Closing summary
This is where we’ll wrap up this blog – we’ll continue our rolling live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war on a new blog here. Thanks for joining us.
Here’s a look at where things stand at it approaches 7am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv.
At least 15 people were killed and 60 injured after an Israeli strike on a convoy of ambulances near the beseiged territory’s biggest hospital, al-Shifa, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said. Israeli forces on Friday targeted the convoy “transporting the wounded” from Gaza City towards Rafah in the south, according to the Hamas government in Gaza. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said its ambulance was struck by a missile fired by Israeli forces. The Israel Defense Forces said it carried out an airstrike on an ambulance it said was being used by Hamas, and that “a number of Hamas terrorist operatives” were killed. The World Health Organisation director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “utterly shocked” by reports of attacks on ambulances evacuating patients.
Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed at least 9,227 Palestinians, including 3,826 children, since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said on Friday. The Israeli offensive on Gaza followed attacks launched by Hamas into Israel on 7 October which killed 1,400 people.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned it cannot provide safety to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians “sheltering under a UN flag”. More than 50 UN facilities have been “impacted” by the conflict – including “five direct hits” – and 38 people had died in UN shelters, Thomas White, the director of UNRWA affairs, said on Friday. “Let’s be very clear, there is no place that is safe in Gaza right now.”
UNRWA “is practically out of business”, the UN’s humanitarian chief said on Friday, as he paid tribute to at least 72 UNRWA staff killed in Gaza since 7 October. Martin Griffiths told UN member states in New York that what had unfolded over the past 26 days of conflict “is nothing short of … a blight on our collective conscience”.
The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah has said his powerful militia is engaged in cross-border fighting with Israel and has threatened further “realistic escalation”. Hassan Nasrallah stopped short of announcing that Hezbollah had fully joined the Israel-Hamas war but warned that fighting on the Lebanon-Israel border would not be limited to the scale seen so far. The White House said Hezbollah should not try to take advantage of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Talks are being held on a “very significant” pause in the Israel-Hamas war to win the release of hostages taken by Hamas, Agence France-Presse quoted a senior US official as saying. “It is something that is under a very serious and active discussion. But there is no agreement as of yet to actually get this done,” the official said on Friday. Reuters quoted a US official saying there was “indirect engagement” aimed at finding a way to get the hostages out and “it’s something we’re working on extremely hard”, but there was “absolutely no guarantee” it would happen. An estimated 240 Israeli and foreign hostages were kidnapped by Hamas during its 7 October assault.
Israel will continue its offensive in Gaza “with full force” and refuse any temporary ceasefire that does not include the release of the hostages held by Hamas, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said, rejecting US calls for a pause in the fighting. “I made clear that we are continuing full force and that Israel refuses a temporary ceasefire which does not include the release of our hostages,” he said on Friday.
Israeli forces have surrounded Gaza City and are attacking Hamas infrastructure and destroying tunnels used by militants to launch attacks, the Israeli military said on Friday. Airstrikes continued alongside the intensifying ground offensive in what Netanyahu described as the second stage of the war.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, flew into Israel on Friday to urge Netanyahu to temporarily stop Israel’s military offensive to allow aid into the territory. The US’s top diplomat applied the greatest pressure yet on the Israeli government to rethink its strategy in Gaza, calling for localised humanitarian pauses and insisting Israel cannot achieve long-term security solely through military means.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, saying “crimes against humanity” are being committed in Gaza. “There is no concept that could explain or excuse the brutality that we have witnessed since 7 October,” Erdogan said during a summit of Turkic states in the Kazakh capital, Astana.
France has reacted with “astonishment” and “incomprehension” after it said that an Israeli airstrike had hit the Institut Français in Gaza, and that the Gaza office of Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency was also hit. AFP said its Gaza City office was significantly damaged by a strike on the building on Thursday. No injuries have been reported.
Israeli forces on Friday killed six Palestinians in raids across the West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, as violence surged in the occupied territory in tandem with the Gaza war. The Israeli army said its forces were “operating against Hamas” across the West Bank, with operations in Jenin and the northern city of Nablus.
The US has confirmed for the first time that it has been flying unarmed surveillance drones over Gaza. The flights were “in support of hostage recovery efforts”, the Pentagon said.
The first people in a group of about 100 Britons due to leave Gaza on Friday have made the crossing into Egypt, amid concerns about whether individuals in the north of the Palestinian territory will be able to make it to the southern Rafah crossing. By Friday, there were 127 people on the UK list to be evacuated into Egypt since the crossing opened on Wednesday. The parents-in-law of Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, were among the Britons able to leave Gaza. It is understood hundreds of British nationals remain trapped in Gaza.
The White House has said 100 American citizens and family members left Gaza on Thursday. Another large group of Americans were expected to leave the territory on Friday, it said.
Thirty-four French citizens were evacuated from the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to the French foreign ministry.
Doctors and aid workers in Gaza say they have been abandoned by the international community to a “humanitarian tragedy” as they “fight to survive” after almost four weeks of war.
Thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza who were stranded in Israel when war broke out last month have been deported back to the war-torn strip after being expelled by the Israeli government. The UN Human Rights Office said it was “deeply concerned” about the expulsions.
Rishi Sunak has described pro-Palestinian protests planned for London on Armistice Day as “provocative and disrespectful”. The UK prime minister’s intervention on Friday came as two women pictured at a pro-Palestinian march in London carrying photos of paragliders have been charged with terrorism offences.
Five people have been arrested during a pro-Palestinian sit-in at King’s Cross station in London after the demonstration was banned. On Friday evening, scores of people could still be seen outside King’s Cross station on social media.
Updated
In case you missed it earlier: five people were arrested during a pro-Palestinian sit-in at King’s Cross station in London after the demonstration was banned.
The transport secretary, Mark Harper, said he had given an order to allow police to stop the demonstration on Friday evening and later announced that protesters would also be prevented from gathering outside the Israeli embassy in London over the weekend.
On Friday evening scores of people could still be seen outside King’s Cross station on social media. One video posted on X (formerly Twitter) appears to show a man draped in a Palestinian flag shouting “free, free Palestine” while being carried away from the station by three officers.
See the full story here:
Meanwhile, the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has described pro-Palestinian protests planned for London on Armistice Day as “provocative and disrespectful”.
Beneath the surface of the war between Israel and Hamas, another conflict rages. In this clash, the battle lines are drawn in a very different place, and the alliances and enmities take unexpected shapes. We got a glimpse of it this week – and when the current violence subsides, we shall see it even more starkly.
Right now, that moment – what diplomats and others refer to as “the day after” – seems a long way off, though the visit to Israel on Friday of the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, suggests that Washington is already looking at its watch: proof that even some of Israel’s staunchest allies are alarmed by the mounting loss of life in Gaza.
It goes to the poisonous, often-overlooked dynamic that has been present in the Israel-Palestine conflict for decades, and which will matter again when the current chapter ends. For then we’ll see that the contest that matters most is the battle of hardliners v moderates, or, to be more specific, maximalists v partitionists: those who insist on having the whole land for themselves v those who are ready to share it.
To read the full analysis on how it could play out, click here.
Updated
The average Palestinian in Gaza is living on two pieces of Arabic bread made from flour the UN had stockpiled in the region, but the main refrain now heard in the street is “Water, water”, the Gaza director for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said.
The Associated Press reports that Thomas White said he had travelled “the length and breadth of Gaza in the last few weeks” and described the place as a “scene of death and destruction”.
No place was safe now, he said, and people feared for their lives, their future and their ability to feed their families.
The Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) was supporting about 89 bakeries across Gaza, aiming to get bread to 1.7 million people, White told diplomats from the UN’s 193 member nations in a video briefing from Gaza.
But, he said, “now people are beyond looking for bread – it’s looking for water”.
UN deputy Middle East coordinator Lynn Hastings, who is also the humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said only one of three water supply lines from Israel was operational.
Many people are relying on brackish or saline ground water, if at all.
In case you missed this earlier: thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza who were stranded in Israel when the war broke out last month have been deported back to the war-torn strip after being expelled by the Israeli government.
A Guardian reporter in Rafah, on the southern edge of the strip, saw a steady stream of men of all ages with no phones, money or identity cards enter the territory on Friday morning via the Kerem Shalom crossing for commercial goods, having walked about 2km from the Israeli side of the border.
Mada Masr, an independent Egyptian news outlet, said about 3,200 people had been sent back through the checkpoint, which is controlled by Israel and Egypt.
The UN Human Rights Office said it was “deeply concerned” about the expulsions.
You can read the full story from Bethan McKernan and Rory Carroll here:
Australia’s foreign minister has called for a renewed international effort to find a two-state solution to end the cycle of violence in the Middle East, arguing that Israel can only find peace and security if it can do the same for Palestinians.
Writing for Guardian Australia, Penny Wong outlines the Labor government’s position in the strongest terms yet, saying that the “status quo is failing everyone” and that the only alternative is to find a “durable peace” through a political process.
While condemning “unequivocally” the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October and affirming Australia’s support for Israel’s right to defend itself, she adds that the way in which Israel does so matters.
As Australians who treasure our peaceful community and aspire to ever greater unity as a nation, we mourn every innocent life which has been lost in this conflict.
In Israel’s response to those attacks, thousands of Palestinians have been killed, including more than 3,500 children, as reported by Unicef. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens by the day.
Israel must “exercise restraint and protect civilian lives”, Wong says, as it continues its military action to defeat a “craven terrorist group that has burrowed itself in civilian infrastructure”, and which she says is using civilians as a shield.
The full story from Martin Farrer and Paul Karp is here:
Palestinian Red Crescent condemns deadly strike on Gaza ambulance
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has condemned the targeting of a convoy of ambulances in Gaza by Israeli forces on Friday, which it says killed 15 people and wounded more than 60 others.
The PRCS said in a statement early on Saturday that one of its ambulances was struck “by a missile fired by the Israeli forces” about two metres from the entrance to the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Agence France-Presse reports.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 15 civilians and wounded 60 other people, the PRCS said, mirroring figures released earlier by the Hamas-run health ministry.
Another ambulance, belonging to the health ministry, was “directly targeted” by a missile about a kilometre from the hospital, causing injuries and damage, it said.
The PRCS, part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, added that deliberately targeting medical teams constituted “a grave violation of the Geneva Conventions, a war crime”.
Israel’s military said it had launched an air strike on “an ambulance that was identified by forces as being used by a Hamas terrorist cell in close proximity to their position in the battle zone”.
“A number of Hamas terrorist operatives were killed in the strike,” a military statement said.
An AFP journalist at the scene of the attack saw multiple bodies beside the damaged ambulance outside the hospital, which is overcrowded with civilians seeking shelter from Israeli bombing as well as those wounded.
Updated
Blinken in Jordan to meet King Abdullah
US secretary of state Antony Blinken is to meet Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Saturday after leaving Israel empty-handed in his efforts to secure humanitarian pauses in its war to destroy Hamas, Agence France-Presse reports.
Blinken arrived late on Friday in Amman, where he will also join a meeting of foreign ministers of five Arab countries which will be attended by a representative of the Palestinian Authority (PA) led by president Mahmud Abbas, a rival of Hamas.
In Israel, Blinken discussed with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu the idea of “humanitarian pauses” to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas and to allow aid to be distributed to the Gaza Strip population.
But after meeting Blinken on Friday, Netanyahu said there could be no “temporary truce” in Gaza unless Hamas released the hostages it held.
Updated
The day after an explosion that seriously damaged Agence France-Presse’s office in Gaza, the Israeli army claimed on Friday that it carried out a strike “nearby” to the news agency’s bureau without having “in any way” targeted it, the agency reports.
AFP is the only one of the world’s three major international news agencies currently operating a live video feed from Gaza City which has not been interrupted despite the damage, seen by an AFP employee on Friday.
The unmanned AFP camera broadcasting live 24/7 captured the moment of the strike, a few minutes before midday (1000 GMT) on Thursday.
