“Gaza is destroyed, Gazans are destroyed,” said Bisan Owda — an Emmy winning Palestinian journalist — in an intimate video to her Instagram following, filmed outside a tent in southern Gaza.
“Two months ago, I was saying to myself: ‘Bisan, hang on, it’s going to end soon’,” she said.
But Israel’s bombardment of Gaza hasn’t ended — and no ceasefire deal has been struck — as the conflict enters its twelfth month.
Instead, Israel is expanding its military campaign into neighbouring Lebanon as a war with Iran looms, shifting global attention elsewhere.
So far, Israeli air strikes have left more than 42 million tonnes of debris across the Gaza Strip, according to the United Nations. Source: AAP / Mahmoud Zaki
“Everyone is looking to what’s happening in Lebanon because of the prospect of drawing in Iran and escalating that to a wider conflict,” Martin Kear, International Relations lecturer at the University of Sydney, told SBS News.
“No one’s now calling for a ceasefire [in Gaza]. Those who are predominantly refer to Israel and Hezbollah.
“Meanwhile, Israel is simply making Gaza uninhabitable.”
What’s been happening in Gaza and the occupied West Bank?
In the past two days alone, three schools run by the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) in Gaza — and which are home to more than 20,000 displaced people — have been hit by Israeli strikes.
In a post on X, UNRWA commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini said at least 21 people were reported killed.
“More than 140 UNRWA schools have come under attack since 7 October, the majority while people were taking refuge in them under the UN flag,” he said.
“Schools cannot be used for any military purposes by anyone. Schools are not a target.
“These are some of the basic rules of war blatantly disregarded.”
In Gaza City, Israeli fighter jets struck the Muscat School and Al-Amal Orphanage on Wednesday. At least nine displaced people sheltering at the locations were killed, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
In separate statements, Israel said the two schools and the orphanage were being used as Hamas “command and control complexes” to plan and carry out operations.
Separately, air attacks accompanied the arrival of tanks in three neighbourhoods of hard-hit Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
At least 32 people were killed, and dozens injured, the city’s European Hospital said.
The records from the hospital show that seven women and 12 children, as young as 22 months old, were among those killed, AP reported.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza has further deteriorated — as a backlog of health supplies and equipment still awaits entry into the enclave, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHR).
Hospitals continue to face severe supply shortages and the lack of a systematic mechanism for the medical evacuation of critically ill and injured patients out of Gaza has resulted in an ever-growing waiting list — which currently stands at 12,000 patients.
Meanwhile, an Israeli strike on Tulkarem refugee camp — in the northwestern portion of the occupied West Bank — killed at least eighteen people on Thursday night, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
A source within the Palestinian security services told the AFP news agency that the attack was the deadliest in the West Bank since 2000.
The health ministry said it brings the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank since 7 October to 701.
Palestinians pray over their dead at the European Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. At least 51 people died as a result of Israeli strikes in different areas of Khan Younis at dawn on Wednesday. Source: AAP / Haitham Imad
The Israeli military later said the strike had killed a Hamas leader, Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi — and said other “operatives” who were also active in Hamas were among the dead.
Hamas condemned the airstrike, calling it a “cruel attack” that would prove to be a “dangerous escalation”.
In other parts of the occupied West Bank, Israel is confiscating more land.
In the last week of September, Israeli authorities demolished or forced the demolition of 32 Palestinian-owned structures across the occupied West Bank, the OCHR said — displacing 10 people, including two children.
Between 7 October 2023 and 30 September 2024, Israeli authorities demolished, destroyed, confiscated, or forced the demolition of 1,768 Palestinian structures across the occupied West Bank, displacing more than 4,555 Palestinians, including about 1,910 children, the OCHR said.
What does escalation in Lebanon mean for a ceasefire deal in Gaza?
Both Israel and Hamas have said the escalation in Lebanon could help end the war in Gaza.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, said a regional conflagration could put pressure on Israel to strike a ceasefire deal in Gaza, which
But some officials from mediating countries and Palestinians in Gaza have a different view.
Ashraf Abouelhoul, managing editor of state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram in Egypt — which has helped to mediate months of ceasefire negotiations — said: “No one in the world is now talking about a deal or a ceasefire.”
“That frees Israel’s hand to continue its military offensive and plans in Gaza.”
Israel renewed its bombardment of parts of Lebanon’s capital on Wednesday — reportedly targeting Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Source: AAP / Fayad Marc
Kear from the University of Sydney speculates the war in Lebanon will become “a positive security story that which may secure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election.
“Once Israel starts to fight Hezbollah on the ground, that’s when Hezbollah has its best opportunity to inflict some damage on Israel. But for Netanyahu, that’s tomorrow’s problem.
“Today’s problem is hitting Hezbollah hard. That’s driven by Netanyahu’s fear of losing the prime ministership and not having the institutional protection for the corruption charges that are currently before the Israeli courts.”
If a ceasefire continues to be delayed, the question that remains is: what is the fate of Gaza?
“What you are really seeing now, without wanting to be too melodramatic, is the death throes of the Palestinian nation,” Kear said.
“I think they’ll simply be a footnote in history.”
At least 41,615 Palestinians have been killed and 96,359 injured in Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip since October 7, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israel killed 1,200 people, Israeli authorities said, and about 250 people were taken hostage.
The significant escalation is the latest in a long-standing conflict between Israel and that has governed the Gaza Strip since the most recent elections in 2006.
