Israel-Hamas war updates: Palestinians killed in Israeli attack on Jabalia

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For the latest live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, follow along here.

You can read about Israel’s siege on Gaza hospitals here, as well as a warning from the UN about how a fuel shortage could soon force the collapse of humanitarian work in the Palestinian enclave, here.

We are going to bring our live coverage to an end soon. Here’s a summary of today’s main events:

• Israeli air attacks hit residential buildings in the Nuseirat refugee camp and Deir el-Balah, both in central Gaza.
• Israeli bombings killed at least 31 people in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, according to the Wafa news agency.
• US President Biden says that al-Shifa Hospital – Gaza’s largest – must be protected as Israeli forces continue to besiege medical facilities in Gaza City.
• Israeli forces killed two Palestinians during a raid in Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry says.
• Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan says mediators have repeatedly come close to reaching an agreement on a captive release but that Israel has repeatedly changed the terms at the last minute.
• UNICEF says more than 700,000 children in Gaza have been “forced to leave everything behind” and reiterates the call for a ceasefire.
• Palestinians filed a federal lawsuit in the US against President Biden and other top officials, accusing Washington of “aiding and abetting Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people”.
• The Palestinian death toll in Gaza has risen to more than 11,200 killed in Israeli attacks since October 7. In Israel, the official death toll from Hamas’s attacks stands at more than 1,200.

Lamis Deek, a human rights lawyer, launched a letter earlier this month warning members of the US Congress that they could “face criminal and civil liability for aiding, abetting, and inciting genocide” if they voted in favour of providing more military support for Israel.

“I think it’s important that people understand that genocide constitutes the highest crime punishable under the Geneva Conventions and under the Rome Statute. It is not just for participating in a genocide but for aiding and abetting and inciting the genocide,” she told Al Jazeera.

While she said the actual prosecution of US legislators or officials under international law is a far-off prospect, the notice attempts to makes members of Congress feel a sense of accountability – and is “powerful political and legal messaging”.

She spoke to Al Jazeera shortly after a group of Palestinians filed a lawsuit in the US federal court seeking to prohibit the Biden administration from providing further military support to Israel, saying US officials have a duty to prevent “the most serious crimes”.

1/3🚨 #Israel is committing an unfolding genocide against the #Palestinian people with unconditional support of the U.S.
Several Israeli govt. leaders have expressed clear genocidal intentions & deployed dehumanizing characterizations of Palestinians, including “human animals”. pic.twitter.com/C9dESYdHi6

— Al-Haq الحق (@alhaq_org) November 13, 2023

Military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the launches targeted an Israeli army post near the Israel-Lebanon border.

One was intercepted and the others fell into an open area, Hagari said.

Not only is the raid ongoing, it is intensifying. Eyewitnesses are telling us that more Israeli army vehicles have arrived on the scene, and that those raids have expanded from within the Tulkarem refugee camp to outside of that and inside Tulkarem city.

We are seeing videos now that show Israeli armoured bulldozers coming in. At the moment, things are getting more tense.

We’ve heard from medical sources that two Palestinian men have been killed thus far – both shot in the chest. We are told by witnesses that one was a civilian and that another man was a Palestinian fighter.

That is all very worrying for the residents of Tulkarem. They are expecting this will be a long night and that more Israeli forces will be arriving in the next few hours.

Tulkarem has become a bit of a flashpoint in the past few weeks. Many residents believe what is happening to them is collective punishment and the Israeli army taking out revenge on them over the Hamas attacks on October 7.

Now, with these two men killed, that puts the death toll among Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the occupied West Bank since October 7 at 190.