An AFP employee who visited the office on Friday said an explosive projectile appeared to have entered the technician’s office in the bureau horizontally from east to west.
The strike destroyed the wall opposite the window and caused significant damage to the adjacent room and other doors. It also punctured water tanks on the roof.
An Israeli military spokesman initially said it had “checked [the report] multiple times”.
“There was no IDF [Israel Defense Forces] strike on the building” in Gaza, he told AFP.
Following further questioning by AFP, the army said it had carried out a strike near the building.
'Significant' pause in fighting discussed to secure hostages' release, says US
Talks are being held on a “very significant” pause in the Israel-Hamas war to win the release of hostages taken Hamas, Agence France-Presse is quoting a senior US official as saying.
“It is something that is under a very serious and active discussion. But there is no agreement as of yet to actually get this done,” the official said on Friday.
Reuters quoted a US official saying there was “indirect engagement” aimed at finding a way to get the hostages out but that the work was extremely difficult.
It’s something we’re working on extremely hard.
An estimated 240 Israeli and foreign hostages were kidnapped by Hamas during its 7 October assault that killed more than 1,400 people, according to Israeli officials.
A US official said “nobody knows” the exact number of hostages, adding that it was “well over 100 and maybe over 200”. To get that many people out “is going to require a fairly significant pause in hostilities”.
But the official warned:
There’s absolutely no guarantee a) that is going to happen or b) when it’s going to happen.
Israel and the US have both previously ruled out a blanket ceasefire, which they say would allow Hamas to regroup and resupply, but US president Joe Biden has backed “temporary, localised” pauses.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there can be no “temporary truce” in Gaza unless Hamas releases the hostages.
Updated
More on the airstrike on a Gaza ambulance: video shared on social media, which Reuters has verified, showed people lying in blood next to the vehicle with flashing lights on a city street as people rushed to help.
Another video showed three ambulances standing in a line, with about a dozen people lying either motionless or barely moving next to them, the news agency reports. Blood was pooled nearby.
As we’ve reported, the World Health Organisation director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a social media post he was “utterly shocked by reports of attacks on ambulances evacuating patients”, adding that patients, health workers and medical facilities must be protected.
Israel’s military has said it hit an ambulance “being used by a Hamas terrorist cell” and that Hamas fighters were killed in the northern Gaza strike. Hamas said its fighters were not present.
Israel’s military said in a statement: “We emphasise that this area is a battle zone. Civilians in the area are repeatedly called upon to evacuate southwards for their own safety.”
Earlier on Friday, Ashraf al-Qidra, a spokesperson for Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, said ambulances would send critically injured Palestinians who urgently needed to be taken to Egypt to be treated from besieged Gaza City to the south of the territory.
Updated
Fifteen killed in Israeli strike on Gaza ambulance, says Gazan ministry
The Israeli air strike on an ambulance being used to evacuate the wounded from besieged northern Gaza on Friday killed 15 and injured 60, the Hamas-controlled territory’s health ministry said.
Reuters reports Israel’s military said it had identified and hit an ambulance “being used by a Hamas terrorist cell”. It said Hamas fighters were killed in the strike, and accused the group of transferring militants and weapons in ambulances.
Hamas official Izzat El Reshiq said allegations its fighters were present were “baseless”.
Ashraf al-Qidra, a spokesperson for Gaza’s health ministry, said the ambulance was part of a convoy that Israel targeted near Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital.
Qidra said Israel had targeted the convoy of ambulances in more than one location, including at al-Shifa Hospital gate and at Ansar Square a kilometre (0.6 miles) away.
In a statement on the incident, Israel’s military gave no evidence to support its assertion that the ambulance was linked to Hamas but said it intended to release additional information.
This is Adam Fulton picked up our rolling live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. It’s just passed 2.20am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s 2am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s where we stand:
Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed at least 9,227 Palestinians, including 3,826 children, since 7 October, the Hamas-run health ministry said on Friday. The Israeli offensive on Gaza followed terrorist attacks launched by Hamas into Israel on 7 October which killed 1,400 people.
At least 15 people were killed and 60 injured after an Israeli strike on a convoy of ambulances near the beseiged territory’s biggest hospital, al-Shifa, Gaza’s health ministry said. The Hamas government in Gaza said Israeli forces on Friday targeted “a convoy of ambulances which was transporting the wounded” from Gaza City towards Rafah in the south. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PCRS) said its ambulance, carrying an injured 35-year-old, was struck by a missile fired by Israeli forces. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it carried out an airstrike on an ambulance which it said was being used by Hamas, adding that “a number of Hamas terrorist operatives” were killed in the strike. It gave no evidence to support its assertion. The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) said he was “utterly shocked” by reports of attacks on ambulances evacuating patients close to al-Shifa hospital.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned that they cannot provide safety to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians “sheltering under a UN flag”. More than 50 UN facilities have been “impacted” by the conflict, including “five direct hits” and 38 people had died in UN shelters, Thomas White, director of UNRWA affairs, said on Friday, adding: “Let’s be very clear, there is no place that is safe in Gaza right now.”
UNRWA “is practically out of business”, the UN’s humanitarian chief said on Friday, as he paid tribute to at least 72 UNRWA staff who have been killed in the Gaza Strip since 7 October. In a briefing to UN member states in New York, Martin Griffiths said that what has unfolded over the last 26 days of conflict “is nothing short of … a blight on our collective conscience”.
Israeli forces have surrounded Gaza City and are attacking Hamas infrastructure and destroying tunnels used by militants to launch attacks, the Israeli military said on Friday. Airstrikes continued alongside the intensifying ground offensive in what Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, described as the second stage of the war.
Israel will continue its offensive in Gaza “with full force” and will refuse any temporary ceasefire that does not include the release of more than 240 hostages held by Hamas, Benjamin Netanyahu has said, rejecting US calls for a pause in the fighting. “I made clear that we are continuing full force and that Israel refuses a temporary ceasefire which does not include the release of our hostages,” the Israeli prime minister said on Friday.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, flew into Israel on Friday to urge the Israeli prime minister to temporarily stop its military offensive to allow aid into the territory. The US’s top diplomat applied the greatest pressure yet on the Israeli government to rethink its strategy in Gaza, calling for localised humanitarian pauses and insisting Israel cannot achieve long-term security solely through military means.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, saying “crimes against humanity” are being committed in Gaza. “There is no concept that could explain or excuse the brutality that we have witnessed since 7 October,” Erdogan said during a summit of Turkic states in the Kazakh capital, Astana.
France has reacted with “astonishment” and “incomprehension” after it said that an Israeli airstrike had hit the Institut Français in Gaza, and that the Gaza office of Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency was also hit. AFP said its Gaza City office was significantly damaged by a strike on the building on Thursday. No injuries have been reported.
The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah has said his powerful militia is engaged in cross-border fighting with Israel and has threatened further “realistic escalation”. Hassan Nasrallah stopped short of announcing that Hezbollah had fully joined the Israel-Hamas war but warned that fighting on the Lebanon-Israel border would not be limited to the scale seen so far. Hezbollah should not try to take advantage of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the White House said.
Israeli forces on Friday killed six Palestinians in raids across the West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, as violence surged in the occupied territory in tandem with the Gaza war. The Israeli army said its forces were “operating against Hamas” across the West Bank, with operations in Jenin and the northern city of Nablus.
The US has confirmed for the first time that it has been flying unarmed surveillance drones over Gaza. “In support of hostage recovery efforts, the US is conducting unarmed UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] flights over Gaza, as well as providing advice and assistance to support our Israeli partner as they work on their hostage recovery efforts,” Pentagon spokesperson Brig Gen Pat Ryder said on Friday.
The first people in a group of about 100 Britons due to leave Gaza on Friday have made the crossing into Egypt, amid concerns about whether individuals in the north of the Palestinian territory will be able to make it to the southern Rafah crossing. By Friday, there were 127 people on the UK list to be evacuated into Egypt since the crossing opened on Wednesday. The parents-in-law of Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, were among the Britons able to leave Gaza. It is understood hundreds of British nationals remain trapped in Gaza.
The White House has said 100 American citizens and family members left Gaza on Thursday. Another large group of Americans are expected to leave Gaza on Friday, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters.
Thirty-four French citizens were evacuated from the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to the French foreign ministry.
Doctors and aid workers in Gaza say they have been abandoned by the international community to a “humanitarian tragedy” as they “fight to survive” after almost four weeks of war between Israel and Hamas.
Thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza who were stranded in Israel when war broke out last month have been deported back to the war-torn strip after being expelled by the Israeli government. The UN Human Rights Office said it was “deeply concerned” about the expulsions.
Rishi Sunak has described pro-Palestinian protests planned for London on Armistice Day as “provocative and disrespectful”. The UK prime minister’s intervention on Friday came as two women pictured at a pro-Palestinian march in London carrying photos of paragliders have been charged with terrorism offences.
Five people have been arrested during a pro-Palestinian sit-in at King’s Cross station in London after the demonstration was banned. On Friday evening, scores of people could still be seen outside King’s Cross station on social media.
Jewish people in Britain have experienced the worst wave of hate incidents in modern times with more than 1,000 recorded after the Hamas massacres in Israel, experts in countering antisemitism have said.
Updated
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PCRS) has accused Israeli forces of targeting a convoy of ambulances which it said was transporting injured Palestinians towards the Rafah border crossing into Egypt.
In a statement, the PCRS – which is part of the International Red Cross – said a convoy of five ambulances departed from al-Shifa hospital at approximately 4pm on Friday towards the southern area of the Gaza Strip. The ambulances then had to turn back towards the hospital, after finding the road blocked by rubble and rocks from shelling, it said.
During the return, at a distance of not more that 1 KM away from Al-Shifa hospital, the leading ambulance (belonging to [Ministry of Health]) in the convoy was directly targeted by a missile, resulting in its immediate and direct damage, as well as injuring its crew and the injured inside.
The statement said the other ambulances – one of which belonged to the PCRS – continued towards al-Shifa hospital. It said that its ambulance was struck by a missile fired by Israeli forces “only at a distance of about two meters” from the gate of al-Shifa hospital. It said the ambulance was carrying an injured 35-year-old who was destined to receive medical treatment in an Egyptian hospital.
The strike resulted in the deaths of 15 civilians and more than 60 were wounded, the PCRS said. It added that a medic sustained minor shrapnel injuries to the leg and bruises, and that the ambulance driver suffered chest bruises and “extreme panic”.
🔴 PRCS Statement on The Israeli Occupation Forces shelling of the Ambulance Convoy transporting the injured from the aggression on #Gaza towards Rafah crossing border on November 3rd 2023. pic.twitter.com/pzVEMeOo23
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 3, 2023
US flying unarmed drones over Gaza in search of hostages
The US has confirmed for the first time that it has been flying unarmed surveillance drones over Gaza.
In a statement on Friday, Pentagon spokesperson Brig Gen Pat Ryder said:
In support of hostage recovery efforts, the US is conducting unarmed UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] flights over Gaza, as well as providing advice and assistance to support our Israeli partner as they work on their hostage recovery efforts.
The US began flying UAV flights after the 7 October attack by Hamas on Israel, he added.
Honduras has recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultations on what it described as the “serious humanitarian situation” facing Palestinians in Gaza.
Honduras’s foreign minister, Enrique Rein, posted to social media:
Amid the serious humanitarian situation the Palestinian civilian population suffers in the Gaza Strip, the government … has decided to immediately call Mr. Roberto Martinez, Ambassador of the Republic of Honduras in Israel, to consultations in Tegucigalpa.
Ante la grave situación humanitaria que sufre la población civil palestina en la franja de Gaza, él Gobierno de la Presidenta @XiomaraCastroZ ha decidido llamar inmediatamente a consultas a Tegucigalpa al Señor Roberto Martinez, Embajador de la República de Honduras en Israel.
