On 1 December, at about 7:00, hostilities resumed following a humanitarian pause that started on 24 November. Heavy Israeli bombardments across Gaza, as well as ground fighting and indiscriminate rocket fire from Palestinian armed groups to Israel have been reported. As of 20:00, at least 178 Palestinians have been killed and 589 injured, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza (MoH); no Israeli fatalities have been reported in this context.
OCHA Under-Secretary-General Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths stated that the pause had “offered us a glimpse of what can happen when the guns fall silent...We need to maintain – and build on – the progress in aid delivery. We need civilians and the life-sustaining infrastructure they rely on to be protected. We need the remaining hostages to be released immediately and unconditionally. We need a humanitarian ceasefire. We need the fighting to stop.”
Since the resumption of hostilities on 1 December, and as of 18:00, no aid convoys or fuel deliveries have entered Gaza and aid convoys ready to enter Gaza have remained on the Egyptian side of the border. Humanitarian operations within Gaza have largely halted, except for services within shelters and limited distributions of flour in areas south of Wadi Gaza (hereafter: the south). The evacuation of wounded people and dual nationals to Egypt, and the return of Gazans stranded in Egypt, have also stopped.
On 1 December, the Israeli military published online a detailed map, where the Gaza Strip is divided into hundreds of small areas. Reportedly, the map is intended to facilitate orders to evacuate specific areas ahead of their targeting. The publication does not specify where people should evacuate to. It is unclear how those residing in Gaza would access the map without electricity and amid recurrent telecommunications cuts.
On 1 December, Israeli forces dropped leaflets ordering residents of localities east of Khan Younis, in the south (Al Qarara, Khuza’a, Abasan and Bani Suheila) to move to the shelters in the Rafah area. As of 21:00, no major displacement from these areas has been reported.
In the West Bank, since 7 October, over 3,000 Palestinians have been arrested, with more than 160 in the past six days. Many of them have been arrested without being presented direct evidence of an offense. According to the UN Human Rights Office, six Palestinian men have died in Israeli custody during this period, a decades-long high.
Read the full report: Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel | Flash Update #56
Destruction in the Gaza Strip. Photo by the Palestine Red Crescent Society, 1 December 2023
