkava tanks, a heavily armored personnel carrier called “the Panther,” and bulldozers.

It released videos of Hamas fighters firing the 105mm Al-Yaseen on Israeli armored vehicles, some from close range. Abu Obaida said on Telegram that due to the indiscriminate Israeli bombardment of Gaza, 60 out of the 241 Israeli captives went missing, including 23 of them under the rubble.

“It seems that we will never be able to reach them due to the continued brutal aggression of the occupation against Gaza,” he said.

The Israeli army announced the death of 30 soldiers on October 7. Israel ground incursion into Gaza has been focused on the south of Gaza City in the Al-Zaytoun area to cut the main Salah al-Deen Street. It is also moving forces from the northwest of the strip down Rashid Street and from the northeast near Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia.

Chad and Turkey recall ambassadors

Israel is grappling with widespread protests against its military operations in the Gaza Strip, which is now causing a diplomatic headache, as Chad and Turkey were the latest countries to recall their ambassadors from Tel Aviv. Chad said on Sunday that it has done so since the country was concerned with the “waves of unprecedented deadly violence in the Gaza Strip. Faced with this tragedy, Chad condemns the loss of lives of many innocent civilians.” It added that a “ceasefire leading to a lasting solution to the Palestinian question” should be declared.

Turkey’s tone was louder, though it stopped short of completely severing ties with Israel as Bolivia has done. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, “Netanyahu is no longer someone we can talk to. We have written him off.” He added that “completely severing ties [with Israel] is not possible, especially in international diplomacy.” 

The Turkish foreign ministry said that Ambassador Sakir Ozkan Torunlar was summoned to Ankara “in view of the unfolding humanitarian tragedy in Gaza caused by the continuing attacks by Israel against civilians, and Israel’s refusal of a ceasefire.”

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