— Enrique Reina (@EnriqueReinaHN) November 3, 2023
The decision follows similar moves from other Latin American countries to register diplomatic protests against Israel in response to its latest conflict with Hamas.
Bolivia’s leftwing government earlier this week announced that it was cutting ties entirely and attributing its decision to alleged war crimes and human rights abuses being committed in the Gaza Strip.
Hours later, the governments of Chile and Colombia recalled their ambassadors from Israel, while Brazil’s president criticised the continued airstrikes on Gaza.
Updated
Protesters demanding a ceasefire in the Israeli war in Gaza blocked a US military ship from leaving the Port of Oakland by locking themselves to the ship.
At least three individuals scaled the Cape Orlando, which protesters believed was bound for Israel after being loaded with weapons and military equipment, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Lara Kiswani, the Palestinian executive director of the Arab Resource & Organizing Center, which helped organise the protest, insisted the ship is meant to carry weapons.
“We came here to demand an immediate ceasefire,” she told the paper, adding that the group wanted Oakland’s leaders “to stop this genocide”.
Union officials and subcontractors working around the ship said it was empty and has been “dead” for 17 years.
Updated
A senior Israeli government adviser has said al-Shifa hospital – a large hospital in Gaza – is a “legitimate target” for Israeli forces.
Mark Regev, a former Israeli ambassador to London and currently the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s adviser, told Channel 4 that Israel believes that Hamas has “established its command and control” under the hospital.
Israel has previously claimed that Hamas is using civilians as human shields in Gaza by placing parts of its military tunnel system and command network under civilian objects including Gaza City’s Dar al-Shifa hospital.
Regev was speaking after Israeli forces attacked an ambulance at al-Shifa hospital that it claimed “was identified by forces as being used by a Hamas terrorist cell.”
Gaza’s health ministry said Israel had targeted “a convoy carrying injured people in ambulance vehicles” leaving al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. It said the attack killed 15 people and injured 60 others.
Even if Hamas were using the ambulance to commit harmful acts, Israel’s attack may not necessarily have been legitimate under the laws of war, Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the US programme at the International Crisis Group, told the Washington Post.
Given the apparent civilian harm caused by the strike adjacent to al-Shifa hospital, this attack raises serious questions about compliance with the law of war, including but not limited to how the IDF is assessing excessive harm to civilians when striking targets it regards as lawful.
Updated
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said 47 additional aid trucks arrived in the Gaza Strip via the Rafah border crossing from Egypt.
The trucks were loaded with foodstuffs, water bottles, medical supplies and tents, the PRCS said, adding:
No fuel, however, was allowed into Gaza so far.
Updated
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said Israel has the right and obligation to defend itself after he visited the country earlier today.
Blinken held meetings with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and other senior officials, as well as the opposition leader, Yair Lapid.
I met with Israeli Opposition Leader @yairlapid to reiterate the United States’ commitment to Israel and its right to defend itself, as well as work to secure the release of hostages and further a two-state solution. pic.twitter.com/yybB7j9fRF
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) November 3, 2023
Blinken arrived in Jordan on Friday after departing Tel Aviv earlier in the day.
Jordan’s foreign ministry said the US secretary of state will hear demands for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza when he meets Middle East foreign ministers on Saturday.
Saudi, Qatari, Emirati, Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers as well as Palestinian representatives will stress the “Arab stance calling for an immediate ceasefire, delivering humanitarian aid and ways of ending the dangerous deterioration that threatens the security of the region”, the ministry said in a statement, Reuters reported.
The Arab ministers will hold a meeting before their discussions with Blinken, the statement said.
Updated
UN agency for Palestinian refugees is 'practically out of business', says UN humanitarian chief
The UN’s humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, said that what has unfolded over the last 26 days of conflict in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories “is nothing short of … a blight on our collective conscience”.
In a briefing to UN member states in New York on Friday, Griffiths recalled that 1,400 Israelis and nearly 9,000 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October. The true number will only be known after the rubble is cleared from Gaza, he said.
He said the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which provides humanitarian resources in the Gaza Strip, is “practically out of business”.
UNRWA – the bulwark, the safety net, the buffer of so many people of Gaza for so many years – is practically out of business.
He paid tribute to the at least 72 UNRWA staff who have been killed in the Gaza Strip since 7 October.
"@UNRWA, the bulwark, the safety net, the buffer of so many people of Gaza for so many years is practically out of business" - OCHA Chief, Martin Griffiths pic.twitter.com/GwAcgfjcZ1
— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) November 3, 2023
Updated
UNRWA says it 'cannot provide safety' to 600,000 people in Gaza 'sheltering under a UN flag'
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians sheltering in UN facilities in Gaza that they cannot provide them safety.
More than 50 UN facilities have been “impacted” by the conflict, including “five direct hits”, Thomas White, director of UNRWA affairs, said from its Rafah logistics base.
More than 1.5 million people are now displaced in Gaza and nearly 600,000 are crowded in shelters run by the UN agency.
Although people are sheltering under the UN flag seeking protection under international humanitarian law, “the reality is we cannot even provide them safety under a UN flag”, White said.
He said 38 people had died in UN shelters, and that he feared that “that number is going to grow significantly”. He added:
Let’s be very clear, there is no place that is safe in Gaza right now.
At least 72 UNRWA staff have been killed in the Gaza Strip since 7 October, according to the agency. It is the highest number of UN aid workers killed in a conflict in such a short space of time, it said.
Leftwing Democrats in Congress have invoked a landmark law barring assistance to security forces of governments deemed guilty of human rights abuses to challenge the Biden administration’s emergency military aid program for Israel.
Members of the Democratic party’s progressive wing say the $14.3bn package pledged by the White House after the 7 October attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,400 Israelis breaches the Leahy Act because Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has overwhelmingly harmed civilians. An estimated 9,000 people have been killed in Gaza so far, among them 3,700 children, according to the Gaza health ministry, run by Hamas.
The act, sponsored by the former Democratic senator Patrick Leahy and passed in 1997, prohibits the US defence and state departments from rendering security assistance to foreign governments facing credible accusations of rights abuses. The law was originally designed only to refer to narcotics assistance, but was later expanded, with amendments covering assistance from both state department and Pentagon budgets.
Proponents of applying the act to Israel point to the rising death toll in Gaza from military strikes on the territory, the displacement of more than 1 million people from their homes and a surging humanitarian crisis after Israeli authorities cut water, food, fuel and electricity supplies.
“I am very concerned that our taxpayer dollars may be used for violations of human rights,” said the congressman Andre Carson of Indiana in an email to the Guardian, in which he accused Israel of “war crimes”, citing this week’s deadly bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp and the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) alleged use of white phosphorus.
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A British university is investigating allegations that a football match between its Jewish and Arab societies was postponed after some players on the Arab team felt uncomfortable playing during the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Leeds University’s student union said it was communicating with the societies involved and that the investigation would follow its complaints procedure.
The league match between the institution’s Jewish society, Hapoel Hyde Park, and the Arab Society teams was scheduled to take place on Wednesday. According to Hapoel Hyde Park, the captain of the Arab society’s team informed them of their decision the night before the match was scheduled to take place.
Leeds University Union said on Friday evening:
We are investigating a matter raised about a postponed society league match, and are communicating with the societies involved. This investigation will follow our complaints procedure.
While it is important to carry out a full investigation, it is also important to stress that antisemitism or Islamophobia have no place on our campus.
Speaking to the Jewish Chronicle, Hapoel Hyde Park’s manager, Jasper van Veen, said he was “devastated” by what had happened and that the club was encouraging other Jewish sports teams to “support each other and stand up for ourselves”.
Leeds Jewish society’s president, Joel Herman, told the paper:
We all feel totally disrespected and let down by the league for accommodating this … Unfortunately, this is not the first act which has taken place, but this is the most blatant form.
Herman added that the war in Gaza should have no impact on the Jewish society and that Jewish students in Leeds felt “threatened and unsafe”.
Updated
Israeli citizens urged to reconsider foreign travel
The Israeli government has warned its citizens to reconsider foreign travel and to exercise extra caution while abroad, citing an increase in antisemitic incidents and violence in recent weeks.
A joint statement from the prime minister’s office and the foreign ministry said life-threatening assaults, antisemitism and incitement have been significantly rising in many countries, Reuters reported.
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Here are some of the latest images we have received over the newswires from Gaza City and the occupied West Bank.
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Thirty-four French citizens were evacuated from the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to the French foreign ministry.
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, speaking to reporters during a visit to Brittany, reiterated his calls for a humanitarian truce, Reuters reported.
Updated
Two people have been arrested during a pro-Palestinian sit-in at King’s Cross station in London after the demonstration was banned.
The transport secretary, Mark Harper, said he had given an order to allow police to stop the demonstration on Friday evening under section 14a of the Public Order Act 1986.
However, social media still showed scores of protesters at the station. One video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, appears to show a man draped in a Palestinian flag shouting “Free, free Palestine” while being carried away from the station by three officers.
Others appear to show theslogan “From the river to the sea” being shouted with demonstrators replying “Palestine will be free.”
In videos, protesters can be seen sitting on the station concourse chanting “ceasefire now”, “Free, free Palestine” and “In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians.”
A banner accusing Israel of genocide can also be seen in some clips.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
Its just past 10.30pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s where things stand:
Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed at least 9,227 Palestinians, including 3,826 children, since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said on Friday. The Israeli offensive on Gaza followed attacks launched by Hamas into Israel on 7 October, which killed 1,400 people.
The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said he is “utterly shocked” by reports of attacks on ambulances evacuating patients close to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. The Hamas government in Gaza said Israeli forces targeted “a convoy of ambulances which was transporting the wounded” from Gaza City towards Rafah in the south. Gaza’s health ministry said “several citizens were killed and dozens wounded.”The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it carried out an airstrike on an ambulance it claimed was being used by Hamas, adding that “a number of Hamas terrorist operatives” were killed in the strike. It gave no evidence to support its assertion.
Israeli forces have surrounded Gaza City and are attacking Hamas infrastructure and destroying tunnels used to launch attacks, the Israeli military said. Airstrikes continued alongside the intensifying ground offensive in what Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, described as the second stage of the war.
Israel will continue its offensive in Gaza “with full force” and will refuse any temporary ceasefire that does not include the release of what is says are more than 240 hostages held by Hamas, Benjamin Netanyahu has said, rejecting US calls for a pause in the fighting. “I made clear that we are continuing full force and that Israel refuses a temporary ceasefire which does not include the release of our hostages,” the Israeli prime minister said on Friday.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, flew into Israel on Friday to urge the Israeli prime minister to temporarily stop its military offensive to allow aid into the territory. The US’s top diplomat applied the greatest pressure yet on the Israeli government to rethink its strategy in Gaza, calling for localised humanitarian pauses and insisting Israel cannot achieve long-term security solely through military means.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, saying “crimes against humanity” are being committed in Gaza. “There is no concept that could explain or excuse the brutality that we have witnessed since 7 October,” Erdogan said during a summit of Turkic states in the Kazakh capital, Astana.
France has reacted with “astonishment” and “incomprehension” after it said that an Israeli airstrike had hit the Institut Français in Gaza, and that the Gaza office of Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency was also hit. AFP said its Gaza City office was significantly damaged by a strike on the building on Thursday. No injuries have been reported.
The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah has said his powerful militia is engaged in cross-border fighting with Israel and has threatened further “realistic escalation”. Hassan Nasrallah stopped short of announcing that Hezbollah had fully joined the war but warned that fighting on the Lebanon-Israel border would not be limited to the scale seen so far. Hezbollah should not try to take advantage of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the White House said.
Israeli forces on Friday killed six Palestinians in raids across the West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, as violence surged in the occupied territory in tandem with the Gaza war. The Israeli army said its forces were “operating against Hamas” across the West Bank, with operations in Jenin and the northern city of Nablus.
