Israel-Gaza war live updates: Thousands protest in Israel after IDF kills 3 hostages; Gaza in dayslong blackout

17/12/2023

Thousands of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv after the Israel Defense Forces mistakenly killed three hostages, who were carrying a white flag, in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a “terrible tragedy.” In Gaza, Palestinians are enduring a lengthy blackout, lacking almost all internet and cellular connections since Thursday.

Here’s what to know

The Gaza Strip is still largely offline after a communications blackout began Thursday night local time. Cybersecurity monitoring firm NetBlocks said this is the “longest sustained telecoms blackout” since the war began.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, called for a “sustainable cease-fire” in Gaza, signaling a shift in tone as support for Israel’s offensive slips in some Western countries. “Too many civilians” have been killed, they said.
The World Health Organization said it delivered health supplies to al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza. After most of its staff and patients evacuated in the wake of the IDF’s raid on the facility in November, al-Shifa “needs to urgently resume at least basic operations” as new patients are “arriving every minute,” the WHO said.
In the Red Sea, the USS Carney shot down 14 drones launched from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen on Saturday, according to U.S. Central Command. The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels are in talks mediated by Oman about their operations targeting ships in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, a Houthi spokesman posted on X.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin embarked on a trip to Bahrain, Qatar and Israel, where he will discuss with Israeli counterparts how they plan to mitigate civilian harm and what the next phase of the war will look like, the Defense Department said.
At least 18,787 people have been killed in Gaza and 50,897 wounded since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Around 1,200 people were killed in Israel in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

9:38 AM: U.K. and Germany join calls for cease-fire, as gulf grows between U.S. and allies

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron speaks at a news conference at the State Department in Washington on Dec. 7.

LONDON — Britain and Germany called for negotiations for a lasting cease-fire in Gaza, signaling a shift in tone that draws attention to the emerging gap on the issue between the United States and some of its closest Western allies.

In a joint article published in the Sunday Times, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, called for a “sustainable cease-fire” in Gaza. “Too many civilians have been killed,” they said, urging Israeli forces to do more to spare civilian lives and target Hamas operatives with greater precision. It came the same weekend Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin embarked on a trip to the Middle East, where he intends to discuss the next stages of the war with his Israeli counterparts.

Britain and Germany’s top diplomats stopped short of calling for an immediate cease-fire, however, arguing that it was more important to negotiate a lasting cease-fire than a rapid one that then unravels. “We do not believe that calling right now for a general and immediate cease-fire, hoping it somehow becomes permanent, is the way forward,” they wrote.

The Group of Seven countries, which include Britain and Germany, previously backed “humanitarian pauses” — a shorter halt in fighting — over a cease-fire in Gaza.

Their article brings the positions of Britain and Germany a step closer to France, which has called for an immediate truce leading to a permanent cease-fire. It also highlights the growing gulf between the United States and some of its closest Western allies. On Tuesday, Britain and Germany joined 21 other countries in abstaining on a nonbinding U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire. Prominent U.S. allies including Canada, Australia, Japan and France voted in favor of the motion. The United States and Israel voted against.

On Sunday, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said she met with her Israeli counterpart, Eli Cohen, on a trip to the region to affirm France’s commitment to Israel’s security and the need for a humanitarian truce. The day before, French officials announced that a diplomatic agent working for France had died of injuries suffered in an Israeli airstrike Wednesday evening in southern Gaza, condemning the attack and demanding answers from Israel.

By: Leo Sands

7:10 AM: Austin embarks on Middle East trip, will discuss war’s next phase with Israeli leaders

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin speaks at the Pentagon last month.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin began a multiday trip to Israel, Qatar and Bahrain this weekend, aiming to underscore Washington’s support for Israel’s right to self-defense and understand how Israel intends to move into the next stages of its offensive in Gaza, the Pentagon said.

Austin will discuss with Israeli military leaders what steps they are taking to mitigate civilian harm and what the next phase of the conflict will look like when ground operations and airstrikes eventually cease, the Pentagon said.

Austin will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, with whom he will stress “the importance of taking civilian safety into account” and the need to increase humanitarian assistance in Gaza, as well as Israel’s right to defend itself, Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters last week. He will be joined by Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Ryder added.

In Qatar, which has served as a mediator in negotiations between Israel and Hamas, Austin will convey “gratitude for Qatar’s efforts to facilitate the release of hostages from Hamas,” Ryder said.

In Bahrain, Austin will visit American troops stationed at U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. The Pentagon said Austin also intends to discuss U.S. efforts to convene a military coalition to respond to threats posed by Yemeni-based Houthi rebels in the Red Sea. Last weekend, The Washington Post reported that the Biden administration is pitching allies on an expanded multinational naval task force to address the rise in attacks on commercial vessels traveling near Yemen, posing a significant threat to global shipping.

Austin will also stop by the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, which is deployed to the Middle East, the Pentagon said.

By: Leo Sands and Andrew Jeong

5:29 AM: Killing of USAID contractor in Gaza fuels internal protest

Injured people arrive at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after strikes in the al-Sabra neighborhood in the central Gaza Strip on Oct. 11.

Before he was killed alongside his wife and two children in Gaza last month, Hani Jnena, 33, sent a final message to his colleagues in the West Bank.

“My daughters are terrified, and I am trying to keep them calm, but this bombing is terrifying,” he wrote, referring to Israel’s campaign of airstrikes and artillery bombardment of the Palestinian enclave.