It’s 12:35am on Tuesday in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel (22:35 GMT Monday). Here’s a recap:

• Israeli air attacks killed at least 31 people in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, according to the Wafa news agency. Other air attacks have hit residential areas of the Nuseirat refugee camp and Deir el-Balah, both in central Gaza.
• Negotiations appear to be ongoing over a captive release deal, according to comments from Hamas officials and US President Biden. A Hamas spokesperson said that the Israelis were adding more conditions to the deal, which he said would see 50 captives released in exchange for 200 children and 75 women held in Israeli jails, among other details.
• Video released by the al-Qassam Brigades purports to show an Israeli military captive who was later killed in an Israeli air attack.
• Biden says that hospitals must be protected as Israeli forces continue to besiege medical structures in Gaza City. An MSF surgeon reported that patients had been shot by Israeli snipers at al-Shifa Hospital.
• The EU supports “immediate pauses” in the fighting in Gaza, the bloc’s top diplomat said.
• Israeli forces reportedly killed two Palestinians during a raid in Tulkarem, in the occupied West Bank.

Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported that the Israeli bombings hit two residential homes.

The attack in Nuseirat camp, about 5km (3 miles) from Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, resulted in two deaths, the news agency said.

Several people were also killed and injured in the bombing in Deir el-Balah but Wafa did not provide exact casualty figures.

After regaining contact with a staff member trapped in Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) released a statement a few hours ago with the latest from inside the besieged medical complex. Here are the MSF surgeon’s words:

“We don’t have electricity. There’s no water in the hospital. There’s no food. People will die in a few hours without functioning ventilators. In front of the main gate, there are many bodies. There are also injured patients; we can’t bring them inside.

When we sent an ambulance to bring the patients – a few meters away – and they attacked the ambulance. There are injured people around the hospital looking for medical care. We can’t bring them inside.

There’s also a sniper who attacked patients, they have gunshot wounds. We operated on three of them.

The situation is very bad, it is inhuman. It’s a closed area no one knows about us. We don’t have an internet connection – you managed to call me now, [but] maybe you’ll [have to] try 10 times before you can reach me again.

The medical team agreed to leave the hospital only if patients are evacuated first. We don’t want to leave our patients. There are 600 inpatients, 37 babies, someone who needs an ICU. We can’t leave them.

We need a guarantee that there is a safe corridor [to leave] because we saw some people trying to leave al-Shifa and they killed them, they bombed them, the sniper killed them. Inside al-Shifa Hospital, there are injured patients and medical teams. If they give us guarantees and evacuate the patients first, we will evacuate.”

The medical organisation said the sole power generator at al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis has stopped working.

The lack of power threatens 90 patients receiving treatment at the hospital, including 25 “in the medical rehabilitation section who now face the risk of death at any moment”, the Palestine Red Crescent said.

It added that the power generator is also affecting PRCS’s headquarters and has “resulted in the loss of communication with the operation rooms scattered across” Gaza, as well as halted its radio communications.

Al-Amal is currently operating on a very small generator, which is set to run out of fuel in 24 hours, PRCS said.

Neve Gordon, a professor of international law at Queen Mary University in the UK, said that Israel has attempted to justify its attacks on hospitals by claiming the facilities amount to Hamas infrastructure.

“Israel is attacking the hospitals and trying to justify its attacks,” Gordon told Al Jazeera.

“So what it is doing, is using different clauses in the laws of war which allow warring parties to attack hospitals if they are used outside their humanitarian mission. The law itself is not a great protection for these hospitals,” he said.

“On the one hand, it tells us that hospitals must be protected by warring parties, but on the other hand, it immediately adds a number of exceptions that allow warring parties to attack the hospitals. Israel is using these exceptions on its social media to claim that Hamas is using the hospitals and ambulances.”

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo also told the US president that a “ceasefire is a must for the sake of humanity”.

Despite mounting public pressure and widespread calls from top UN officials and rights groups for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the Biden administration has refused to call for one, saying such a move benefits Hamas.

Instead, it is pushing for “pauses” in the fighting to help secure the release of captives held in the Gaza Strip and allow humanitarian aid into the territory.

More than 30 US-based civil society and faith-based organisations, including Amnesty International USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Oxfam America and the Project on Middle East Democracy, have signed an open letter urging the Biden administration not to transfer 155mm artillery shells to Israel for use in Gaza.