The first people in a group of about 100 Britons due to leave Gaza on Friday have made the crossing into Egypt, amid concerns about whether people in the north of the Palestinian territory will be able to make it to the southern Rafah crossing. By Friday, there were 127 people on the UK list to be evacuated into Egypt since the crossing opened on Wednesday. The parents-in-law of Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, were among the Britons able to leave Gaza. It is thought that hundreds of British nationals remain trapped in Gaza.
The White House has said 100 American citizens and family members left Gaza on Thursday. Another large group of Americans are expected to leave Gaza on Friday, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters.
Doctors and aid workers in Gaza say they have been abandoned by the international community to a “humanitarian tragedy” as they “fight to survive” after almost four weeks of war between Israel and Hamas.
Thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza who were stranded in Israel when war broke out last month have been deported back to the war-torn strip after being expelled by the Israeli government. The UN Human Rights Office said it was “deeply concerned” about the expulsions.
Rishi Sunak has described pro-Palestinian protests planned for London on Armistice Day as “provocative and disrespectful”. The UK prime minister’s intervention on Friday came as two women pictured at a pro-Palestinian march in London carrying photos of paragliders have been charged with terrorism offences.
Jewish people in Britain have experienced the worst wave of hate incidents in modern times with more than 1,000 recorded after the Hamas massacres in Israel, experts in countering antisemitism have said.
Updated
Hezbollah’s chief warned that the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas could become a regional conflict.
In a televised speech on Friday, Hassan Nasrallah said, “America is entirely responsible for the ongoing war on Gaza and its people, and Israel is simply a tool of execution.”
He added, “Whoever wants to prevent a regional war – and this is addressed to the Americans – must quickly stop the aggression on Gaza … You Americans know well that if there is war in the region, your fleet will be of no use, nor will air combat help. Your interests and your soldiers and your fleet will be the first to pay the price.”
Nasrallah’s address on Friday is his first public remarks since the war broke out on 7 October between Israel and Hamas.
Agence France-Presse reports that thousands of supporters gathered to hear Nasrallah’s speech in the Hezbollah stronghold of Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Others gathered elsewhere in Lebanon and the region, including Tehran and Baghdad, Agence France-Presse added.
Updated
Reuters has verified a video showing bodies on a road south of Gaza City which is currently under a deadly siege by Israel.
Reuters’ report, which is below, follows Israel’s warning to civilians in north Gaza to evacuate to the southern part of the strip. Despite Israel’s evacuation orders, which the Human Rights Watch has called “alarming”, 70 people – mostly women and children – were killed last month on supposed “safe routes” designated by Israel. Following the bombing of “safe routes”, Palestinians have said they are afraid to leave their homes.
Reuters reports:
A video in Gaza being shared on social media and verified by Reuters on Friday showed the bodies of at least seven people lying apparently dead on a road running south of Gaza City, which is currently under siege by Israeli forces.
Reuters located the video as being made on the al-Rashid coast road between Gaza City and Wadi Gaza. Reuters could not immediately verify the date it was filmed but verified that it had not been circulating on social media before Friday. Reuters could not verify the identity of the person who recorded the video, nor the identity of the people shown.
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the video.
The video showed some debris and many personal possessions scattered around the people, who included at least one child. Blood stains marked the road.
It was taken by a man or boy cycling along the road and past the scene, speaking as he passed by and starting to cry. At one point another person cycling behind him was visible.
“God, a child. God, women. God, the girl. Please God protect our people. Please look,” the cyclist is heard saying in Arabic. Israel said late on Thursday its forces had encircled Gaza City after earlier this week cutting off the northern Gaza Strip from the south of the enclave near to Gaza Wadi.
Updated
France has reacted with “astonishment” and “incomprehension” following Israel’s strike on the French Cultural Institute in Gaza.
“We made public today that the French Cultural Institute in Gaza was hit a few days ago in a way that caused astonishment, incomprehension and which led France to call for explanations from the Israeli authorities,” France’s foreign minister Catherine Colonna said on Friday, Agence France-Presse reports.
“[We seek] to understand how a French cultural institute can be the target of an Israeli strike. We are therefore in dialogue with our Israeli partners at different levels,” she added.
She went on to say that Israel has a right to defend itself but must also adhere to international humanitarian law.
“That is, protect civilian populations and take concrete measures to protect civilian populations,” she said, adding that UN and media workers must also be protected.
The World Health Organization, UN Relief and Works Agency for the Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the UN Populations Fund and Unicef have put out a joint statement on the plight women and newborns in Gaza are facing amid Israel’s deadly siege.
The organizations said:
As of 3 November, according to Ministry of Health data, 2,326 women and 3,760 children have been killed in the Gaza strip, representing 67% of all casualties, while thousands more have been injured. This means that 420 children are killed or injured every day, some of them only a few months old …
There are an estimated 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, with more than 180 giving birth every day. Fifteen percent of them are likely to experience pregnancy or birth-related complications and need additional medical care …
With 14 hospitals and 45 primary health care centres closed, some women are having to give birth in shelters, in their homes, in the streets amid rubble, or in overwhelmed healthcare facilities, where sanitation is worsening, and the risk of infection and medical complications is on the rise …
The lives of newborns also hang by a thread. If hospitals run out of fuel, the lives of an estimated 130 premature babies who rely on neonatal and intensive care services will be threatened, as incubators and other medical equipment will no longer function.
Updated
Two women pictured at a pro-Palestinian march in London carrying photos of paragliders have been charged with terrorism offences.
The incident happened on 14 October in Whitehall during a march after the 7 October attack on Israel, when Hamas militants used paragliders to cross the border between Gaza and Israel.
The Crown Prosecution Service said Heba Alhayey, 29, and Pauline Ankunda, 26, had been charged “with single counts of carrying or displaying an article, namely an image displaying a paraglider, to arouse reasonable suspicion that they are supporters of a proscribed organisation, namely Hamas, on Saturday 14 October 2023”.
Both women are from south London. Counter-terrorism detectives renewed an appeal to track down a third woman police said was with them, who is also alleged to have held up a photo of a paraglider.
Following the release of their photos last week, the two women handed themselves in at a London police station. The maximum sentence for the offence if proven is six months’ imprisonment. Both women have been bailed to appear on 10 November at Westminster magistrates court.
Updated
Here’s more on the strike on an ambulance in the northern Gaza Strip, which the Israeli military has claimed responsibility for.
A statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reads:
A Hamas terrorist cell was identified using an ambulance. In response, an IDF aircraft struck and neutralized the Hamas terrorists, who were operating within the ambulance.
We emphasize that this area in Gaza is a war zone. Civilians are repeatedly called upon to evacuate southward for their own safety.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) had earlier claimed Israeli forces launched an airstrike on a group of ambulance vehicles, one of which belonged to the PRCS.
A PRCS spokesperson, Mohamed Abu Musbah, told Al Jazeera that the entrance of al-Shifa hospital is “extremely crowded”. The front yard near the entrance of the hospital is “filled with civilians”, he said.
He told the news outlet that the ambulance driver and a PRCS staff member who was escorting the wounded have both “survived”, but that one of them suffered from shrapnel wounds in his leg.
With them inside the vehicle was a female patient who is now in “serious condition and has been taken back inside al-Shifa hospital”, he added.
Updated
On Thursday, Israel’s security cabinet said in a statement that the country was “severing all contact with Gaza”.
It said:
There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza.
Before this month, 18,500 married men over the age of 25 had permission from the Israeli authorities to enter the country, mostly to work in agriculture and construction, as part of an Israeli policy designed to alleviate Gaza’s crushing poverty and create an economic lifeline that it was believed Hamas would be loth to jeopardise.
An unknown number of these workers were swept up in raids across Israel in the days after 7 October and imprisoned under the principle of administrative detention, which allows the arrest of suspects without charge or access to the evidence against them on the grounds that they may break the law in future.
Many have alleged they were tortured or otherwise mistreated in military prison facilities over the last few weeks. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was repeatedly denied access to the arrested workers, who were held as “enemy non-combatants”.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not immediately reply to the Guardian’s request for comment on the arrests or ill-treatment allegations.
Updated
Thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza who were stranded in Israel when war broke out last month have been deported back to the war-torn strip after being expelled by the Israeli government.
A Guardian reporter in Rafah, on the southern edge of the strip, saw a steady stream of men of all ages with no phones, money or identity cards enter the territory on Friday morning via the Kerem Shalom crossing for commercial goods, having walked about 2km from the Israeli side of the border. Mada Masr, an independent Egyptian news outlet, said about 3,200 people had been sent back through the checkpoint, which is controlled by Israel and Egypt.
The UN Human Rights Office said it was “deeply concerned” about the expulsions. “They are being sent back, we don’t know exactly to where, [and whether they] even have a home to go to,” its spokesperson Elizabeth Throssell told a news conference in Geneva. She said it was an incredibly dangerous situation.
The Israeli government has been contacted for comment on the transfer.
WHO chief 'utterly shocked' by reports of attacks on ambulances near al-Shifa hospital
The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said he is “utterly shocked” by reports of attacks on ambulances evacuating patients close to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, posting to social media, urged that “patients, health workers, facilities, and ambulances must be protected at all times. Always”. He once again called for a ceasefire.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it carried out an airstrike on an ambulance which it said was being used by Hamas, adding that “a number of Hamas terrorist operatives” were killed in the strike.
The Hamas government in Gaza said Israeli forces targeted “a convoy of ambulances which was transporting the wounded” from Gaza City towards Rafah in the south. Gaza’s health ministry said “several citizens were killed and dozens wounded” in an Israeli strike at the entrance to al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital.
Utterly shocked by reports of attacks on ambulances evacuating patients close to Al-Shifa hospital in #Gaza, leading to deaths, injuries and damage.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) November 3, 2023
We reiterate: patients, health workers, facilities, and ambulances must be protected at all times. Always.
Ceasefire NOW.…
Updated
IDF confirms airstrike on Gaza ambulance. It says the vehicle was being used by Hamas
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it carried out an airstrike on an ambulance in the northern Gaza Strip, “that was identified by forces as being used by a Hamas terrorist cell”.
An IDF spokesperson said “a number” of Hamas fighters were killed in the strike, and that “more detailed information” was shared with allies. They said:
We have information which demonstrates that Hamas’s method of operation is to transfer terror operatives and weapons in ambulances.
It gave no evidence to support its assertion that the ambulance was linked to Hamas but said in a statement it intended to release additional information.
The IDF added:
We emphasise that this area is a battle zone. Civilians in the area are repeatedly called upon to evacuate southwards for their own safety.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images we have received over the news wires after reports of dozens of casualties after an incident near Gaza’s largest hospital.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said a convoy of ambulances carrying wounded people were struck by Israeli strikes at the entrance to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. The health ministry said “several citizens were killed and dozens wounded”.
An AFP journalist at the scene reported seeing multiple bodies beside a damaged ambulance.
Updated
100 US citizens and family members left Gaza on Thursday, says White House
The White House has said 100 American citizens and family members left Gaza on Thursday, Reuters reported.
Another large group of Americans are expected to leave Gaza today, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters.
She added that negotiations were intense on getting foreign nationals out of Gaza and that it was a fluid situation.
The US embassy in Cairo posted an image of the first groups of American citizens who had been able to leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt.
We welcome with gratitude the first groups of American citizens who have been able to safely depart Gaza through the Rafah border crossing. Grateful to Egyptian authorities for their partnership in ensuring the safe, secure transfer of American citizens into Egypt and then… pic.twitter.com/oYxxd424TF
— U.S. Embassy Cairo (@USEmbassyCairo) November 3, 2023
Updated
Half a million civilians trapped in a 'siege within a siege' in northern Gaza, says Oxfam
Oxfam has said it is “gravely concerned” for the lives of about 500,000 Palestinians who are currently trapped in a “siege within a siege” in northern Gaza.
In a statement on Friday, the charity organisation said Israeli forces have “imposed a near-complete stranglehold on Gaza City and the northern region, effectively cutting the enclave in half from the border wall to the sea”.