Jnena, a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, died along with his family when an Israeli airstrike hit Gaza City’s Al Sabra neighborhood on Nov. 5, according to a statement his employer provided to The Washington Post.

He is among hundreds of humanitarian and development workers killed during the two-month conflict, a statistic that has infuriated USAID officials who want the Biden administration to intensify pressure on Israel to limit the civilian bloodshed.

Already, 135 United Nations relief workers have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7. That’s more deaths than in any single conflict in the organization’s 78-year history, officials say. Outside of the U.N., prominent aid groups such as Save the Children also have suffered losses. On Tuesday, the group announced that a staff member, his four children, his wife, and many other members of his extended family of 28 were killed in an Israeli airstrike Dec. 10.

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By: John Hudson

4:12 AM: Gaza experiencing its longest communications blackout, monitoring group says

Palestinians inspect the site of a strike on a house in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Sunday.

The Gaza Strip continues to be largely without internet and cellular connections since a blackout began Thursday evening local time. Cybersecurity monitoring firm NetBlocks called it the “longest sustained telecoms blackout” since the war began.

A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic, said Saturday that the United States believes functional telecommunications in Gaza are “absolutely essential,” in particular for Israel’s attempt to lessen civilian harm amid mounting U.S. and international pressure.

Israel says it uses social media posts, phone calls and text messages, as well as airdropped leaflets, to alert Gazans to where fighting is and to give evacuation orders — messages that now cannot be sent with cellular and internet lines cut.

“We believe that telecommunication should be up and operating, and if they go down for military operations, that they need to be restored very quickly because it is critical,” the official added.

The official did not say whether the United States was pressing Israel to restore communications in Gaza but said that “generally, in the past, we have raised concerns whenever they’ve gone down.”

Before Sunday, the longest blackout of the war was Gaza’s first outage, which began on Oct. 27 and lasted about 36 hours. Israel expanded its ground operations hours into that blackout. Israel restored connections under U.S. pressure, an American official told The Washington Post at the time.

Israeli authorities told U.S. officials that the latest disruption wasn’t a simple case of the government switching off telecommunications, a person familiar with the situation said Friday. A line of fiber optics was damaged, the person said, adding that it was under repair and it’s unclear how long that will take.

Repeated communications outages in Gaza have hindered access to lifesaving health care and impeded aid delivery. Some Gazans have developed workarounds like using Israeli or eSIM cards, which still have limited access. Customers with the Ooredoo phone carrier may still have service in the north, where the company uses microwave rather than fiber networks to connect to the Israeli company Cellcom.

But such alternatives are not available to most Gazans, who cannot afford to purchase the services or can’t charge their phones.

By: Niha Masih, John Hudson and Miriam Berger

2:01 AM: Protesters grieve hostage killings; reports emerge of deaths in Israeli attacks

Thousands of protesters demanded the return of all hostages in Gaza during a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

Thousands of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday to call on Israel to negotiate the release of all hostages held by Hamas, after the Israel Defense Forces’ fatal shooting of three Israeli hostages carrying a white flag in Gaza.

Lior Peri, whose 79-year-old father is being held in Gaza, told The Washington Post that the Israeli government is “prioritizing the war” over freeing the hostages. The only way to bring the hostages home, Peri said, is for the government to negotiate their release.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the deaths were a “terrible tragedy,” while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement that he accepts “responsibility for everything that takes place in the defense establishment.” Gallant added that the incident took place as a result of “significant errors.” In a statement on social media, the IDF expressed “deep remorse” over the deaths.

Separately, two women sheltering in a church in Gaza were killed Saturday afternoon by an Israeli sniper, Catholic authorities said. And a diplomatic agent working for France died of injuries suffered in an Israeli airstrike Wednesday evening in the southern Gaza Strip, France’s Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs announced Saturday.

The IDF did not immediately respond to request for comment on the two incidents, and The Post could not independently verify the accounts.

Also on Saturday, Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael al-Dahdouh, said the trip during which a drone strike killed his cameraman and injured him had received approval from and was coordinated with the Israeli military.

Al Jazeera said it would refer the death of cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa to the International Criminal Court. In a statement, the IDF said it does not deliberately target journalists.

By: Niha Masih and Ruby Mellen

1:54 AM: Biden’s support of Israel could come at a cost to U.S. foreign policy

President Biden is greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after arriving in Tel Aviv on Oct. 18.

When President Biden cautioned Israel this week that it was losing international support due to the war in Gaza, he could just as well have been warning that his own administration also has a lot to lose.

Elected three years ago as the self-described most experienced foreign policy president in history, Biden promised to reclaim the mantle of global leadership as “a strong and trusted partner for peace, progress and security.” Following the isolationist Trump years, he proclaimed, “America is back.”

There have been ups and downs since then, from the Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco to the return to primacy at NATO, a successful mobilization of aid for Ukraine and a jittery coexistence with China.

Now, there is acknowledgment within Biden’s administration that his unwavering support for Israel’s right to destroy Hamas — even as he acknowledges Israeli excesses and presses the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be more protective of innocent Palestinian lives — could impose a price on the president’s standing at home and abroad.

“This administration has prided itself on repairing ties across the world and working with allies and partners. It’s not something you want to see, being isolated in the region and elsewhere,” a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. “That’s part of the message to Israel — it’s not even helpful to them if we are feeling such pressure. Which we are.”

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By: Karen DeYoung