Closing summary
This is where we’ll pause our live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war for now – we’ll resume it later in the day. Here’s a rundown on the latest as it just passes 5.45am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv.
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has said there is “no justification” for the Israeli bombing of babies, women and elderly people in Gaza. Macron, speaking to the BBC a day after a humanitarian aid conference in Paris about the war, called for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying it would benefit Israel. In response, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Hamas was responsible for the civilian deaths in Gaza.
The largest hospital in Gaza, where up to 50,000 people are sheltering, is facing bombardment, the World Health Organisation has said. Palestinian officials said Israel launched airstrikes on or near four hospitals and a school on Friday, killing at least 22 people. A WHO spokesperson said 20 hospitals in Gaza were out of action and that there was “intense violence” at al-Shifa hospital in the heart of Gaza City. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Israeli forces opened fire on the intensive care unit at al-Quds hospital in Gaza City.
An Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson has said the Israeli army is aware of the sensitivities of the hospitals in Gaza. “The IDF does not fire on hostages but if we see a Hamas terrorist we will kill him,” Lt Col Richard Hecht said in a press briefing on Friday.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has urgently called for the protection of patients, healthcare workers and medical facilities in Gaza. An ICRC statement warned that Gaza’s healthcare system had “reached a point of no return” amid escalating violence that had “severely” affected hospitals and ambulances working in the besieged territory.
The number of people killed in Gaza by Israeli military actions since the start of the war on 7 October has risen to 11,078, including 4,506 children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry on Friday. Another 27,490 Palestinians in Gaza had been wounded, it said.
Israel has revised downwards the death toll from last month’s Hamas attacks in the south of the country from 1,400 to about 1,200, a foreign ministry spokesperson said. The revision was “due to the fact that there were lot of corpses that were not identified and now we think those belong to terrorists … not Israeli casualties”, they said on Friday.
Thousands of Palestinians continued to flee south from northern Gaza on Friday a day after the White House announced that Israel would begin to implement four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in parts of the area to allow people to leave. IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Friday that more than 100,000 residents had fled south from Gaza City during the past two days.
Despite the US announcement, there have been no immediate reports of a lull in fighting in northern Gaza. The Israeli military has said there would be “tactical, local pauses for humanitarian aid for Gazan civilians” but “no ceasefire”. On the ground, conditions continued to deteriorate as night fell over Gaza City on Friday during a sustained Israeli onslaught with heavy gunfire, explosions and the buzz of Israeli military drones heard.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said a child was killed every 10 minutes in Gaza. “Nowhere and no one is safe,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the UN security council on Friday, adding that Gaza’s health system was “on its knees”, with half of its 36 hospitals not functioning.
The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, has called for an investigation into what he described as Israel’s “indiscriminate” bombardment and shelling in densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip. “The extensive Israeli bombardment of Gaza, including the use of high-impact explosive weapons in densely populated areas ... is clearly having a devastating humanitarian and human rights impact,” Türk told reporters in Jordan.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said “far too many Palestinians had been killed” in the war. He said that while the US “appreciates” Israel’s steps to minimise civilian casualties, it was not enough. Blinken said the US had proposed additional ideas to the Israelis, including longer “humanitarian pauses” and expanding the amount of assistance getting into Gaza.
Israel’s embassy to the US has issued a rare public rebuke to a State Department office that deals with Palestinian affairs, after it criticised Israel’s demolition of a Palestinian home in Jerusalem. The US Office of Palestinian Affairs posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday that the demolition was “in response to the actions of their 13-year-old child” and that “an entire family should not lose their home because of the actions of one individual”. The Israeli embassy shot back in response: “Context is helpful: the ‘13-year-old’ is a terrorist who murdered an Israeli citizen by stabbing him to death.”
Each recorded fatal Israeli airstrike on Gaza since 7 October has caused an average of 10.1 civilian deaths, a monitoring group has said, amid warnings that reported civilian casualty figures are likely to be an underestimate. The fatality average is far higher than in the three previous Israeli air campaigns in Gaza.