It accused Israel of the collective punishment of civilians in Gaza and violating international humanitarian law by depriving people of food, water, fuel, medicines and other aid. It warned of a “risk of further atrocious cost to civilian life in northern Gaza”.
Humanitarian support is “virtually impossible” in the north of Gaza, it said. One Oxfam humanitarian worker in north Gaza, Alhasan Swairjo, told the organisation:
We are sharing resources with ten other families. The markets almost empty. There’s no fresh food across all the city. We depend on canned food. The bread markets have no electricity and only a limited amount of fuel - one day, two days, five days - we don’t know … Our children are suffering, they don’t understand why we moved, why Israel is shooting us.
The organisation called for an immediate ceasefire and granting of humanitarian access and aid. It also called on the international community “to push for an end to Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory, including lifting of the Gaza blockade.”
We reported earlier that the French foreign ministry said that an Israeli airstrike had hit the Institut Français in Gaza, and that the Gaza office of Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency was also hit.
AFP said its Gaza City office was significantly damaged by a strike on the building on Thursday. None of AFP’s eight staff usually based in the city were in the bureau at the moment of the strike, it said.
The news agency shared a clip from its live video feed capturing the moment of the strike, a few minutes before midday (10am GMT) on Thursday.
Le bureau de l'#AFP dans la bande de Gaza, territoire pilonné sans répit par l'armée israélienne, a été gravement endommagé hier par une frappe, a constaté un collaborateur de l'AFP sur place 1/5 ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/roHVacxKzB
— Agence France-Presse (@afpfr) November 3, 2023
An Israeli military spokesperson told the news agency that “there was no IDF strike on the building” in Gaza.
The AFP chair and chief executive, Fabrice Fries, said the agency “condemns in the strongest possible terms this strike on its Gaza City bureau”, adding:
The location of this bureau is known to everyone and has been pointed out several times over the past few days, precisely to prevent such an attack and to allow us to continue to provide images on the ground.
The consequences of such an attack would have been devastating if the AFP team on the ground had not evacuated the city.
Updated
Salman al-Bashir, a journalist working for the Palestinian Authority’s TV channel, tore off his protective gear while reporting live on air after learning of the death of his colleague, Mohammed Abu Hatab.
Bashir delivered an emotional report from outside the hospital where Hatab and his family were pronounced dead. The Palestinian news anchor in the studio could be seen crying as Bashir said journalists were not being protected and the protective vests and helmets labelled ‘press’ were “merely a slogan”.
Bashir said Hatab had been alive only 30 minutes before, adding that journalists reporting from Gaza were “victims live on television”.
A Met police commander, Karen Findlay, an expert in public order and policing large events, said the organisers of the pro-Palestinian protests planned for Armistice Day had told police they had no intention of causing disruption to Remembrance events and were cooperating with officers.
She told a press briefing:
They have already expressed that they have no intention to disrupt Remembrance events and are working with us to really establish a route, assembly points, etc, which will not factor within what I would call the Remembrance footprint.
Findlay said police would use retrospective facial recognition to identify people at the march through London on Saturday and vowed to intervene quickly and enter crowds if necessary to remove suspects.
She denied that the tougher police tactics were a result of political pressure from government ministers and media supporters, telling a press briefing:
No, we are retaining our operational independence. We are reviewing our policing approach and it’s right that that is responsive, taking into account what has occurred.
Updated
Rishi Sunak has described pro-Palestinian protests planned for London on Armistice Day as “provocative and disrespectful”.
The prime minister also claimed that there was a “clear and present risk that the Cenotaph and other war memorials could be desecrated” on a day when thousands of marchers were due to take to the streets.
His intervention came after the security minister, Tom Tugendhat, said the planned demonstration by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC) on Saturday 11 November in central London was “a matter of great concern” to him and that he had written to police about it.
The march is taking place on Armistice Day, when events will include a two-minute silence commemorating Britain’s war dead on the 105th anniversary of the end of the first world war. The PSC said there are no plans to march near Whitehall or the Cenotaph on Remembrance weekend.
Sunak used the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, to say he had asked the home secretary to support the police “in doing everything necessary” to protect the sanctity of Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday. He said:
To plan protests on Armistice Day is provocative and disrespectful, and there is a clear and present risk that the Cenotaph and other war memorials could be desecrated, something that would be an affront to the British public and the values we stand for.
The right to remember, in peace and dignity, those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for those freedoms must be protected.
The Japanese government said it will provide about $65m (£53m) in additional humanitarian aid to civilians in the Gaza Strip.
Japan’s foreign minister, Yoko Kamikawa, made the pledge during talks with her Palestinian counterpart, Riad Malki, in Ramallah in the West Bank, her ministry said.
Kamikawa also met with Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, and called for a humanitarian pause to the deepening crisis in Gaza, the ministry said.
Updated
Dozens of casualties reported after incident near Gaza's biggest hospital
Dozens of casualties have been reported after an incident near al-Shifa hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza City, today.
Gaza’s health ministry said “several citizens were killed and dozens wounded” in what it said was an Israeli strike at the entrance to the hospital.
A statement by the Hamas-run government in Gaza said Israeli forces targeted “a convoy of ambulances which was transporting the wounded” from Gaza City towards Rafah in the south.
The cause of the incident is not immediately clear. The Guardian has not been able to verify the claims.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have said they are looking into the report.
An AFP journalist at the scene saw multiple bodies beside a damaged ambulance, while a doctor at the hospital told Sky News that up to 50 casualties had been brought in.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which operates at the hospital, shared an image of a damaged ambulance in front of the hospital.
Targeting a PRCS ambulance while it was in front of Al-Shifa Hospital. Our colleagues were saved by a miracle 🙏#GazaUnderAttack #NotATarget pic.twitter.com/WUJBGrsxXi
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 3, 2023
Updated
A rocket launched from the Gaza Strip landed outside a daycare centre in Sderot, southern Israel, the Times of Israel reported.
No injuries were reported.
Rocket fired from Gaza landed in the courtyard of a kindergarten in Sderot. No injuries. pic.twitter.com/UgIuLY8paN
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) November 3, 2023
'At least 19' Britons unable to leave Gaza - report
At least 19 British nationals who are on a list to evacuate from Gaza to Egypt have been unable to do so, the BBC has reported.
Nearly 100 Britons trapped in Gaza were expected to cross into Egypt today, after the Rafah border crossing opened on Wednesday for the first time to allow foreign nationals and seriously wounded Palestinians to leave.
But three family groups have told the news outlet that they are located in the north of Gaza and that it is too dangerous to travel to the south, where the Rafah crossing is located.
By Friday, 127 British nationals had been listed to evacuate into Egypt. Those who crossed into Egypt described the Rafah crossing as “absolute chaos”, and said they had been “abandoned” by the government.
Updated
The mother-in-law of Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, has shared her experience of leaving Gaza after being trapped in the besieged Palestinian territory since Hamas militants attacked Israel last month.
In a statement this morning, Yousaf and his wife, Nadia El-Nakla, said her parents were evacuated from Gaza on Friday. They said the last four weeks had been “a living nightmare” for the family, and that while they felt “deep personal relief, we are heartbroken at the continued suffering of the people of Gaza”.
Speaking to the BBC while on a coach to Cairo with her husband, Maged, Elizabeth El-Nakla said:
We are completely exhausted as we haven’t slept properly for the past 27 days.
The past few days have been particularly traumatic. We don’t really know what’s been going on in the outside world as there’s been no internet, electricity, clean water and food has been difficult to get.
She said that leaving Gaza had been “incredibly hard” as they were leaving their family behind, adding that she was worried about her son who works in the A&E department in Nasser hospital in southern Gaza.
Updated
Officials at a Pittsburgh museum have promised to “repair our relationships with the Muslim community” amid criticism of its decision to postpone an Islamic art exhibition because of the Israel-Hamas war.
Staff at Frick Pittsburgh believed pressing ahead with its Treasured Ornament: 10 Centuries of Islamic Art exhibition, which had been scheduled to open Saturday, would be “insensitive” to the Jewish community and others, according to the museum’s director and internal emails reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
But the postponement until August 2024 angered both Muslims and Jewish people locally, the newspaper reports, particularly because the museum cited only a scheduling conflict and not concerns over the war for its decision. In a statement posted to its website:
The Frick is devastated to have hurt neighbors we deeply respect with our unclear communication about the postponement of this exhibition featuring ten centuries of Islamic art. We will work earnestly to repair our relationships with the Muslim community.
Elizabeth Barker, director of Frick Pittsburgh, attempted to explain the rescheduling in comments to the Tribune.
When war broke out in the Middle East, we were as heartbroken as everyone, and we realized that we were about to open an exhibition that a forgiving person would call insensitive, but for many people, especially in our community, would be traumatic.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has ended his trip to Israel, where he met the country’s war cabinet to urge it to show greater restraint in its campaign to destroy Hamas.
Blinken said he urged Israeli leaders to allow more aid to enter Gaza and to implement humanitarian pauses to secure the release of hostages.
But in a televised statement a short time later, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, pushed back on the idea of a temporary ceasefire. In a statement to reporters, Netanyahu said Israel was continuing with “all of its power” and “refuses a temporary ceasefire that doesn’t include a return of our hostages”.
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We reported earlier that scores of Palestinians were reportedly killed and injured on Friday in an Israeli targeting of an ambulance convoy carrying critically wounded people in Gaza, according to Reuters.
That report had originally cited the Gaza health ministry, but has since been corrected to cite Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV quoting the health ministry.
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The UK Labour leader, Keir Starmer, sought to portray the Labour party as unified over its position on the Israel-Hamas conflict, as he insisted calls for a ceasefire and humanitarian pauses were “coming from the same place”.
A number of senior Labour MPs do not feel Starmer’s comments on the Middle East conflict this week have done enough to “hold the parliamentary Labour party together”, given “the level of anger within Labour’s grassroots”.
The Labour leader faced accusations from senior colleagues that his previous comments on the conflict lacked “empathy” and “humanity”.
Starmer, in an address to the North East Chamber of Commerce in County Durham on Friday, said he was “not surprised that people are trying to go for any option that they think would alleviate the awful situation”, adding: “I don’t think that should be taken as great division.”
“That is a human emotion,” the Labour leader said.
What I’ve done is share that emotion, when I see children dying. I have two children. I know exactly how this goes to the heart.
Senior Labour figures had sought to play down the idea of permanent divisions emerging within the party, saying that disagreements over the party’s stance on Israel and Gaza was not unique to Labour, with many organisations including universities also coming under pressure.
Starmer once again made it clear he would not be sacking any frontbenchers who have deviated from the party’s position on humanitarian corridors and called for a ceasefire.
Instead, it appears the Labour leader believes the best way to demonstrate his authority over the party is to focus on “the most practical way to alleviate the situation on the ground”, which he believes means staying aligned with the US president, Joe Biden, and leaders in the Middle East so they can work together and “say the same thing at the same time”.
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Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah should not try to take advantage of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council said on Friday.
The United States does not want to see the conflict expand into Lebanon, the spokesperson said.
Doctors and aid workers in Gaza say they have been abandoned by the international community to a “humanitarian tragedy” as they “fight to survive” after almost four weeks of war between Israel and Hamas.
With widespread destruction in urban areas and basic services collapsing amid continuing airstrikes, artillery bombardments and close-quarters fighting, little remains of the former lives of the 2.3 million inhabitants of the territory, said many of those who spoke to the Guardian.
Israel has placed Gaza under a near total blockade since it launched its effort to destroy Hamas after the murderous attacks by the Palestinian militants in southern Israel on 7 October that killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians. Hamas also seized more than 240 hostages, including infants and elderly people.
Israel’s military said on Friday it was looking into a report by the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip that scores of Palestinians were killed and wounded in an Israeli strike on an ambulance convoy.
Reuters could not immediately verify the health ministry’s report.
Scores dead or injured after Israel targeted ambulance convoy, says Hamas-affiliated outlet
The health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said scores of Palestinians were killed and injured on Friday in Israeli targeting of an ambulance convoy carrying critically wounded people in Gaza.