The letter, addressed to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, points out that international humanitarian law requires there be a distinction between the targeting of civilian and military personnel, and that the use of weapons that cannot discriminate are therefore prohibited.

“In Gaza, one of the world’s most densely populated places, 155mm artillery shells are inherently indiscriminate,” the letter said, emphasising that on average, 90 percent of the victims of attacks by explosive weapons in populated areas are civilians.

“These munitions are unguided and have a high error radius, often landing 25 meters [82 ft] away from the intended target. Upon impact, 155mm shells expel 2,000 sharp metal fragments in every direction, risking injury, death, and permanent disability to civilians within 300 meters [328 yards] of the blast.”

The letter refers to past use of such shells by the Israeli military, when they hit multiple civilian targets.

“Under the current circumstances, granting the government of Israel access to these munitions would undermine the protection of civilians, respect for international humanitarian law, and the credibility of the Biden administration,” the letter added.

We just received another update from the Palestinian health ministry, confirming that a second person has been killed by Israeli forces in Tulkarem.

The ministry said the victim, identified as 28-year-old Hazem Muhammad Hasri, was fatally shot in the chest.

Tulkarem is in the north of the occupied West Bank, west of the cities of Nablus and Jenin.

Speaking to Al Jazeera by phone, Osama Hamdan said that mediators have repeatedly come close to reaching an agreement on a captive release, but he accused Israel of repeatedly changing the terms at the last minute.

He said the most recent arrangement would have seen Israel release 200 children and 75 women from Israeli jails in exchange for the release of 50 captives over a five-day period.

He said Hamas’s condition was also that Israel allow unfettered aid access to Gaza via the Rafah crossing with Egypt, including the entry of fuel into the besieged Palestinian enclave.

“When all those arrangements were done, the Israelis postponed that … It shows that they are not willing to go forward,” Hamdan told Al Jazeera. “They did not reject [the deal]. There was an agreement about this and at the end, they added more conditions.”

He said the Israelis were seeking more names of the captives, which he said Hamas has been unable to collect because many were taken by “different factions” in Gaza.

“If the Israeli side came back to the mediators today and said we are ready to implement [the agreement], things will go forward,” he said. “I believe that the mediators are doing their best in order to bring them [the Israelis] back.”

The UN child rights agency said those hundreds of thousands of children have been “forced to leave everything behind”.

“As humanitarian needs grow, UNICEF calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, for sustained and unimpeded access to provide assistance and safe release of all abducted children,” UNICEF said.

In Gaza, more than 700,000 children have been displaced – forced to leave everything behind.

As humanitarian needs grow, UNICEF calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, for sustained and unimpeded access to provide assistance and safe release of all abducted children. pic.twitter.com/J2KaKjGSqB

— UNICEF (@UNICEF) November 13, 2023

Rockets towards central Israel, specifically cities like Tel Aviv, have been a regular occurrence in this war. Remember, we are now on day 38 and as the Israeli military continues to bombard the Gaza Strip from the land, air and sea, Hamas is still firing rockets and still proving that they have rocket launching capabilities inside of the Gaza Strip.

We do see more rockets going towards what we call the “Gaza envelope”, those towns and settlements along the border with the Gaza Strip, but nearly daily since the beginning of this war, we have been seeing barrages of rockets go far more north to places like Tel Aviv.

Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system is quite accurate in intercepting a lot of these rockets but because of just the sheer number of rockets fired during this war, there have been a lot that have simply slipped through and have made direct impact.

[In one incident], there was a fire that started at the side of a highway, but authorities are reporting no injuries, no casualties and no damage.

The Palestinian health ministry identified the man as Mahmoud Ali Hadaida.

He succumbed to his injuries after being shot by Israeli forces in Tulkarem, the ministry said.

Israel has ramped up its raids across the occupied West Bank since the war in Gaza began, and Israeli military and settler violence has skyrocketed.

The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli forces left after interrogating staff at an eye hospital in Turmus Ayya, near Ramallah.

In a post on social media, the ministry condemned the raid as a blatant violation of health institutions, similar to what Israel has been doing in Gaza.