Crowds of people marched through the centre of Jenin in the occupied West Bank for the funerals of Palestinians killed during an IDF raid. As the Israeli offensive in Gaza continues, violence in the occupied West Bank is escalating. Nineteen Palestinians were killed across the territory on Thursday as clashes took place with Israeli forces.
Israel has killed a further seven Hezbollah fighters on its northern border with Lebanon, taking the total death toll of Hezbollah fighters to 78 since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October. The group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, will make his second speech this month on Saturday, setting out his latest thinking.
Israel is considering a deal for Hamas to release all civilian hostages held in Gaza, according to a report. Under one of the proposals being discussed, Hamas would release 10 to 20 civilian hostages in exchange for a brief pause in fighting, one official said. That could be followed by a release of about 100 civilians if terms were met.
Evacuations from the Gaza Strip in to Egypt for foreign passport holders and for injured Palestinians requiring urgent medical treatment were suspended on Friday. The suspension was due to problems bringing medical evacuees to the Rafah crossing from inside Gaza, Reuters reported. The Rafah crossing was also suspended on Wednesday due to what the US state department referred to as unspecified “security circumstance”.
Saudi Arabia will host an extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh on Saturday, the Saudi foreign ministry said. The kingdom had been scheduled to host two extraordinary summits, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation summit and the Arab League summit, on Saturday. The joint summit would replace the two separate gatherings, the ministry said, due to “the exceptional circumstances taking place in the Palestinian Gaza Strip”.
British healthcare workers in uniform protested outside Downing Street on Friday to commemorate almost 200 clinicians killed in Gaza since Israel’s bombardment began. The vigil was organised to call on the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, to push for an urgent ceasefire.
The organisers of the pro-Palestine march due to take place in London on Armistice Day believe “hundreds of thousands” of people will turn out for what they say will be one of Britain’s biggest days of mass protest.
The AP report continues:
More than 720,000 displaced people across the Gaza Strip were sheltering at 150 facilities run by UNRWA, as of Thursday.
At shelters, the lack of water makes it hard to maintain even basic hygiene.
Families are packed into a school building in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, with tents set up in the playground, washing hung up to dry in corridors and children sleeping on mats next to their worried parents.
Suzan Wahidi, from Gaza City, says as many as seven people might share a mattress – if they can find one.
Our children are now suffering from an epidemic. They suffer from all the diseases that you can imagine, diarrhea, vomiting, fever. There are no medicines, there is no food to provide us.
The Associated Press has this report on the death and misery Palestinians are describing as they flee south from the intense fighting in northern Gaza.
A stream of thousands of Palestinians have taken what few belongings they can carry and made their way on foot Friday to the relative safety of the southern Gaza Strip after Israel announced an hours-long window for safe passage.
One woman who was displaced from Beit Lahiya in the north, Umm al-Adhan, spoke to AP on Gaza’s main highway as people trudged past heading southward. She said she had been sheltering in a school run by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
She said:
Yesterday, as we were leaving the school, they fired at us. Ten people were killed, including my nephew.
A badly wounded child begged for water in his final moments.
The woman added, crying:
I could not find water to give him. He died in front of me.
Israel estimates that more than 850,000 of the 1.1 million people in northern Gaza have left, and later on Friday said over 100,000 Palestinians had gone south in the past two days.
Islamophobia and antisemitism have seen sharp increases across the US after the Israel-Hamas war erupted last month.
According to a new report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), the Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation received a total of 1,283 requests for help and reports of bias between 7 October and 4 November. The spike was “unprecedented”, it said.
Jewish communities, meanwhile, say they have also faced record-high levels of antisemitism.
On 25 October, the Anti-Defamation League reported an increase of nearly 400% in antisemitic incidents reported year-on-year. From 7 to 23 October, it recorded a total of 312 antisemitic incidents, 190 of which were directly linked to the violence in Israel and Gaza.
Read the full story from Maya Yang here:
Almost 2,000 police will be on duty on Saturday when more than 100,000 pro-Palestinian supporters are expected to march through London, with extra powers in place to protect landmarks honouring Britain’s war dead, Agence France-Presse reports.
Pro-Palestinian marches have been held in the UK capital over recent weekends, with police making almost 100 arrests for offences including supporting banned organisations and serious hate crimes.