The health ministry spokesman, Ashraf Al-Qudra, earlier said they would send critically injured Palestinians who needed to be urgently transferred for treatment in Egypt from Gaza city and the north to the south, Reuters reported.
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Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, has spoken to Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, “to express EU solidarity and commitment to Israel’s security, as well as support for mediation efforts to free hostages, and to stress the need to protect civilians, avoid civilian casualties and improve humanitarian access”.
“Humanitarian pauses are urgently needed to ensure safe delivery of aid,” Borrell said, adding: “The EU is ready to support stabilisation efforts in Gaza and remains committed to the two-state solution as the only viable option to achieve lasting peace.”
Spoke today to @elicoh1 to express #EU solidarity and commitment to 🇮🇱 security, as well as support for mediation efforts to free hostages, and to stress the need to protect civilians, avoid civilian casualties and improve humanitarian access.
— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) November 3, 2023
Lebanon’s Hezbollah says cross-border fighting with Israel could escalate
The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah said on Friday that his powerful militia is engaged in cross-border fighting with Israel that is unprecedented since 1948 and threatened further “realistic escalation”.
In a widely anticipated speech, Hassan Nasrallah stopped short of announcing that Hezbollah had fully joined the Israel-Hamas war, but added the fighting on the Lebanon-Israel border would “not be limited” to the scale seen until now.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah operations had been increasing “day by day”, even as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, warned Hezbollah against testing Israel or “they would pay dearly”.
He made clear that Hezbollah’s intention was to tie down Israeli troops who could otherwise be deployed in Gaza, warning that further escalation in the north was a “realistic possibility”.
He also suggested his militia had had no part in the 7 October attacks, telling flag-waving supporters: “This great, large-scale operation was purely the result of Palestinian planning and implementation.”
Nasrallah’s speech had been keenly anticipated throughout the region as a sign of whether the Israel-Hamas conflict would spiral into a regional war, following daily exchanges across Israel’s northern border between Israel and Hezbollah and other factions in southern Lebanon.
Since the beginning of the war, Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, had taken calculated steps to keep Israel’s military busy on its border with Lebanon, but not to the extent of igniting an all-out war.
Israel considers the Iran-backed Lebanese Shia militant group its most serious immediate threat, estimating that Hezbollah has around 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel, as well as drones and surface-to-air and surface-to-sea missiles.
But a full-on conflict would also be costly for Hezbollah, which fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006 that ended with a draw – but not before Israeli bombing reduced swaths of southern Lebanon, the eastern Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs to rubble.
A new all-out war would also displace hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah’s supporters and cause wide damage at a time when Lebanon is in the throes of a historic four-year economic meltdown.
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The Institut Français in Gaza has been hit by an Israeli airstrike, but no injuries have been reported among staff at the site, the French foreign ministry has said, while the Gaza office of the news organisation Agence France-Presse (AFP) was also hit.
The French ministry added it had asked Israeli authorities to provide the “tangible” reasons that motivated the strike on the institute “without delay”.
In a separate statement, the ministry also expressed “very strong concerns” over the number of civilian victims in Gaza.
AFP said on X, formerly Twitter, that its office in the Gaza Strip was shelled by the Israeli army and seriously damaged on Thursday by a strike.
None of the eight AFP staff members or permanent employees normally based in Gaza were on site at the time of the impact. All were evacuated to the south of the Gaza Strip on 13 October, it added.
“AFP condemns in the strongest terms this strike on its office in Gaza City,” it said. (Via Reuters)
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Here’s a quick wrap from AP on the latest words from Nasrallah and Netanyahu
The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah said on Friday that his powerful militia is engaged in unprecedented cross-border fighting with Israel and threatened escalation.
In a widely anticipated speech, Hassan Nasrallah stopped short of announcing that Hezbollah is fully engaging in the Israel-Hamas war.
Nasrallah said in a televised speech that the fighting on the Lebanon-Israel border would “not be limited” to the scale seen until now.
Meanwhile, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ruled out a temporary cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, saying he will press ahead with a devastating military offensive until hostages held by the Hamas militant group are released.
Netanyahu spoke Friday shortly after meeting the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who pressed Israel for a temporary pause in its offensive in order to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza. Blinken also urged Israel to do more to protect civilians from its attacks.
In a statement to reporters Friday, Netanyahu said Israel is continuing with “all of its power” and “refuses a temporary cease-fire that doesn’t include a return of our hostages”.
Nasrallah said that while Hezbollah’s actions against Israel on the Lebanese border may seem modest, they were “very important”.
Nasrallah also said developments in Gaza would dictate whether there are escalations in Lebanon, saying “all scenarios are open on our Lebanese southern front”, and adding: “We can adopt any option at any time.”
He has also warned the US that its threats against Lebanon – and the presence of US warships in the region – were pointless, and goaded the US about its withdrawal from Afghanistan and the outcomes of its military operations in Iraq and elsewhere.
Israel will not agree to any temporary ceasefire until hostages released, Netanyahu says
Israel will not agree to any temporary ceasefire with Hamas until the more than 240 hostages seized during the attacks on 7 October are released, the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said.
“Israel refuses a temporary ceasefire that does not include the return of our hostages,” he said during a televised address. (Via Reuters)
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Nasrallah has warned people “not to lose sight” of two short-term goals: ending the war in Gaza, and enabling the “resistance” in Gaza – including Hamas – “to triumph”.
Such a triumph, he said, would be a victory for all the people in the region – for the people of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and “before all that, it is a national patriotic interest for Lebanon”.
He said Arab and Muslim states “should spare no efforts to put an end to the war”, adding they should cut off oil and food exports to Israel.
It’s also worth noting that Nasrallah is insisting that Hezbollah played no part in Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Israel on 7 October, saying that the mission had been planned and developed with the utmost secrecy:
This great, large-scale operation was purely the result of Palestinian planning and implementation. The great secrecy made this operation greatly successful.
Nasrallah said the attacks had been “100% Palestinian”.
He also thanked groups in Yemen and Iraq, which are part of what is known as the “Axis of Resistance”. It includes Shia Muslim Iraqi militias which have been firing at US forces in Syria and Iraq, and Yemen’s Houthis, who have joined in the conflict by firing drones at Israel.
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Hezbollah secretary general says Hamas’s attack laid bare Israel’s ‘weakness’
The Hezbollah secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, is speaking now. He has praised “the glorious operation” carried out by Hamas, claiming that the terrorist attack has exposed “the frailty, weakness and total fragility of Israel … it’s more fragile than a spider’s web”.
He has also said that the attack, which, he added, was planned in secret by the Palestinian group, will have lasting consequences.
“This glorious, seismic operation has caused an earthquake in terms of security, military, politics, diplomacy and even psychologically,” he said. “It will have profound strategic repercussions.”
Nasrallah said Israel had set its aim too high when it came to trying to “annihilate Hamas” and wipe out its leaders.
He also cast doubt on Israel’s ability to achieve its stated aim of releasing the hostages held in Gaza, saying it had been forced to negotiate the release of captives in the past.
Nasrallah said Israel’s bombardment of Gaza had revealed its “impotence and stupidity” and had made targets of mosques and churches while the world stood by and let it happen. He has also suggested that Israel has yet to secure a single military victory despite is month-long operations in Gaza.
The Hezbollah leader has said that Israel’s response has shown the world that it is “a brutal and barbaric regime”, and has accused the west and its media of colluding with Israel.
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Lunchtime summary. Here's a round-up of today's developments:
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has urged Israel to do everything in its power to protect civilians caught in the fighting in Gaza
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, saying “crimes against humanity” are being committed in Gaza
At least 9,227 Palestinians, including 3,826 children, have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry
The families of nine Israeli victims of Hamas’s attacks have lodged a complaint at the International Criminal Court for suspected war crimes
The UN has launched an emergency aid appeal seeking $1.2bn to help some 2.7 million people in Gaza and the West Bank
The Israeli military says it’s on “very high alert” along the country’s northern border with Lebanon
Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has once again criticised Israel’s actions, describing its operations in Gaza as “something approaching revenge”
Thousands of cross-border Gazan workers and labourers in Israel and the occupied West Bank have been sent back to Gaza
The Hezbollah secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, is making a highly-anticipated speech on Friday afternoon
Seven Italians and three Palestinian relatives have crossed into Egypt from the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip and are “all in good health”, the Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said.
Speaking after a cabinet meeting in Rome, Tajani said the seven Italians also have Palestinian citizenship, Reuters reported. He added that the group of 10 was on its way to Cairo.
Hundreds of foreign passport holders and gravely injured Palestinians have been evacuated from Gaza via the Rafah crossing to Egypt since Wednesday, including other Italians.
Friday’s transit through Rafah brings to 17 the number of Italian citizens, Italo-Palestinian dual nationals and Palestinian family members who have been evacuated so far, an Italian foreign ministry statement said.
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Blinken urges protections for civilians in Gaza on visit to Israel
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has urged Israel to do everything in its power to protect civilians caught in the fighting in Gaza and ensure they receive humanitarian aid.
His comments also underscored the country’s right to defend itself. Israel, meanwhile, warned that it was on high alert for attacks on its border with Lebanon as fears grew that the conflict could widen, AP reported.
As American officials have before, Blinken pledged unwavering support for Israel and its right to defend itself while on a visit to the country, but he also stressed the importance of protecting civilians amid growing alarm over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“We stand strongly for the proposition that Israel has not only the right but the obligation to defend itself, and to make sure that 7 October should never happen again,” Blinken said.
“How Israel does this matters and it is very important that when it comes to the protection of civilians who are caught in the crossfire of Hamas’s making, that everything to be done to protect them and to bring assistance to those who so desperately need it.”
This is Blinken’s third trip to Israel since the war began and he also plans to visit Amman, Jordan. It follows President Joe Biden’s suggestion for a humanitarian “pause” in the fighting.
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Politicians from Thailand’s Muslim minority have held talks with Hamas in an effort to secure the release of around a dozen Thai hostages held by the Palestinian Islamist group in Israeli-besieged Gaza, a former lawmaker said today.
At least 23 Thai nationals were among more than 240 people taken captive by Hamas militants when they burst out of Gaza on 7 October and went on a killing and kidnapping spree through south-western Israeli communities. Israel responded by relentlessly bombarding the enclave, then invading it.
Areepen Uttarasin, a veteran Thai politician and former education minister, said he travelled to the Iranian capital, Tehran, and met senior Hamas officials there on 26 October for more than two hours, Reuters reported.
“They told me that the Thai hostages are living comfortably and are out of danger,” Areepen said, declining to name the Hamas officials he had met. “I told them that I am here not to negotiate but simply to ask for their release.”
The 23 Thais form the largest group of captives in Gaza from any single foreign country. Thailand’s foreign ministry did not confirm the politicians’ talks with Hamas but said it welcomed assistance from all parties as the government seeks the release of the Thai hostages via multiple channels.
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Scottish leader’s family members have left Gaza
This statement has just been put out by Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, and his wife, Nadia El-Nakla. Her parents were evacuated from Gaza on Friday after being trapped in the besieged Palestinian territory since Hamas militants attacked Israel last month.
We are very pleased to confirm that Nadia’s parents were able to leave Gaza through the Rafah Crossing this morning.
We are grateful to all of those who have assisted our parents over the last few weeks, including the FCDO crisis team.
These last four weeks have been a living nightmare for our family, we are so thankful for all of the messages of comfort and prayers that we have received from across the world, and indeed from across the political spectrum in Scotland and the UK.
Although we feel a sense of deep personal relief, we are heartbroken at the continued suffering of the people of Gaza. We will continue to raise our voices to stop the killing and suffering of the innocent people of Gaza. We reiterate our calls for all sides to agree to an immediate ceasefire, the opening of a humanitarian corridor so that significant amounts of aid, including fuel, can flow through to a population that have suffered collective punishment for far too long, and for all hostages to be released.
