Israel has begun the long and sorrowful process of burying the victims of the weekend’s attacks by Hamas. The most recent death toll in Israel stands at 1,200. Israel’s military spokesperson said the government has been able to confirm the identities of 97 people taken hostage into Gaza during the attack by Hamas. More than 100 are believed to have been taken.
More than 1,500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes since Saturday, Gaza’s health ministry said on Thursday. Among them are 500 children and 276 women, it said. A further 6,612 were wounded in Israeli airstrikes on the Palestinian enclave, the ministry said.
Israeli strikes have killed three journalists so far, and two others died as a result of gunshot wounds, according to Reporters without Borders. Some 12 workers with the UN Palestinian refugee agency have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, the organisation has said.
More than 338,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the Gaza Strip, the UN said on Thursday, as heavy Israeli bombardments continue to hit the Palestinian enclave.
The World Health Organization said it has documented 34 attacks on health care in Gaza since last Saturday that have resulted in the death of 11 health workers, 16 injuries, and damages to 19 health facilities and 20 ambulances. In a statement on Thursday, the WHO warned that the health system in the Gaza Strip is “at breaking point”, and that “time is running out to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe”.
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said the situation in the Gaza Strip is “dire” and “devastating” and warned that crucial supplies were running dangerously low after Israel imposed a total blockade on the territory. Israel’s energy minister, Israel Katz, said no power, water or fuel will be allowed into Gaza until Israeli hostages are returned home.
Human Rights Watch said it had concluded Israel used white phosphorus in military operations over the Gaza City port and two rural locations along the Israel-Lebanon border this week. Israel’s use of white phosphorus in crowded civilian areas “poses a high risk of excruciating burns and lifelong suffering” , the organisation warned.
A ground offensive will be launched on Gaza “when opportune and fit for our purposes”, the IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus said in an update early on Thursday.
The Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, said Gazans must “stay steadfast and remain on their land” amid growing calls for Cairo to allow safe passage to civilians fleeing Gaza. The only viable exit for Gazans to flee is through the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, but Egypt has rejected any move to set up safe corridors for refugees fleeing Gaza.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, spoke to the king of Jordan, Abdullah II, on Thursday. Abbas stressed “the rejection of … killing civilians or abusing them on both sides” and called for the release of civilians, prisoners and detainees.
Two police officers were wounded after a shooting attack near the Herod’s Gate entrance to the Jerusalem old city, Israeli police said. The gunman used a makeshift submachine gun in the attack, according to police. Officers returned fire and “neutralised” him, police said.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the attacks by Hamas had “harrowing echoes” of Nazi massacres, as he stood alongside the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem in an act of public solidarity. Blinken vowed that the US would stand for ever alongside Israel, and said he would use his tour of the region to urge all parties, especially Hezbollah, not to broaden the conflict or open a second front. The death toll of US citizens in Israel now stands at 27, the White House said on Thursday. The number of Americans unaccounted for is 14.
Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, warned that the “continuation of war crimes against Palestine and Gaza” could open a new front of war, and that Israel will be “responsible for the consequences”. Abdollahian arrived in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Thursday, where he was received by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Hamas.
Syria said Israeli forces launched simultaneous missile attacks on the airports in its capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo on Thursday. “Bursts of missiles” hit the two airports at the same time, a Syrian military source was cited as saying in what he said was a bid to distract the world’s attention from Israel’s war with Hamas militants in Gaza.
The UK will deploy patrol and surveillance aircraft and two Royal Navy ships to the eastern Mediterranean “to support Israel”, the government said. Maritime patrol and surveillance aircraft will begin flying in the region “to track threats to regional stability”, Downing Street said.
Emmanuel Macron said France is “doing everything possible” for the citizens missing in Israel, in a televised address on Thursday evening. “France will never abandon its children,” the French president said. Thirteen French citizens were killed in Hamas attacks on Israel at the weekend. Another 17, including children, are reported missing. Several are believed to be being held hostage in Gaza.
The US and Qatar have agreed to deny Iran’s access to any of the $6bn (£4.9bn) funds that were part of a prisoner swap deal between the Biden administration and Tehran last month, the US deputy treasury secretary, Wally Adeyemo, reportedly told House Democrats.
The British government is organising flights to repatriate British nationals from Israel, with the first due to leave from Tel Aviv on Thursday. British nationals will be invited to take up seats on the flights along with dual nationals, and dependants if travelling with a British national normally resident in the UK.
The British children of elderly hostages abducted by Hamas pleaded for their return as they described the invasion of Israel as a “second Holocaust”. Seventeen British nationals are feared dead or missing after the weekend’s atrocities.
Officials across Europe scrambled to curtail any spillover of tensions from the Israel-Hamas war, with Germany pledging a “zero tolerance” approach to antisemitism and France banning pro-Palestinian protests amid concerns for public order.
The EU has sent a second missive to Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly Twitter, over the alleged spread of illegal “terrorist and violent content” on the platform in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel on Saturday.
Two Jewish schools in north-west London are set to close temporarily because of safety fears after the crisis in Israel and Gaza, as ministers announced £3m for a charity that helps protect Jewish community sites.