But Saturday’s march promises to be more fraught as it coincides with Armistice Day, which commemorates those who have died in conflict since world war one.
The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, made a late plea for peaceful demonstrations, saying in a statement released late on Friday:
It is because of those who fought for this country and for the freedom we cherish that those who wish to protest can do so, but they must do so respectfully and peacefully.
It would be a “particularly challenging and tense weekend”, Laurence Taylor, the Metropolitan police deputy assistant commissioner leading Saturday’s operation, said on Friday.
We have a full report on the demonstration here:
A doctor at the largest hospital in Gaza has described heavy bombing outside the facility going late into the night.
“Every time, every minute, we hear bombing around us,” orthopedic surgeon Dr Adnan Albursh of the al-Shifa hospital told the US NBC News network around midnight local time.
He said there were also multiple bombardments around al-Shifa throughout the day. Many people fled from the hospital but thousands were still there, he said.
We cannot evacuate the hospital because there are a lot of patients here. There’s children, women, all ages.
As we reported earlier, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said al-Shifa – in the heart of Gaza City – is facing a bombardment. Up to 50,000 people are sheltering there.
Palestinian officials said Israel launched airstrikes on or near four hospitals and a school on Friday, killing at least 22 people. A WHO spokesperson said 20 hospitals in Gaza were out of action and there was “intense violence” at al-Shifa hospital.
Updated
Saudis to host Islamic-Arab summit
Saudi Arabia will host a joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh on Saturday, the Saudi foreign ministry has said.
The joint meeting “will be held in response to the exceptional circumstances taking place in the Palestinian Gaza Strip as countries feel the need to unify efforts and come out with a unified collective position”, Reuters reported the ministry as saying.
The kingdom was scheduled to host two extraordinary summits, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation summit and the Arab League summit, on Saturday. The joint summit would replace the two separate gatherings, the ministry said.
The decision was taken after Saudi Arabia onsulted with the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, according to the statement.
Updated
Israeli forces have carried out airstrikes on a series of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, the Israel Defence Forces has said.
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said on X (formerly Twitter):
Among the targets attacked were a number of buildings and military positions where the organization’s terrorists operated, a weapons warehouse and an intelligence infrastructure from which terrorists directed terrorism against the State of Israel.
Hagari said the Israeli strikes were in response to launches from the Hezbollah militant group over the past day.
בתגובה לשיגורים ביממה האחרונה, מטוסי קרב וכלי טיס תקפו שורת מטרות טרור של ארגון חיזבאללה בשטח לבנון.
— דובר צה״ל דניאל הגרי - Daniel Hagari (@IDFSpokesperson) November 10, 2023
בין המטרות שנתקפו, מספר מבנים ועמדות צבאיות בהן פעלו מחבלי הארגון, מחסן אמצעי לחימה ותשתית מודיעין ממנה מחבלים הכווינו טרור נגד מדינת ישראל. pic.twitter.com/POJlAD9L6q
As the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour reported earlier, Israel has killed a further seven Hezbollah fighters on its northern border with Lebanon, taking the total death toll of Hezbollah fighters to 78 since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October.
Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is to make his second speech this month on Saturday setting out his latest thinking. He ended his last speech on 3 November by saying he was leaving all military options on the table.
Updated
Israel rebukes US Palestinian affairs office over tweet
Israel’s embassy to the United States has issued a rare public rebuke to a State Department office that deals with Palestinian affairs, after it criticised Israel’s demolition of a Palestinian home in Jerusalem, Agence France-Presse is reporting.
“The government of Israel has demolished the home of a Palestinian family in response to the actions of their 13-year-old child,” the US Office of Palestinian Affairs posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday.
It added:
An entire family should not lose their home because of the actions of one individual.
The Israeli embassy shot back in response:
Context is helpful: the ‘13-year-old’ is a terrorist who murdered an Israeli citizen by stabbing him to death.
Neither side named the teenager, but Israeli media identified him as Muhammad Zalbani, who it said had stabbed to death an Israeli border policeman as he was inspecting a bus in East Jerusalem in February.
The Times of Israel said the home demolition took place on Wednesday in the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, under the protection of a large police force.