Families in Gaza and Israel are suffering after the loss of entirely innocent men, women and children. We pray for them all, and pray that the international community at last focuses on achieving a lasting peace in the region: one that recognises that the rights and lives of Palestinians and Israelis are equal.
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Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has arrived in Tel Aviv to meet Israel’s war cabinet and urge it to show greater restraint in its campaign to destroy Hamas, starting by allowing more aid to enter Gaza and implementing humanitarian pauses.
Israel says it has Hamas surrounded in Gaza City and has shown no willingness to back a break in the fighting advocated by the US president, Joe Biden, let alone agree a ceasefire.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 9,000 people have been killed in the territory since 7 October, when Hamas militants crossed into Israel and killed more than 1,400 people.
In some of the strongest criticism of Israel by a leader of an EU member state, the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “something approaching revenge”.
Erdoğan seeks Gaza ceasefire to halt ‘crimes against humanity’
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, saying “crimes against humanity” are being committed in Gaza.
Erdogan has strongly supported the Palestinians in the face of Israel‘s war with Hamas, attending pro-Palestinian rallies and positioning himself as a mediator since the war began on 7 October.
“There is no concept that could explain or excuse the brutality that we have witnessed since 7 October,” Erdogan said during a summit of Turkic states in the Kazakh capital, Astana.
“To put it bluntly: crimes against humanity have been committed in Gaza for exactly 28 days,” he said.
“Our priority is to establish a humanitarian ceasefire quickly,” he said, adding that Turkey was working on “new mechanisms that will guarantee the security of everyone, regardless of whether they are Muslims, Christians or Jews.
“Our efforts to lay the groundwork for an international peace conference continue,” he said, without elaborating. (Via AFP)
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At least 9,227 Palestinians, including 3,826 children, have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Hamas-run health ministry in the territory said on Friday.
The families of nine Israeli victims of last month’s Hamas attacks have lodged a complaint at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for suspected war crimes, their lawyer said on Friday.
The families also want Hamas prosecuted for genocide, and the ICC to issue an international arrest warrant for its leaders, their lawyer, Francois Zimeray, said in a statement.
On 7 October, Hamas carried out bloody raids that Israeli officials say killed more than 1,400 people.
“The complaint concerns victims who were all civilians,” Zimeray said, adding that several of them were at the Tribe of Nova rave party, a music festival.
“The complaint states that the Hamas terrorists do not deny the crimes committed, which they have amply documented and broadcast, and that the … facts cannot therefore be disputed,” he said.
In an interview with France’s Radio Classique, Zimeray said he was always wary of “excessive qualifications” of events.
But, he said, he and his legal team had established that the “genocide” accusation “holds up before the law”.
Any individual or group can bring a case to the ICC, which is located in The Hague, but it is up to the court’s prosecutor to launch an investigation.
Contacted by AFP, the court was not immediately able to say whether it had received the paperwork.
The ICC, founded in 2002, investigates and prosecutes grave offences across the world.
In 2021, it opened a probe into Israel as well as Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups for possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories.
Its prosecutor, Karim Khan, has said that any suspected war crimes in the ongoing conflict would fall under the ICC’s jurisdiction.
ICC teams have not, however, been able to enter Gaza – or Israel, which is not a member of the ICC. (Via AFP)
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Israeli raids kill six Palestinians in West Bank – health ministry
Israeli forces on Friday killed six Palestinians in raids across the West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, as violence surged in the occupied territory in tandem with the Gaza war.
It said three males, aged between 17 and 26, were killed in the northern city of Jenin, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups and the target of frequent military incursions.
According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, two of the men died when a drone strike hit a house in the city’s refugee camp.
The Israeli army on Friday said its forces were “operating against Hamas” across the West Bank, with operations in Jenin and the northern city of Nablus.
In the southern city of Hebron, two more Palestinians, aged 33 and 36, were killed during a military raid on Fawwar refugee camp, the ministry and Wafa said.
The army said troops there “responded with fire” after Palestinians hurled Molotov cocktails and rocks at them as they seized “weapons manufacturing” equipment.
A sixth Palestinian, aged 29, died during an Israeli arrest operation in Qalandiya refugee camp, between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, the ministry said.
The ministry also said two other Palestinians had been shot dead in Jenin late on Thursday. An army spokesperson told AFP troops were conducting “counterterrorism activities” in the area without elaborating
And it said a Palestinian hit by Israeli fire in Nablus on Wednesday had succumbed to his wounds. (Via AFP)
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The UN has launched an emergency aid appeal seeking $1.2bn to help some 2.7 million people in Gaza and the West Bank.
“The cost of meeting the needs of 2.7 million people - that is the entire population of Gaza and 500,000 people in the occupied West Bank - is estimated to be $1.2bn,” the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
OCHA had originally sought $294m in aid to support nearly 1.3 million people in an appeal on October 12.
“The situation has grown increasingly desperate since then,” it said.
OCHA said the new appeal “will outline the need for food, water, health care, shelter, hygiene and other urgent priorities following the massive bombardments in the Gaza Strip.
“We urge donors to promptly make resources available for the response,” it added.
“Our ability to ease the suffering of the Palestinian population will depend on adequate funding; safe and sustained access to all people in need, wherever they are; sufficient flow of humanitarian supplies; and - importantly - fuel.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now holding a private meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, at the Kirya in Tel Aviv.
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) November 3, 2023
They will also meet with the members of the War Cabinet. pic.twitter.com/WnyrNfXSQr
Israel on 'very high alert' along northern border with Lebanon
The Israeli military says it’s on “very high alert” along the country’s northern border with Lebanon and will “respond to every event” on the border. We’re expecting a big speech this afternoon from Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
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Israel says its forces struck Hamas targets overnight, killing several militants
The Israeli military said on Friday that its war planes, artillery and navy had struck Hamas targets overnight, killing several militants including Mustafa Dalul, a Hamas commander it said had directed fighting in Gaza. There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas.
In one Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, a local journalist working for the official Palestine TV and at least nine of his immediate family were killed in their house, relatives and health officials said.
The United Arab Emirates, one of a handful of Arab states with diplomatic ties to Israel, said on Friday it was working “relentlessly” for an immediate ceasefire, warning that the risk of regional spillover and further escalation was real.
Israel has dismissed these calls, saying it targets Hamas fighters whom it accuses of intentionally hiding among the population and civilian buildings.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is due to meet Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, in Amman on Saturday.
In a statement, Safadi said Israel must end the war on Gaza, where he said it was committing war crimes by bombing civilians and imposing a siege.
The Israeli military said its troops and tanks were encountering mines and booby traps as they advanced in Gaza. Hamas fighters were making use of a vast underground tunnel network to stage hit-and-run attacks. Israel has said it has lost 23 soldiers in the offensive.
Abu Ubaida, spokesperson for the armed wing of Hamas, said in a televised speech that Israel‘s death toll in Gaza was much higher. “Your soldiers will return in black bags,” he said.
Two US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the US was flying intelligence-gathering drones over Gaza to help locate hostages. (Via Reuters)
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Thai foreign minister says he has pressed Iran on Hamas hostages
Thailand’s foreign minister says he has pressed his Iranian counterpart over the fate of 23 Thais taken hostage by Hamas during its attack on Israel.
Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara travelled to Qatar and Egypt this week for talks on the hostages, and met his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, in Doha, urging him to use Tehran’s links with Hamas to help secure the release of Thai nationals.
Israeli authorities say 1,400 people, many of them civilians, were killed and more than 230 hostages taken during Hamas’s attack on 7 October.
“I pointed out to them that Thais working there are low-income people, and work in the agricultural sector to boost their income,” Parnpree told reporters in Bangkok on Friday.
“I talked to the Iranian foreign minister and told him the Thais’ work is unrelated to politics and conflict. I asked him to send a message to the Hamas group that they are just labourers.”
About 30,000 Thais are working in Israel, mostly in the agriculture sector, according to the kingdom’s labour ministry.
Thirty-two Thai nationals have been killed and 19 wounded in the conflict, and the kingdom has evacuated more than 7,000 of its citizens on repatriation flights.
All three countries committed their full support to assisting with the negotiations, Parnpree said. “They expressed their view that the earlier the ceasefire, the sooner the hostages can be released,” he said.
During the talks, Egypt agreed to allow Thai officials to travel to the Rafah border crossing once the Thai hostages were released.
A team of Thai Muslim negotiators last week met Hamas officials in Tehran and were given a pledge that the Thais would be released at the “right time”. (Via AFP)
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Irish PM says Israel actions in Gaza resemble ‘something approaching revenge’
Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has once again criticised Israel’s actions, describing its operations in Gaza as “something approaching revenge”.
This morning, he told state radio RTE:
I strongly believe that … Israel has the right to defend itself, has the right to go after Hamas, that they cannot do this again. What I’m seeing unfolding at the moment isn’t just self-defence. It looks, resembles, something more approaching revenge. That’s not where we should be. And I don’t think that’s how Israel will guarantee future freedom and future security.
Asked by a journalist whether Israel’s actions were war crimes, Varadkar said: “That’s not for me to determine.”
Ireland has been a European outlier in its criticism of Israel’s response to the 7 October attacks.
Varadkar has previously said that while Israel has a right to defend itself, it “doesn’t have the right to do wrong”. Early on in the bombardment of Gaza, he also said: “To me, it amounts to collective punishment.”
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Cross-border Gazan workers sent back to Gaza
Thousands of cross-border Gazan workers and labourers in Israel and the occupied West Bank were sent back to Gaza on Friday, Reuters journalists said.
Some of the workers returned through the Kerem Shalom crossing east of the Rafah border crossing between the besieged Gaza Strip and Egypt, they said.
The office of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Thursday night: “Those workers from Gaza who were in Israel on the day of the outbreak of the war will be returned to Gaza.”
Workers crossing into the Palestinian territory said they had been detained and ill-treated by Israeli authorities after the Hamas attack on southern Israel. Some still had plastic stickers carrying numbers around their legs.
“We used to serve them, work for them, in houses, in restaurants, and in markets in return for the lowest prices and despite that we were humiliated,” said Jamal Ismail, a worker from the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza Strip.
Those from areas in northern Gaza would have to stay in the south after Israeli forces have completed cutting off roads late on Thursday, according to Palestinian officials. (Via Reuters)
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Here’s some background on the Hezbollah leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who is today due to make his first public comments since Israel and Hamas went to war after the latter’s terror attacks on 7 October. (Via Reuters)
Many people in Lebanon are anxiously awaiting the 3pm speech, rattled for weeks by fear of a catastrophic conflict. Some say they are not making plans beyond Friday, believing his remarks will signal the chances of escalation.
The speech is also being anticipated more widely. Nasrallah is a leading voice in a regional military alliance established by Iran to counter the US and Israel. Known as the “Axis of Resistance”, it includes Shia Muslim Iraqi militias that have been firing at US forces in Syria and Iraq, and Yemen’s Houthis, who have waded into the conflict by firing drones at Israel.
Wearing the black turban of a sayyed, or a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, and Shia clerical robes, Nasrallah is one of the most prominent figures in the Arab world.
Recognised even by critics as a skilled orator, his speeches have long been followed closely by friend and foe alike. He is deemed a terrorist by adversaries including the US.
His fiery speeches during the 2006 war elevated his profile, including one in which he announced Hezbollah had struck an Israeli naval vessel with an anti-ship missile, urging viewers to “look to the sea”.
While Nasrallah has stayed out of the public eye since 7 October, other Hezbollah officials have indicated the group’s combat readiness. But they have not set any red lines in the conflict with Israel.
The speech will be broadcast to coincide with rallies called by Hezbollah to honour fallen fighters.
Mutual threats of destruction have deterred Israel and Hezbollah from waging war across the Lebanese-Israeli frontier since 2006. Syria has meanwhile served as an arena for their conflict.
Sources familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking say the group’s attacks so far have been measured to avoid a big escalation, while keeping Israeli forces busy at the border.
