Netanyahu fires Defence Minister Gallant; WHO to evacuate more than 100 medical patients from Gaza

More than 100 patients, including children, will be transferred out of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday in a rare medical evacuation from the Palestinian enclave during the Israel-Hamas war, said a World Health Organization (WHO) official on Tuesday.

An Israeli attack targeted an industrial zone and some residential buildings in the town of Qusayr in Homs province in central Syria on Tuesday, Syrian state TV reported.

Netanyahu fires defence minister over ‘crisis of trust’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday citing a “crisis of trust” and replaced him with Israel Katz, previously the foreign minister.

Earlier on Tuesday, Israeli forces issued new evacuation orders in the north of the Gaza Strip and carried out military strikes which Palestinian medics and media said had killed at least 35 people since Monday night.

The prime minister named Gideon Saar as the new foreign minister, said Netanyahu’s office in a statement.

Gallant and Netanyahu, both in the right-wing Likud party, have clashed for months over the objectives of Israel’s 13-month-old war in Gaza against Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Netanyahu said Gallant has made statements that “contradict the decisions of the government and the decisions of the cabinet”. In response, Gallant said: “The security of the state of Israel always was and will always remain my life’s mission.”

Reports appeared in September that Netanyahu, under pressure from far-right coalition partners, was considering firing Gallant.

France’s foreign minister will travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Wednesday, a day after the US elections, to press Israel to engage diplomatically to end the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.

In northern Gaza, an airstrike late on Monday damaged two houses in the town of Beit Lahiya, killing at least 20 people, the Palestinian official news agency Wafa and Hamas media said.

Ten were killed in central areas of the Palestinian enclave — six in separate airstrikes on Gaza City and the town of Deir Al-Balah, and four in the town of Al-Zawayda around midnight on Monday, medics and health officials said.

At least five others were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia north of Gaza City, medics said later on Tuesday.

The Israeli military said, without giving details, that its forces had “eliminated terrorists” in the central Gaza Strip and Jabalia area. Israeli troops had also located weapons and explosives over the past day in the southern Rafah area, where “terrorist infrastructure sites” had been eliminated, it said.

Later on Tuesday, Israeli planes dropped leaflets over Beit Lahiya ordering residents who had not yet left their homes and shelters housing displaced families to quit the town completely.

“To all those who remained at homes and shelters, you are risking your lives. For your safety you have to head south,” said the leaflet, which was written in Arabic.

Palestinians said the new attacks and Israeli orders for people to evacuate were aimed at emptying areas to create buffer zones.

Israel says the evacuations are meant to keep civilians out of harm’s way as its troops battle Hamas fighters. Hundreds of Palestinian gunmen have been killed or captured in the area of Jabalia over the past month, the military says.

More than 43,300 Palestinians have been killed in more than a year of war in Gaza, health authorities in Gaza say, and much of the territory has been reduced to ruins.

The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Announcing plans for a rare transfer of patients out of Gaza, a World Health Organization official said more than 100 people would be evacuated from Gaza on Wednesday, including children suffering from trauma injuries and chronic diseases.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said at least seven people were killed on Tuesday during an Israeli military raid and airstrikes.

The Israeli military said its aircraft had targeted a group of gunmen and that its forces had arrested 60 militants.

Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, with almost daily sweeps by Israeli forces that have involved thousands of arrests and regular gunbattles between security forces and Palestinian fighters.

More than 100 patients set to be evacuated from Gaza

More than 100 patients, including children, will be transferred out of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday in a rare medical evacuation from the Palestinian enclave during the Israel-Hamas war, said a World Health Organization (WHO) official on Tuesday.

The WHO says fewer than 300 patients have been evacuated from Gaza since early May when Israel expanded its military offensive southwards and took over the southern Rafah Crossing with Egypt, which had been used for medical transfers.

Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said the patients, including children with trauma injuries and chronic diseases, would depart in a large convoy via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel.

Under arrangements made by the WHO, the patients would then fly to the United Arab Emirates from Ramon Airport in southern Israel, and some would travel on to Romania, he said.

“These are ad hoc measures. What we have requested repeatedly is a sustained medevac [medical evacuation] outside of Gaza,” Peeperkorn told a press conference.

Asked whether Israel had approved the transfer, he said he was hopeful it would be facilitated by Israeli authorities.

He said more than 12,000 people were awaiting transfer, adding: “We cannot continue the way we do now.

Israeli attack targets town in Syria’s Homs province

An Israeli attack targeted an industrial zone and some residential buildings in the town of Qusayr in Homs province in central Syria on Tuesday, Syrian state TV reported.

The outlet quoted the Homs province’s health director as saying there were no injuries as a result of the attack.

Israel’s military later issued a statement on the incident, saying it attacked ammunition depots used by Hezbollah’s weapons unit in Syria.

“Hezbollah’s munitions unit is responsible for the storage of weapons in Lebanon and has recently expanded its activities into Syria in the area of Qusayr. This is a further example of Hezbollah establishing logistical infrastructure to transfer weapons from Syria to Lebanon through smuggling routes,” said the statement.

A previous Israeli attack on Qusayr on Thursday wounded a number of civilians and caused material damage, state media reported.

Israel’s military said in reference to that attack that it had hit weapons storage facilities and command centres used by Hezbollah.

The Israeli military also said on Monday that it struck Hezbollah intelligence assets near the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Israel says it has been carrying out strikes to reduce the transfer of weapons from Iran through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

At least seven killed in Israeli raid and airstrikes on West Bank

At least seven people were killed on Tuesday during an Israeli military raid and airstrikes on the occupied West Bank, said the Palestinian health ministry.

Five of the seven people were killed in two separate Israeli attacks in and near the city of Qabatiya, while the two others were killed in the Tammoun area, said the ministry.

The Israeli military said its aircraft had targeted a group of gunmen and that its forces had arrested 60 militants.

The Islamic Jihad’s armed wing, Al-Quds Brigades, said its fighters had clashed with Israeli forces in both Qabatia and the Tamoun areas.

Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, with almost daily sweeps by Israeli forces that have involved thousands of arrests and regular gunbattles between security forces and Palestinian fighters.

Israel strikes south of Beirut and Lebanon’s Bekaa region

At least one Israeli airstrike hit an apartment building in a beach town south of Beirut on Tuesday, said Lebanese state media, as other deadly strikes hit scattered locations across the country and armed group Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel.

The attack on the beach town of Jiyyeh left a massive smoke column billowing out of an apartment building. It was not immediately clear if the strike was an assassination attempt, and no evacuation warning was given before it was carried out.

The Israeli military and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been exchanging fire for over a year in parallel with the Gaza war, but hostilities have escalated over the last six weeks. More than 3,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them since late September, according to health authorities.

Israeli strikes on Tuesday also killed five people near the city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley, including two killed in a strike on a car, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

Lebanon’s state news agency said on Tuesday that it estimated Israeli air strikes and widespread detonation of homes had destroyed more than 40,000 housing units in the country’s border region. DM

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