Israel has defended its controversial policy of destroying the homes of Palestinians who carry out attacks on its citizens, a practice widely condemned by human rights groups as collective punishment.
The latest demolition took place amid open warfare between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
This is Adam Fulton taking over our rolling live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. It’s 2.20am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Stay with us for all the latest developments
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s 2am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
The number of people killed in Gaza by Israeli military actions since the start of the war on 7 October has risen to 11,078, including 4,506 children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry on Friday. Another 27,490 Palestinians in Gaza have been wounded, it said.
Israel has revised downwards the death toll from last month’s Hamas attacks in the south of the country from 1,400 to about 1,200, a foreign ministry spokesperson said. The revision is “due to the fact that there were lot of corpses that were not identified and now we think those belong to terrorists … not Israeli casualties,” they said on Friday.
The largest hospital in Gaza, where up to 50,000 people are sheltering, is facing bombardment, the World Health Organization has said. Palestinian officials said Israel launched airstrikes on or near four hospitals and a school on Friday, killing at least 22 people. A WHO spokesperson said 20 hospitals in Gaza were out of action and that there was “intense violence” at al-Shifa hospital in the heart of Gaza City. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PCRS) said Israeli forces opened fire on the intensive care unit at al-Quds hospital in Gaza City.
An Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson has said the Israeli army are aware of the sensitivities of the hospitals in Gaza. “The IDF does not fire on hostages but if we see a Hamas terrorist we will kill him,” Lt Col Richard Hecht said in a press briefing on Friday.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has urgently called for the protection of patients, healthcare workers, medical facilities in Gaza. An ICRC statement warned that Gaza’s healthcare system has “reached a point of no return” amid escalating violence that have “severely” affected hospitals and ambulances working in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Thousands of Palestinians continued to flee south from northern Gaza on Friday a day after the White House announced that Israel would begin to implement four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in parts of the area to allow people to leave. The IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Friday that more than 100,000 residents have fled south from Gaza City during the last two days.
On the ground, conditions continue to deteriorate during the sustained Israeli onslaught with heavy gunfire, explosions and the buzz of Israeli military drones heard as night fell over Gaza City on Friday. Despite the US announcement, there have been no immediate reports of a lull in fighting in northern Gaza. The Israeli military has said there will be “tactical, local pauses for humanitarian aid for Gazan civilians” but “no ceasefire”.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said that a child is killed every 10 minutes in Gaza. “Nowhere and no one is safe,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the UN security council on Friday, adding that Gaza’s health system is “on its knees” with half of its 36 hospitals not functioning.
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has said there is “no justification” for the Israeli bombing of babies, women and elderly people in Gaza. Macron, speaking to the BBC a day after a humanitarian aid conference in Paris about the war, called for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying it would benefit Israel. In response, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Hamas was responsible for the civilian deaths in Gaza.
The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, has called for an investigation into what he described as Israel’s “indiscriminate” bombardment and shelling in densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip. “The extensive Israeli bombardment of Gaza, including the use of high-impact explosive weapons in densely populated areas ... is clearly having a devastating humanitarian and human rights impact,” Türk told reporters in Jordan.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said “far too many Palestinians have been killed” in the war. While Blinken said the US “appreciates” Israel’s steps to minimise civilian casualties, he said it was not enough. He said the US has proposed additional ideas to the Israelis, including longer “humanitarian pauses” and expanding the amount of assistance getting into Gaza.
Each recorded fatal Israeli airstrike on Gaza since 7 October has caused an average of 10.1 civilian deaths, a monitoring group has said, amid warnings that reported civilian casualty figures are likely to be an underestimate. The fatality average is far higher than in the three previous Israeli air campaigns in Gaza.
Crowds of people marched through the centre of Jenin in the occupied West Bank for the funerals of Palestinians killed during an IDF raid. As the Israeli offensive in Gaza continues, violence in the occupied West Bank is escalating. Nineteen Palestinians were killed across the territory on Thursday as clashes took place with the IDF.
Israel has killed a further seven Hezbollah fighters on its northern border with Lebanon, taking the total death toll of Hezbollah fighters to 78 since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October. The group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, will make his second speech this month on Saturday, setting out his latest thinking.
