Israel says its forces surround Gaza City

03/11/2023

The Israeli military says it has surrounded Gaza City and is pressing forward, with a spokesman adding that a ceasefire is “not on the table” despite international pressure.
The army’s advance is pushing more Palestinians in Gaza City to desperately seek a safe haven, including at al-Shifa Hospital.

Israel will deduct funds earmarked for Gaza from Palestinian Authority tax transfers

The Israeli government’s security cabinet made the decision “to deduct all funds designated for the Gaza Strip” from the tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

“Israel is severing all contact with Gaza,” the government said in a statement.

The transfers have come under renewed scrutiny after far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich this week announced he would not release the funds, accusing the PA of support the Hamas attack on October 7.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said yesterday that the transfers should continue, however, in an effort to help “stabilise” the situation in the occupied West Bank, where attacks by Israeli forces and settlers have increased amid the Gaza war.

GOP-led US House passes bill to give Israel $14bn, but cut tax agency budget

President Biden has threatened to veto the House bill, accusing Republicans of staging a political stunt.

Biden wants the US Congress to pass legislation that would both provide additional funding to Israel and Ukraine, but several GOP lawmakers want to separate the two issues.

The bill that just passed in the House would provide Israel with 14.3bn, but take the funding from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Some top members of the US Senate, controlled by Democrats, also have raised objections to the House proposal.

Drone shot down over Harir military base in northern Iraq: Report

The armed drone was shot down at the base, which hosts US personnel, two security sources told the Reuters news agency.

The sources said it was not clear if the incident caused any damage or casualties.

Yesterday, the Pentagon said that bases housing US personnel in Iraq and Syria had been targeted 27 times since October 17.

The US last week struck sites in Syria it said were used by Iran proxies to launch attacks, and the Biden administration has vowed to respond to further targeting of US personnel in the region.

Ambulance sirens ring out in Gaza

The sirens are ringing out amid Israel’s continued bombardment of the territory.

The hum of Israeli military drones can also be heard over Gaza.

Slain Palestinian journalist was latest ‘target’ amid Israeli attacks: AJ correspondent

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum says he was reporting alongside Mohammed Abu Hatab, a correspondent for Palestine TV who was killed in an Israeli attack a short while ago, for most of the day.

But Abu Hatab went to his house in Khan Younis in southern Gaza in order to check on his family members, Abu Azzoum said.

He was meant to return to the field and continue reporting. “But this time, he was the target and his family also were the targets [of] the ongoing Israeli bombardment,” Abu Azzoum said.

“Mohammed … was reporting the truth and reality on the ground to the world.”

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Lebanese opposition leader calls for Hezbollah to withdraw from country’s south

Samir Geagea, the head of the Lebanese Forces party, has said that the country’s Shia militia Hezbollah should withdraw from the country’s south, as the threat of all-out war with Israel rises.

“It would be better if Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah withdrew from the south and handed it over to the army, instead of giving his speech tomorrow, and his promotional films – ‘it’s not time for them’,” Geagea said in a post on social media.

Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, is set to give his first speech tomorrow since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. With cross-border attacks between Hezbollah and Israel intensifying and the death toll rising, there is a chance that Nasrallah may announce a new phase in the conflict with Israel.

Geagea, a Christian, is a former militia commander who fought in the Lebanese Civil War against Hezbollah and Palestinian groups.

Huge numbers of civilians remain in Gaza City as Israel advances

For the past two days and today, the confrontations have been very, very violent. The bombardment from the land, from the air, from the sea, has been ongoing at all times. They really intensify during the night hours.

Israel has encircled Gaza City and the northern part of the Gaza Strip from northwest Gaza, where the al-Shati refugee camp is, and the southwest, where the Al-Quds Hospital is.

Now most of the bombardments are in those two areas, as well as in Salah al-Din Street [one of two major roads to the south] where Israeli tanks … and the Israeli war bots are always shooting at the cars that try to come to that area.

No one is passing through Salah al-Din for days now, but the tanks are approaching trying to get to al-Rasheed Street [the other major road to the south]. Many civilian cars have been shot at as they’re trying to evacuate from the north of Gaza or from Gaza City to the south.

There are thousands of people who had returned to the northern Strip and to Gaza City itself, and there are thousands that did not evacuate.

We saw at the Jabalia camp, as it has been bombarded over three days, how many people were still in their homes. We’re talking about huge numbers.

03/11/2023

Israel will deduct funds earmarked for Gaza from Palestinian Authority tax transfers

GOP-led US House passes bill to give Israel $14bn, but cut tax agency budget

Drone shot down over Harir military base in northern Iraq: Report

Ambulance sirens ring out in Gaza

Slain Palestinian journalist was latest ‘target’ amid Israeli attacks: AJ correspondent

Lebanese opposition leader calls for Hezbollah to withdraw from country’s south

Huge numbers of civilians remain in Gaza City as Israel advances

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