In Gaza, an Israeli air attack on a school turned shelter in central Deir al-Balah killed at least 28 people. Reporters describe chaotic scenes at Al-Aqsa Hospital, where victims — most of them women and children — are being treated.
Meanwhile, Israel is escalating its bloody siege on northern Gaza. Doctors at three hospitals are struggling to care for patients after Israel ordered their evacuation. Al Jazeera reports Israeli ground troops have surrounded Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia and are threatening staff and patients. Israel also ordered the evacuation of Al-Awda and Indonesian hospitals. The group Medical Aid for Palestinians says it has removed newborn babies from Kamal Adwan but that ambulances are being detained at military checkpoints as they attempt to reach Gaza City. The humanitarian group warned, “The world must act before Gaza is erased entirely.” The WHO also said it was prevented by Israel yesterday from carrying out the forced evacuations. Kamal Adwan doctors warn 30 infants in the neonatal unit will die if Israel does not end its attack. And UNRWA is warning “Gazans are yet again teetering on the edge of a man-made famine” as a result of Israel’s latest siege on northern Gaza.
Israel’s attacks on journalists continue, as well. On Wednesday, an airstrike on the Jabaliya refugee camp killed Al-Aqsa cameraman Mohammed al-Tanani and injured the reporter Tamer Lubbad. Al Jazeera Arabic camera operator Fadi al-Wahidi was also injured while covering attacks on Jabaliya, shot in the neck by an Israeli quadcopter. This is his colleague, journalist Anas al-Sharif, detailing the attack.
Anas al-Sharif: “Suddenly, a quadcopter drone appeared above the broadcast vehicle and the place where we were, and it started firing directly at us, at the broadcast vehicle and at the colleagues and team who were with me. My colleague Fadi was next to me, so we started running. As soon as we began to run from the location, the drone started chasing us and the entire crew, firing directly at us. A bullet hit my colleague Fadi’s neck directly, and he immediately passed out and fell to the ground.”
Another Al Jazeera cameraman, Ali al-Attar, also remains in critical condition after being shot earlier this week while reporting in Deir al-Balah.
In Khan Younis, Israel killed at least five members of the same family, three of them children, including a 7-month-old baby. This comes as a new report by the International Rescue Committee reveals over 50,000 Palestinian children in Gaza have been orphaned or separated from their parents over the past year.
Israeli attacks on the occupied West Bank are also ongoing, killing at least five Palestinians Wednesday, including the leader of the group Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade in Nablus. Separately, new U.N. data show there was an average of four incidents of settler violence every day against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 7, 2023.
Israel’s bombardment of southern Lebanon killed five paramedics Wednesday. Israel has killed at least 115 health workers in Lebanon over the past several weeks. The U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon called for an immediate halt to attacks to create space for a political solution.
Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert: “The joint call for a 21-day ceasefire, as launched by the U.S. or led by the U.S. and France, I think is still on the table and very relevant, and so we should not dismiss it. I don’t think that new initiatives will add to it. I mean, the many appeals and calls for a ceasefire are crystal clear. We need a window for diplomatic efforts to succeed.”
Over 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced since Israel launched its deadly campaign.
Ali Shoeib: “I have been here from the south for eight days. I sent my family two to three days before me. My wife gave birth, so I came here for my family. I will go back south again. We will not leave our land. It is an expensive land. We are offering martyrs. We are offering blood.”
Israel has also launched more strikes in Syria targeting Homs and Hama provinces.
Israel is expected to launch an imminent attack on Iran, after Tehran struck Israeli military bases with ballistic missiles on October 1. Iran’s attacks, which targeted Israeli security sites, came amid Israel’s escalating attacks and acts of terror against Lebanon, and after its assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. This is Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Yoav Gallant: “Whoever attacks us will be hurt and will pay a price. Our attack will be deadly, precise and, above all, surprising. They will not understand what happened and how it happened. They will see the results.”
On Wednesday, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in their first call in nearly two months. A White House readout of the call highlights Biden’s statement of his “ironclad” support for Israel. It makes no mention of ceasefire.
More than 3 million customers in Florida are without power after Hurricane Milton made landfall in Sarasota County Wednesday evening as a Category 3 storm with 120-mile-an-hour winds. Multiple deaths were confirmed after tornadoes tore through a senior center in Fort Pierce. One hundred sixteen tornado warnings were issued across Florida on Wednesday. In St. Petersburg, the storm ripped the roof off of Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team. A massive crane also collapsed in downtown St. Petersburg. Ahead of making landfall, President Biden warned Milton could be “the storm of the century,” and Tampa’s mayor called the scale of evacuation “unprecedented.”
Milton comes just two weeks after Hurricane Helene battered Florida and other southeastern states, killing at least 230 people. A new analysis by the group World Weather Attribution finds the burning of fossil fuels has made highly destructive storms like Helene more than twice as likely. Florida climate activists have declared Republican Governor Ron DeSantis unfit to lead the state since his policies promote fossil fuels, reject sustainable energy options and ignore the climate crisis.
Meanwhile, officials, including Florida Republicans, are working to combat misinformation about the storms pushed by their fellow Republicans, including the recent assertion by far-right Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene that the government is “controlling the weather.” We’ll go to Florida after headlines for the latest on Hurricane Milton.
A new report by the World Wide Fund for Nature reveals wildlife populations have declined by over 70% on average over the past half-century. The Living Planet Report warns key habitats like the Amazon are reaching “tipping points,” with “catastrophic consequences” for many species. This is Dr. Robin Freeman from the Zoological Society of London, which produces the Living Planet Index.
Robin Freeman: “This year’s Living Planet Report is the most comprehensive dataset we’ve collected to date. We’ve got almost 35,000 populations of 5,400 species. And using that dataset, we’ve estimated that populations have declined by an average of 73% since 1970. … The combination of climate change, habitat loss and biodiversity loss are things that we need to get on top of, because they’re mixed-up problems that need to be dealt with together.”
The report comes just 10 days before the next major U.N. Biodiversity Conference, dubbed COP16, is set to begin in Cali, Colombia.
A new report from Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse confirms then-President Trump significantly curtailed the FBI’s 2018 investigation into Brett Kavanaugh as his confirmation to become a Supreme Court justice hung in the balance. After Christine Blasey Ford testified that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her at a party when they were high school students, Trump approved a one-week-long FBI investigation into the allegations amid a public uproar over Kavanaugh’s nomination. But despite claims by Trump that the FBI had “free rein” in their probe, his staff ordered the FBI to only interview 10 witnesses and not to pursue the many tips or offers of corroborating evidence the agency received. Lawyers for Blasey Ford said the report confirmed the 2018 investigation was a “sham effort directed by the Trump White House to silence brave victims.”
This year’s Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to South Korean author Han Kang “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” Han Kang, author of “The Vegetarian” and “The White Book,” is the first South Korean author and just the 18th woman to win the prestigious award since it was inaugurated in 1901.
In a blow to the student Palestinian solidarity movement, Brown University voted against divesting from 10 companies that are complicit in Israel’s occupation of — and war on — Palestinian territories. In a social media post condemning the news, the Brown Divest Coalition warned, “All settler colonial institutions will fail.” Students across the country are marking a Week of Rage with die-ins, walkouts and other actions to protest one year of genocide in Gaza and Israel’s escalating war on Lebanon.