Israel is considering a deal for Hamas to release all civilian hostages held in Gaza, according to a report. Under one of the proposals being discussed, Hamas would release 10 to 20 civilian hostages in exchange for a brief pause in fighting, one official said. That could be followed by a release of about 100 civilians if terms are met.
Evacuations from the Gaza Strip into Egypt for foreign passport holders and for injured Palestinians requiring urgent medical treatment were suspended on Friday. The suspension was due to problems bringing medical evacuees to the Rafah crossing from inside Gaza, Reuters reported. The Rafah crossing was also suspended on Wednesday due to what the US state department referred to as unspecified “security circumstance”.
British healthcare workers in uniform protested outside Downing Street on Friday to commemorate almost 200 clinicians killed in Gaza since Israel’s bombardment began. The vigil was organised to call on Rishi Sunak to push for an urgent ceasefire.
The organisers of the pro-Palestine march due to take place in London on Armistice Day believe “hundreds of thousands” of people will turn out for what they say will be one of Britain’s biggest days of mass protest.
Updated
Columbia University has suspended two student organisations that have led protests calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s military offensive against Hamas.
The New York university said in a statement on Friday that it has suspended Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace as official student organisations for the rest of the fall semester.
The statement reads:
This decision was made after the two groups repeatedly violated university policies related to holding campus events, culminating in an unauthorized event Thursday afternoon that proceeded despite warnings and included threatening rhetoric and intimidation.
On Thursday, hundreds of Columbia University students walked out of their classes to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Updated
Israel preparing for a year of fighting in Gaza - report
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is preparing to fight in Gaza for a year, according to a report.
Israel’s military is set to expand its ground operations into areas of the Gaza Strip where the IDF has never operated before, the Times of Israel said that Channel 12 reported.
The report said the IDF is “preparing for a period of a year of fighting … in different areas … different methods, but a year of fighting to get to the fourth stage of this war: the entry of a new government in Gaza that is not Hamas and is not backed by the Iranians.”
There is “no pressure to hurry”, the report said.
That is the message army commanders are being told all the time: work slowly and securely. Bring the results.
Updated
Netanyahu responds to Macron saying Hamas is responsible for Gaza deaths
Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to French president Emmanuel Macron’s call for Israel to stop bombing babies, women and elderly people in Gaza.
Macron, in an interview with the BBC on Friday, said there is “no justification” for the ongoing bombing of civilians in Gaza.
In a statement from his office, the Israeli prime minister said:
While Israel is doing everything to refrain from harming civilians and calling on them to leave areas of fighting, Hamas-Isis is doing everything to prevent them from leaving for safe areas and is using them as human shields.
Hamas is “cruelly holding our hostages – women, children and the elderly – in a crime against humanity” and “uses schools, mosques and hospitals as terror command centres”, he said.
Updated
Joe Biden spoke with the sultan of Oman, Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, today.
The two leaders discussed the situation in Gaza, as well as “the importance of sustained humanitarian access and the importance of protecting civilians, consistent with international humanitarian law”, according to a readout by the White House.
The statement went on to say:
They emphasized the importance of deterring threats from any state or non-state actor seeking to expand the conflict and of working towards a durable and sustained peace in the Middle East, to include the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Updated
Outrage continues to grow over a public comment made by a Florida state Republican lawmaker calling for all Palestinians to die.
In the speech during a debate in the state legislature about calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s invasion of Gaza, the Democratic Florida state representative Angie Nixon said: “We are at 10,000 dead Palestinians. How many will be enough?”
“All of them,” Michelle Salzman called in reply.
Nixon acknowledged the interruption and said: “One of my colleagues just said, ‘All of them.’ Wow.”
The Florida state house later voted 104-2 to reject Nixon’s resolution.
The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair-Florida), the US’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said in a statement that Salzman’s remarks were a “chilling call for genocide” and a “direct result of decades of dehumanization of the Palestinian people by advocates of Israeli apartheid and their eager enablers in government and the media”.
The news comes on the heels of the censure of the Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in the US Congress, after Tlaib echoed a popular rallying cry for Palestine that some have called antisemitic but others say is a call for Palestinian civil rights.