Lebanon can ill-afford another war with Israel. Many Lebanese are still reeling from the impact of a catastrophic financial collapse four years ago.
Israel has said it has no interest in a conflict on its northern frontier with Lebanon. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Hezbollah against opening a second war front with Israel, saying that doing so would bring Israeli counter-strikes of “unimaginable” magnitude that would wreak devastation upon Lebanon.
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As Blinken begins his visit, Reuters has a good analysis of the massive scale of the diplomatic and humanitarian challenges involved what it terms “the day after” the war.
As Israeli forces intensify their assault against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, diplomats in Washington, the UN, the Middle East and beyond have started weighing the options for the “day after” if the Palestinian militant group is ousted - and the challenges they see ahead are daunting.
Discussions include the deployment of a multinational force to post-conflict Gaza, an interim Palestinian-led administration that would exclude Hamas politicians, a stopgap security and governance role for neighbouring Arab states and temporary UN supervision of the territory, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The process is still at what another US source terms an informal “idea-floating stage”. Key questions include whether Israel can destroy Hamas as it has vowed and whether the US, its western allies and Arab governments would commit military personnel to stand between Israel and the Palestinians, overcoming a long reluctance to do so.
The White House said on Wednesday there were “no plans or intentions” to put U.S. troops on the ground in Gaza.
More than half of Gaza’s population is already displaced, crammed hospitals lacking electricity and medicine are turning away the injured and gravediggers are running out of cemetery places.
It is also unclear whether the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has limited autonomy in parts of the occupied West Bank while Hamas rules Gaza, would be able or willing to take control. On Tuesday, Blinken held out the prospects for a “revitalised” PA, but President Mahmoud Abbas’ administration has been plagued by accusations of corruption and mismanagement.
Any entity that seeks to exert authority in post-war Gaza would also have to contend with the impression among Palestinians that it is beholden to Israel. Even if Hamas’ leadership is toppled, it would be all but impossible to eradicate pro-militant sentiment from the Gaza population, raising the threat of new attacks, including suicide bombings, against whomever assumes power.
“If the Israelis succeed in crushing Hamas, I think it’s going to be extremely difficult to get a governing structure in there that is going to be legitimate and functional,” said Aaron David Miller, a former US Middle East negotiator.
“The ‘day after’ exercises right now strike me as fantastical,” he said.
The discussions have increased as Israel expands its air, land and sea assault on Gaza, but they have also been driven by what US officials see as Israel’s failure so far to articulate an endgame.
Blinken lands in Israel
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken waves as he disembarks from an aircraft on his arrival in Tel Aviv, Israel Friday, Nov. 3, 2023. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP) Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/AP
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Hezbollah leader Nasrallah to speak on Friday afternoon
On Friday afternoon, the Hezbollah secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, is to make a highly anticipated speech. The head of the influential Iran-backed Shia militant group will break weeks of silence with a broadcast from Beirut, which comes in the wake of a rise in violence on Israel’s northern border.
Hezbollah said on Thursday it had simultaneously attacked 19 positions in Israel on Thursday evening. The clashes have so far been mostly contained to the frontier, and Hezbollah has used only a fraction of the firepower that Nasrallah has been threatening with Israel for years.
According to some estimates, about 50 Hezbollah fighters have died since 7 October in exchanges in which it has tried to target Israeli positions with anti-tank missiles.
US national security spokesperson John Kirby said of Nasrallah’s speech: “I don’t believe we’ve seen any indication yet specifically that Hezbollah is ready to go in full force. So we’ll see what he has to say.”
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Following Joe Biden’s stated support for a pause in fighting to allow time for hostage releases, US national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday the White House was exploring the idea of “as many pauses as might be necessary to continue to get aid out and to continue to work to get people out safely, including hostages”.
The White House has said any pauses in fighting should be temporary and localised, and insisted they would not stop Israel defending itself.
Blinken is due to meet Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, in Amman on Saturday. In a statement, Safadi said Israel must end the war on Gaza, where he said it was committing war crimes by bombing civilians and imposing a siege.
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UK accused of taking eye off Israel-Palestine crisis
Concerns that the UK Foreign Office has neglected the Israel-Palestine conflict in its tilt to the Indo-Pacific and the pursuit of trade deals across the Middle East is to be investigated by the Commons foreign affairs select committee.
Alicia Kearns, the chair of the committee, which will start holding evidence sessions on the issue in November, has been one of the most prominent MPs warning that a crisis was brewing that required greater attention and a more robust approach from the UK towards Israel’s new government.
Critics argue that the UK government, along with others, missed the danger signals and invested in an unconditional and one-sided relationship with Israel that did not acknowledge how different the government elected in November was to its predecessors:
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Here is our full report on what we can expect from Blinken’s visit to Israel:
US secretary of state Antony Blinken was due in Israel on Friday and was expected to call for localised pauses in fighting to allow aid into Gaza, as Israel’s military said it had surrounded the Palestinian enclave’s biggest city and was moving further into the centre and fighting in close quarters.
As Blinken left Washington, he said he would discuss concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in Gaza when he holds talks with Benjamin Netanyahu. It is his second meeting with Israel’s prime minister since the war began nearly a month ago, when Hamas militants killed 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, and took more than 240 hostages.
Since then, Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Gaza have killed at least 9,061 people, including 3,760 children, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday, drawing warnings from independent United Nations experts that Palestinians in the territory were at “grave risk of genocide”.
Thailand said it is in touch with Iran and other governments that can make contact with Hamas for the safe release of nearly two dozen Thai nationals being held hostage, Reuters reports.
Thailand’s Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara said on Friday that Iran, which is close to Hamas, had promised to help with negotiations.
UAE warns of 'real' risk of regional spillover
Gulf Arab power the United Arab Emirates warned on Friday that there was a real risk of a regional spillover from the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, adding that it was working “relentlessly” to secure a humanitarian ceasefire, Reuters reports.
“As we continue working to stop this war we cannot ignore the wider context and the necessity to turn down the regional temperature that is approaching a boiling point,” Noura al-Kaabi, a minister of state for foreign affairs, told a policy conference in the capital, Abu Dhabi.
“The risk of regional spillover and further escalation is real, as well as the risk that extremist groups will take advantage of the situation to advance ideologies that will keep us locked in cycles of violence.”
Rafah crossing to open for third day for limited evacuations
Reuters: The Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt is due to open for a third day on Friday for limited evacuations under a Qatari-brokered deal aimed at letting some foreign passport holders, their dependents and some wounded Gazans out of the enclave.
According to border officials, more than 700 foreign citizens left for Egypt via Rafah on the two previous days. Dozens of critically injured Palestinians were to cross too. Israel asked foreign countries to send hospital ships for them.
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Blinken expected to call for pauses in fighting to allow aid into Gaza during Tel Aviv visit
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken arrives in Tel Aviv today and is expected to urge the Israeli government to agree to pauses to the fighting in Gaza, according to the White House.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the US was not advocating for a general cease-fire but a “temporary, localized” pause.
Departing the Washington, Blinken said he would discuss concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in Gaza during his visit to Israel.
Since Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October killing 1,400 Israelis, at least 9,061 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, and more than 32,000 people have been wounded, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday. The death toll is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence, the Associated Press reports.
More than 3,700 Palestinian children have been killed in 25 days of fighting - more than six times the 560 children that the UN had reported killed in 19 months of war in Ukraine as of 8 October.
Bombardment has driven more than half the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes. Food, water and fuel are running low under Israel’s siege, and overwhelmed hospitals warn they are on the verge of collapse.
Opening summary
This is the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war with me, Helen Sullivan.
The top developments this morning: the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken arrives in Tel Aviv today and is expected to urge the Israeli government to agree to pauses to the fighting in Gaza, according to the White House.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the US was not advocating for a general cease-fire but a “temporary, localized” pause.
Departing the Washington, Blinken said he would discuss concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in Gaza during his visit to Israel.
Since Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October killing 1,400 Israelis, at least 9,061 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, and more than 32,000 people have been wounded, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday. The death toll is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence, the Associated Press reports.
More than 3,700 Palestinian children have been killed in 25 days of fighting - more than six times the 560 children that the UN had reported killed in 19 months of war in Ukraine as of 8 October.
Bombardment has driven more than half the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes. Food, water and fuel are running low under Israel’s siege, and overwhelmed hospitals warn they are on the verge of collapse.
Here are the key recent developments:
Israeli forces have “completed the encirclement of Gaza City” and are fighting “with full force”, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said. The chief of staff of the IDF, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, said troops are surrounding it from several directions and “deepening” the ground offensive inside the city. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israeli forces had pushed through the outskirts of Gaza City. “We’re at the height of the battle,” he said.
At least 9,061 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, including 3,760 children, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday. The current conflict began on 7 October when Hamas launched an onslaught on southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and swept up hundreds more as hostages. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify figures from either Israeli or Palestinian authorities.
In the US, the Republican-led lower chamber of Congress has passed a $14bn aid package for Israel, defying President Joe Biden’s request to also include more money for Ukraine and other pressing priorities. The bill, which diverts funding budgeted to the US tax collection agency, is almost certain to fail in the Democratic-controlled Senate, while Biden has also threatened to veto it.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said four of its schools in Gaza that are being used as shelters have been damaged in less than 24 hours. At least 20 people have reportedly been killed and five others injured on Thursday after a school that is being used as a shelter was damaged at the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, the agency said in its latest update. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said at least 27 people were killed in a blast near a UN school in the Jabalia camp on Thursday.
At least 15 people have been killed after a blast in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Thursday, the health ministry said. A spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence said the blast took place in a residential building, and residents reported scores of people trapped beneath the rubble.
Eighteen Israeli soldiers have been killed amid fierce fighting in Gaza, the IDF said, in a series of incidents that have underlined the mounting challenges facing the IDF in their attempts to push further into built-up areas of Gaza. The dead include Lt Col Salman Habaka, an Israeli tank commander who was hailed a hero for his actions during Hamas’s attack on Be’eri kibbutz.
A journalist working for the Palestinian Authority’s television channel was killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza, his network reported. Mohammed Abu Hatab was killed along with 11 members of his family in their home, the authority’s official news agency WAFA reported. He is the 36th journalist killed in the conflict, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, said it had attacked 19 positions in Israel on Thursday evening. The strikes came hours after Hezbollah said it had used two drones packed with explosives to attack an Israeli army command position in the disputed Shebaa Farms area on the Lebanese-Israeli border earlier in the day. It is the first time Hezbollah has acknowledged carrying out an attack against Israeli forces using such dronese.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened for a second day to allow the evacuation of some injured Palestinians and foreign passport holders. British nationals were able to get out of Gaza on Thursday, the UK Foreign Office confirmed. The US has been able to get 74 dual citizens out of Gaza, Joe Biden said. A total of 400 foreign passport holders as well as 60 severely wounded Palestinians were due to cross by the end of Thursday, a spokesperson for the Palestinian side of the crossing said.
A Japanese military plane departed Israel late on Thursday carrying 46 passengers including 20 Japanese nationals, the Japanese foreign ministry said. Passengers aboard also included 15 South Koreans, four Vietnamese and one Taiwanese, the ministry said on Friday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was “almost impossible” to bring humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. The WHO’s emergencies director, Michael Ryan, said the basic safety of staff could not be guaranteed at the moment. WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the situation in Gaza was “indescribable”.
A group of United Nations experts have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, warning that “time is running out” as Palestinian people there find themselves at “grave risk of genocide”. In a statement, they expressed “deep frustration with Israel’s refusal to halt plans to decimate” the Gaza Strip and said they felt “deepening horror” about Israeli airstrikes against the Jabalia refugee camp.
The US will not seek to impose any conditions on the support it gives Israel to defend itself in the wake of the Hamas attacks of 7 October, vice-president Kamala Harris said on Thursday. She refused to comment on Israel’s bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp, adding: “We are not telling Israel how it should conduct this war.”
