Israel-Hamas war: List of key events, day 59

Here’s what is to know about the situation on Monday, December 4, 2023:

Latest developments

• Six Thais who were being held captive in Gaza will return home on Monday, said Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• A flight carrying 29 wounded Palestinians landed at Tunis-Carthage airport on Sunday night, according to Tunisia’s TAP news agency.
• Yemen’s Houthi group said on Sunday that it targeted two Israeli ships with an armed drone and a naval missile, reported Reuters.
• The British Ministry of Defence said on Saturday that it will conduct surveillance flights over Gaza to help locate captives being held by Hamas.
• On Sunday, Israel’s military designated an estimated 20 percent area of Khan Younis for immediate evacuation. The marked area houses 21 shelters and 50,000 internally displaced persons, mostly from the north of Gaza, according to a report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Sunday.

Human impact and bombardment

• Israel targeted areas across the Gaza Strip overnight, including artillery shelling on Khan Younis in the south, according to Al Jazeera Arabic. A strike on a building in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah ignited a huge fire.
• Pre-dawn bombing across northern Gaza on Monday has killed a Palestine Red Crescent volunteer, the organisation announced. Two of its paramedics were also injured.
• A raid near Kamal Adwan Hospital in Jabalia killed four on Monday, reported Palestinian news agency Wafa.
• On Sunday, spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Israel’s military killed Hamas commander, Haitham Khuwajari. On Monday, he also announced that three Israeli soldiers were killed during fighting in Gaza on Sunday.
• Israeli forces have arrested at least 60 Palestinians in raids across the occupied West Bank Sunday overnight, according to reports from Al Jazeera Arabic and Wafa. In Jenin, Israeli snipers were spotted on the roofs of buildings, 30 armoured vehicles were patrolling, and a reconnaissance plane was seen flying over the area, according to Wafa.
• In 24 hours, from Saturday to Sunday, at least 316 people were killed and about 664 injured in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
• UN shelters across Gaza have witnessed a spike in infectious diseases such as diarrhoea and skin infections while only one hospital in the enclave has the capacity to take on complex surgery or critical trauma cases, according to OCHA on Sunday. One shelter in Gaza also reported a hepatitis A outbreak on Friday.

Diplomacy

• Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), will visit Gaza on Monday to appeal for the Red Cross to check on captives remaining in Gaza, according to The Jerusalem Post.
• United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani discussed the Israel-Gaza war in a phone call on Sunday. Blinken thanked Qatar for its captive release efforts and talked about securing the remaining ones while also increasing aid to Gaza, according to a White House readout of the call. The Qatari prime minister expressed concern over the “collective punishment” of Palestinians and mentioned the need for a ceasefire, according to Qatar News Agency.
• In an interview with Al Jazeera on Sunday, Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister, also called for an “immediate, comprehensive and impartial international investigation” into Israel’s military activities in Gaza.