The censure resolution, which was supported by 22 Democrats, punishes Tlaib for allegedly “calling for the destruction of the state of Israel” and “promoting false narratives” about the 7 October attack by Hamas on Israel.
The World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking to the UN security council on Friday, said he understood the suffering and horror being experienced in Gaza today, having lived through war as a child and a parent himself. He said:
I understand what the children of Gaza must be going through because as a child, I went through the same.
He recalled the sounds of tracer bullets, gunfire and “the smell and images” of war. “I know what war means,” he said.
The WHO director general said the best way to support the organisation is to provide what health workers need to save lives.
He said about 63 tonnes of aid had been sent to Gaza, but that unfettered access is needed to reach civilians.
WHO chief says a child is killed every 10 minutes in Gaza
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has described the situation on the ground in Gaza, from hospitals conducting operations without anaesthetics to the fact that a child is killed every 10 minutes.
“Nowhere and no one is safe,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the UN security council on Friday.
Gaza’s health system “is on its knees”, he said. He said there have been more than 250 attacks on health centres in Gaza and 25 in Israel since the start of the conflict last month. More than 100 UN colleagues have been killed.
Half of the 36 hospitals in Gaza and two-thirds of its primary healthcare centers were not functioning, he said. Those that were operating were way beyond their capacities, he said.
Updated
Islamophobia and antisemitism are seeing sharp increases across the US after war between Israel and Hamas erupted last month.
According to a new report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), the Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization received a total of 1,283 requests for help and reports of bias between 7 October and 4 November.
Cair, which has called the spike “unprecedented”, revealed that the recent increase in Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment across the US mark a 216% increase over the previous year. In an average 29-day period in 2022, Cair received only 406 complaints.
Cair’s research and advocacy director, Corey Saylor, said that “American Muslims are facing the largest wave of Islamophobic bias that we have documented” since Donald Trump, then a presidential candidate, called for a Muslim travel ban in December 2015.
Meanwhile, Jewish communities say they are also facing record-high levels of antisemitism after Israel launched war on Hamas after Hamas’s 7 October attack.
On 25 October, the Anti-Defamation League reported a nearly 400% increase in antisemitic incidents reported year over year. From 7 to 23 October, the ADL recorded a total of 312 antisemitic incidents, 190 of which were directly linked to the violence in Israel and Gaza. During the same time last year, the ADL received preliminary reports of 64 incidents, including four that were Israel-related, the advocacy group reported.
According to monthly crime statistics released this week by the New York police department (NYPD) and reviewed by the Hill, the city saw a 214% rise in reported hate crimes against Jews in October.
Macron urges Israel to 'stop bombing babies and women in Gaza'
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has said there is “no justification” for the Israeli bombing of babies, women and elderly people in Gaza.
Macron, speaking to the BBC a day after a humanitarian aid conference in Paris about the war, called for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying it would benefit Israel.
He said the “clear conclusion” of all governments and agencies at the summit on Thursday was that “there is no other solution than first a humanitarian pause, going to a ceasefire, which will allow [us] to protect … all civilians having nothing to do with terrorists”. He added:
De facto – today, civilians are bombed – de facto. These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed. So there is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop.
The French leader said that France “clearly condemns” the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October that killed about 1,200 people and took 240 hostage.
“We do share [Israel’s] pain,” he said, but he added there was “no justification” for the ongoing bombing of civilians in Gaza.
It’s extremely important for all of us because of our principles, because we are democracies. It’s important for the mid-to-long run as well for the security of Israel itself, to recognise that all lives matter.
Asked if he wanted other leaders – including in the US and the UK – to join his calls for a ceasefire, he replied:
I hope they will.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images we have received over the newswires from Gaza, Israel and the occupied West Bank
Updated
'Water is scarce and fear is pervasive' in Gaza: UN rights chief repeats urgent call for ceasefire
The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, has reiterated increasingly urgent calls for a humanitarian ceasefire to allow lifesaving relief to reach Gaza.
Türk, speaking to journalists in Amman on Friday, also called for the release of all hostages taken from israel and a “sustainable” end to the “nightmarish” situation for those trapped in Gaza.
