DEADLY Israeli air attacks have intensified in Gaza City and ground forces have advanced in the south of the city, killing at least 36 Palestinians across the enclave.
This is as Gaza’s Health Ministry has warned that patients are facing “certain death” as hospitals in the besieged territory may have to shutter vital departments within “a few days” due to fuel shortages.
Also, leaders of six countries, including France, have moved to recognise Palestinian statehood at a high-level summit before the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York.
Meanwhile, Israel has also ordered the indefinite closure of the King Hussein Bridge, also known as the Allenby Bridge, stopping the passage of goods and people through the only gateway between the occupied West Bank and Jordan, Palestinian authorities say.
Israel will close the bridge crossing starting on Wednesday until further notice, the Palestinian General Authority for Borders and Crossings said on Tuesday. The Jordanian Public Security Directorate also announced the closure, saying the crossing was being shut “to passenger and cargo traffic by the other side until further notice”.
The crossing, which is practically the only exit and entry point for Palestinians wishing to travel outside the West Bank, was opened on Sunday after it was temporarily closed following a deadly attack.
A Jordanian national travelling in a humanitarian aid truck killed two Israeli soldiers at the Israeli-controlled crossing last week. Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the shooting.
Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Sahut, reporting from Jordan’s capital, Amman, said: “There are a lot of questions up in the air as to why [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has decided to close the border entirely.”
“Some within Israeli media are reading it as one of the first countermeasures Israel is taking as a result of many countries in the international community recognising a Palestinian state,” said Sahut, who is reporting from Amman because Israel’s government has banned Al Jazeera from reporting inside Israel and the West Bank.
The crossing in the Jordan Valley, known as Karama on the Palestinian side, is the only international gateway for Palestinians from the West Bank that does not require entering Israel, which has occupied the territory since 1967.
Last week’s attack left Palestinians on edge as Israeli forces began a campaign of collective punishment, ordering the suspects’ homes in the West Bank demolished and their neighbours’ work permits revoked.
A week before the attack at the bridge, Israeli forces detained more than 100 Palestinians in raids in the West Bank city of Tulkarem and imposed a curfew.
Palestinians have to navigate hundreds of checkpoints and are often frisked by Israeli soldiers while travelling inside the West Bank, making their daily movements a harrowing and humiliating experience, campaigners said.
As the world’s focus has been on Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in the past two years, Israel has launched a crackdown on the West Bank, killing more than 1,000 Palestinians there, arresting thousands, and demolishing hundreds of homes and civic infrastructure.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 65,382 people and wounded 166,985 since October 2023. Thousands more are believed to be buried under the rubble. A total of 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7 attacks, and about 200 were taken captive.
