Workers on a mission to help colleagues were buried in mass grave in southern Gaza, says humanitarian office

Trump and Israeli officials have not said how they would respond if Palestinians refuse to leave. But Human Rights Watch and other groups say the plan, if implemented, would amount to “ethnic cleansing,” the forcible relocation of the civilian population of an ethnic group from a geographic area.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may whine all he likes about how U.S. President-elect Donald Trump made him do it. He is already selling the "I had no choice, we managed to postpone this for months" message to his ultranationalist, messianic, warmongering ruling coalition partners. But the truth is very clear: he has agreed to a deal he could and should have signed many months ago.

The deal that may – and still may not – be agreed and signed on Tuesday or Wednesday was on the table last May, again in July and practically ever since. But Mr. Netanyahu, in the name of "an existential war" that will produce a "total victory," waited for the U.S. election and then for the presidential inauguration before agreeing to a deal.

Explaining why he opposes the deal, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir specifically recalled how he previously prevented a deal by threatening Netanyahu, validating the claim that the prime minister's entire calculus was politically motivated. He never intended to end the war even when since-dismissed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the Israel Defense Forces stressed that all military goals had been achieved. The "strategic importance" of the Philadelphi corridor along the Gaza-Sinai border, meanwhile, was a bogus and cynical argument he had concocted.

elying on an academic consensus based on statements of experts on genocide, human rights, human rights law and Holocaust historians.

The IDF’s identification process is ongoing. In particular, the IDF is still trying to make an
accurate determination as to whether an additional 428 males between the ages of 16-50 (20% of
total fatalities and almost all of the unclassified fatalities) were involved or uninvolved in the
hostilities. Based on the IDF’s past experience, it is highly probable that in the upcoming months,
new information will surface demonstrating that some of these individuals were involved in combat
against Israel in the 2014 Gaza Conflict.

Only 11 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are even partially functional

"Within the series of Gaza wars stretching back to 2008, the current one is unprecedented both for the number of people killed and for the indiscriminateness of the killing," he adds.

Women and children account for nearly 70 percent of all deaths reported in Gaza even though most combatants are men — an
“extraordinary statistic,” Rick Brennan, the regional emergency director for the World Health Organization’s Eastern Mediterranean
office, said at an event this month.

experts estimate that as much as 40% of the housing in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed. The UN says 1.8 million people are internally displaced inside Gaza, many living in overcrowded UN shelters in the south

“Gaza: The Human Toll” captures the evolving humanitarian and health situation inside Gaza, understand how the conduct of the war is shaping outcomes, understand the policy and operational choices on the table, and think carefully about what may lie ahead.

Twenty of 36 hospitals no longer function; two thirds of primary health-care facilities closed; 108 attacks on health facilities

when Human Rights Watch has conducted its own investigations into individual strikes, “there have been no large discrepancies between those numbers and the numbers produced by the Gaza health ministry.”

International news agencies, including AP, as well as humanitarian workers and rights groups, have used the ministry’s numbers when independent verification is impossible.

“These figures are professionally done and have proven to be reliable,” said Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine director, adding he remained “cognizant of different blind spots and weaknesses” such as the failure to distinguish between civilians and combatants.