“Water is scarce and fear is pervasive” in Gaza, he said as he wrapped up a five-day visit to the Middle East which included Rafah, Egypt.
He spoke about his visit to el-Arish hospital, where he saw young children who had been seriously injured in Gaza. “These were the ‘lucky’ children who suffered terribly but are still alive and receiving proper medical treatment,” he said.
The UN rights chief reiterated that while civilians should be protected under international law “wherever they are”, right now “nowhere in Gaza is safe”. He added:
Stop the violence, guarantee the safety of humanitarian workers, provide safe access to ensure that humanitarian assistance can be delivered to all those in need, make sure people have enough to eat, clean water to drink and medical care and shelter, free the hostages, serve accountability and bring to justice in line with international humanitarian law the perpetrators of serious violations.
The head of an Israeli media advocacy group that suggested four of the world’s biggest news organisations had prior knowledge of Hamas’s deadly assault on Israel on 7 October have accepted their vigorous denials as “adequate”.
The Associated Press, Reuters, the New York Times and CNN issued robust statements in response to the suggestion that they were tipped off about the 7 October attacks.
The suggestion appeared in an article by HonestReporting, which describes itself as an organisation devoted to fighting media disinformation about Israel and Zionism. It was taken up by two senior Israeli politicians, who said any journalists with prior knowledge of the assault should be treated as terrorists.
Gil Hoffman, HonestReporting’s executive director, later admitted there was no evidence to back up the article’s suggestions, but said “they were legitimate questions to be asked”.
Speaking to Reuters on Friday, Hoffman said he was “so relieved” when the four media organisations said they did not have prior knowledge.
We raised questions, we didn’t give answers. I still very much think that the questions were legitimate and the answers were adequate from the media organisations themselves.
He also distanced himself from Israeli government accusations that were sparked by its article, adding:
There are those who took our story and pretended that they knew the answers – the Israeli government, cabinet ministers, various Twitter personalities – we didn’t claim to know.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s nearly 11pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
The number of people killed in Gaza by Israeli military actions since the start of the war on 7 October has risen to 11,078, including 4,506 children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry on Friday. Another 27,490 Palestinians in Gaza have been wounded, it said.
Israel has revised downwards the death toll from last month’s Hamas attacks in the south of the country from 1,400 to about 1,200, a foreign ministry spokesperson said. The revision is “due to the fact that there were lot of corpses that were not identified and now we think those belong to terrorists … not Israeli casualties,” they said on Friday.
The largest hospital in Gaza, where up to 50,000 people are sheltering, is facing bombardment, the World Health Organization has said. Palestinian officials said Israel launched airstrikes on or near four hospitals and a school on Friday, killing at least 22 people. Graphic daytime videos posted online appeared to show screaming and bloodied people, including children, in the grounds of al-Shifa hospital in the heart of Gaza City. A WHO spokesperson said 20 hospitals in Gaza were out of action and that there was “intense violence” at al-Shifa.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PCRS) said Israeli forces opened fire on the intensive care unit at al-Quds hospital in Gaza City on Friday. One person was killed and 28 others – most of them children – were wounded in sniper fire by Israeli forces at the hospital, the organisation said.
An Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson has said the Israeli army are aware of the sensitivities of the hospitals in Gaza. “The IDF does not fire on hostages but if we see a Hamas terrorist we will kill him,” Lt Col Richard Hecht said in a press briefing on Friday.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has urgently called for the protection of patients, healthcare workers, medical facilities in Gaza. An ICRC statement warned that Gaza’s healthcare system has “reached a point of no return” amid escalating violence that have “severely” affected hospitals and ambulances working in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Thousands of Palestinians continued to flee south from northern Gaza on Friday a day after the White House announced that Israel would begin to implement four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in parts of the area to allow people to leave. The IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Friday that more than 100,000 residents have fled south from Gaza City during the last two days.
On the ground, conditions continue to deteriorate during the sustained Israeli onslaught with heavy gunfire, explosions and the buzz of Israeli military drones heard as night fell over Gaza City on Friday. Despite the US announcement, there have been no immediate reports of a lull in fighting in northern Gaza. The Israeli military has said there will be “tactical, local pauses for humanitarian aid for Gazan civilians” but “no ceasefire”.
