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EXPLAINER
Israel’s renewed attacks kill dozens of Palestinians in Gaza amid mediating efforts led by Qatar to re-establish the truce.
Here’s what is to know about the situation on Saturday, December 2, 2023:
The fighting
More than 180 Palestinians have been killed and about 600 injured in the first day of Israel’s renewed attacks on Gaza, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
The armed wings of Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they fired barrages of rockets and mortars towards various Israeli cities and settlements from Gaza.
Gaza is the “most dangerous place in the world to be a child” Catherine Russell, the head of UNICEF said in a presentation to the United Nations Security Council.
The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists said 61 reporters have been killed since the start of the war in Gaza – 54 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese.
Fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border resumed after the collapse of a week-long truce, with at least three people also killed in southern Lebanon by Israeli fire.
Diplomacy
Qatar, which has played a central mediating role in truce efforts, said talks are still continuing with Israelis and Palestinians to restore the truce, but the renewed bombardment of Gaza has complicated matters.
United States defence secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington is working diplomatically to restore the truce with Israel, Egypt and Qatar, while blaming Hamas for failing to meet conditions on hostages and for an attack in Jerusalem.
Hamas has accused the US of giving a green light for the Israeli “war of genocide and ethnic cleansing”.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he “deeply regrets” that military operations have started again in Gaza.
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths renewed calls for a truce, saying Palestinians in the enclave have nowhere safe to go and “very little to survive on”.
Other developments
The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces stopped all deliveries of aid into Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said aid deliveries must resume at the same frequency and scope that was allowed during the Israel-Hamas truce, even though “much more than that is needed”.
Israel has informed several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of Gaza’s border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the enclave after the war ends, Egyptian and regional sources told Reuters.
The US has provided Israel with large bunker-buster bombs, among tens of thousands of other weapons and artillery shells, to help dislodge Hamas from Gaza, US officials told the Wall Street Journal.
Israel’s consul general to the US’s southeast accused a protester who set themselves on fire outside the country’s consulate in Atlanta, Georgia, of acting out of hatred for Israel.
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