Open-source monitoring by watchdog group Airwars found a “high correlation” between the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s civilian casualty data and what Palestinian civilians “reported online,” according to a new report. Airwars identified 3,259 civilians who were killed in Gaza between October 7 and 24 — 75% of them were also listed on the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s official list of victims. To draw these conclusions, Airwars’ research team reviewed social media posts, statements from local news outlets, and news releases from non-governmental organizations to identify victims killed during the 17-day period. Analysts cross-referenced names with other biographical data and, where possible, matched these reports with specific incidents that Airwars cataloged since the Israeli offensive began. - “The scale of the civilian toll in Gaza has been one of the most enduring debates in the war,” Airwars’ Head of Investigations Joe Dyke told CNN. “We did this investigation not to get a definitive answer to exactly how many civilians have been killed, but to bring some new evidence to that debate.”
15.11.2023
Ridiculous people are discussing these "found" guns with a straight face, western media could not be stupider
15.11.2023
Edit:
The UK did not vote for the UN security council's resolution despite officially backing humanitarian pauses
Over loudspeakers, the IDF asked all men between the ages of 16 and 40 to leave the hospital buildings, except the surgical and emergency departments, and go to the hospital courtyard.
Soldiers fired into the air to force those remaining inside to come out, Khader said.
He also said troops installed a scanning and sensor device and asked the men to pass through it.
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Dr Mokhallalati told the BBC on Wednesday that the hospital was without power, oxygen and water. On Tuesday, essential surgeries had been carried out without proper anaesthesia, with patients "screaming in pain", he said. No surgeries could be carried out on Wednesday. Doctors were unable to help one patient with burns on Tuesday due to lack of equipment including ventilators and had to just "let him die", Dr Mokhallalati added. He also said that six premature babies had died in recent days and that he feared more would die due to lack of oxygen and lack of power.
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"Why can't they be evacuated" Dr Mokhallalati said of the babies. "In Afghanistan, they evacuated the cats and dogs." "Where is the ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross]?" he added. "Where are the British and American governments? Is everyone just waiting for us all to die here and then say we were 'good people'?"
Although Israel previously said it was ready to allow staff and patients to evacuate, Palestinians have said Israeli forces opened fire at them and that it was too dangerous to move vulnerable patients. Witnesses have described dire conditions inside the hospital, with families with scant food or water living in corridors and smell of decomposing bodies in the air.
The call to Mahmoud Shaheen came at dawn.
It was Thursday 19 October at about 06:30, and Israel had been bombing Gaza for 12 days straight.
He'd been in his third-floor, three-bedroom flat in al-Zahra, a middle-class area in the north of the Gaza Strip. Until now, it had been largely untouched by air strikes.
He'd heard a rising clamour outside. People were screaming. "You need to escape," somebody in the street shouted, "because they will bomb the towers".
As he left his building and crossed the road, looking for a safe place, his phone lit up.
It was a call from a private number.
"I'm speaking with you from Israeli intelligence," a man said down the line, according to Mahmoud.
That call would last more than an hour - and it would be the most terrifying call of his life.
Directed by the voices of strangers, who always seemed to know how to reach him even when his battery ran out, he pleaded for the bombing to stop and screamed until his throat hurt for people to run away.
He led a mass evacuation of his neighbours - and then watched his neighbourhood explode in front of his eyes.
During this conflict, the Israeli military has phoned Gazans sometimes to warn them ahead of air strikes - Mahmoud's account gives an insight into one such phone call in an unprecedented level of detail.
The BBC contacted Mahmoud after multiple al-Zahra residents identified him as the man who received the warning call.
Later that day, Mahmoud had just finished his Isha, or night-time prayers, at his flat when he saw a missed call from a private number on his phone.
His heart sank. "Immediately I understood there would be an evacuation and bombing, but I didn't know what the target would be. I thought it might be my home, it might be the home next to me," he says. His phone soon rang again. A different man was on the line. The voice said they had realised Mahmoud was a "wise man" after the events of that morning, which is why they were calling him again. The man introduced himself as Daoud. Mahmoud was unnerved by the level of detail the man had about his life - by the familiar way the man addressed him and referred to his son's name.
Israel is known to have warned Gazans by calling them, texting them and dropping leaflets before bombing. But in some cases, civilians say they have not been warned ahead of time.
Thanks to Mahmoud's efforts, it is believed that none of his neighbours died that day. But his account reveals the panic and anguish of a Palestinian community as they watched their homes and everything they love blow up around them. The BBC has spoken to multiple families who lived in al-Zahra, a neighbourhood of professionals and entrepreneurs, in which families ate falafel and pizza on the beach together, and children played football in the dawn light as the call to prayer sounded across the rooftops.
Since the Israeli military issued the first of several instructions for civilians to evacuate north Gaza, hundreds of thousands of Gazans have moved to the south of the strip. But the south has continued to come under Israeli bombardment, leading the UN and other aid organisations to warn that nowhere in Gaza is safe for civilians.
To better understand the risk to civilians in south Gaza, BBC Verify has identified and analysed four specific instances of strikes in that region. We also looked at some of the warnings and evacuation instructions that were issued to Gazan civilians, including some advising them to move to certain areas in the south.
Some of these warnings were accompanied by maps with arrows pointing to vaguely defined areas to move towards. Three strikes we examined hit within, or close to, those areas in the days after the warnings were issued.
The IDF has said that it communicates with Gaza's residents in a variety of ways, including leaflet drops, social media posts in Arabic, and warnings issued through civilian and international organisations. In this piece we have examined the IDF's instructions posted on social media.
The aftermath of another strike in al-Nuseirat camp, on 25 October, was shown on the news outlet Al Jazeera.
Footage posted online shows its chief Gaza correspondent Wael al-Dahdouh in tears in hospital, holding the body of his seven-year-old daughter and kneeling over the body of his teenage son. His wife was also killed.
"There is no safe place in Gaza at all," he said in an English translation of an interview with Al Jazeera. He said that his family had moved from the north following Israel's warning to residents to move south for their safety.