The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, has called for an investigation into what he described as Israel’s “indiscriminate” bombardment and shelling in densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip. “The extensive Israeli bombardment of Gaza, including the use of high-impact explosive weapons in densely populated areas ... is clearly having a devastating humanitarian and human rights impact,” Türk told reporters in Jordan.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said “far too many Palestinians have been killed” in the war. While Blinken said the US “appreciates” Israel’s steps to minimise civilian casualties, he said it was not enough. He said the US has proposed additional ideas to the Israelis, including longer “humanitarian pauses” and expanding the amount of assistance getting into Gaza.
Each recorded fatal Israeli airstrike on Gaza since 7 October has caused an average of 10.1 civilian deaths, a monitoring group has said, amid warnings that reported civilian casualty figures are likely to be an underestimate. The fatality average is far higher than in the three previous Israeli air campaigns in Gaza.
Crowds of people marched through the centre of Jenin in the occupied West Bank for the funerals of Palestinians killed during an IDF raid. As the Israeli offensive in Gaza continues, violence in the occupied West Bank is escalating. Nineteen Palestinians were killed across the territory on Thursday as clashes took place with the IDF.
Israel has killed a further seven Hezbollah fighters on its northern border with Lebanon, taking the total death toll of Hezbollah fighters to 78 since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October. The group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, will make his second speech this month on Saturday, setting out his latest thinking.
Israel is considering a deal for Hamas to release all civilian hostages held in Gaza, according to a report. Under one of the proposals being discussed, Hamas would release 10 to 20 civilian hostages in exchange for a brief pause in fighting, one official said. That could be followed by a release of about 100 civilians if terms are met.
Evacuations from the Gaza Strip into Egypt for foreign passport holders and for injured Palestinians requiring urgent medical treatment were suspended on Friday. The suspension was due to problems bringing medical evacuees to the Rafah crossing from inside Gaza, Reuters reported. The Rafah crossing was also suspended on Wednesday due to what the US state department referred to as unspecified “security circumstance”.
Four of the world’s biggest news organisations have vigorously denied any prior knowledge of Hamas’s deadly assault on Israel on 7 October. The Associated Press, Reuters, the New York Times and CNN issued robust statements saying such a suggestion was untrue, outrageous and reckless.
British healthcare workers in uniform protested outside Downing Street on Friday to commemorate almost 200 clinicians killed in Gaza since Israel’s bombardment began. The vigil was organised to call on Rishi Sunak to push for an urgent ceasefire.
The organisers of the pro-Palestine march due to take place in London on Armistice Day believe “hundreds of thousands” of people will turn out for what they say will be one of Britain’s biggest days of mass protest.
Three women appeared in a British court on Friday and pleaded not guilty to terrorism offences after they were pictured at a pro-Palestinian march in London carrying photos of paragliders.
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Israel adjusts death toll from 7 October attacks to 1,200
Israel has revised downwards the death toll from last month’s Hamas attacks in the south of the country from 1,400 to about 1,200, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Friday.
“This is the updated number,” the spokesperson, Lior Haiat, told AFP.
“It is due to the fact that there were lot of corpses that were not identified and now we think those belong to terrorists … not Israeli casualties.”
Israel previously said Hamas fighters who poured across the heavily militarized border on 7 October killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, the news agency said. Friday’s statement now says that “about 1,200 people” were murdered by Hamas.
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Here’s our report from the Guardian’s Emine Sinmaz in Jerusalem about Friday’s bombardment by Israeli forces on the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City:
The largest hospital in Gaza, where up to 50,000 people are sheltering, is facing bombardment, the World Health Organization has said, as the US’s top diplomat said “far too many Palestinians have been killed” in the war.
Palestinian officials said Israel launched airstrikes on or near four hospitals and a school on Friday, killing at least 22 people. The bombardment came as the territory’s precarious health system struggled to cope with thousands of people wounded or displaced in Israel’s war against Hamas militants.
Graphic daytime videos posted online appeared to show screaming and bloodied people, including children, in the grounds of al-Shifa hospital in the heart of Gaza City. The Reuters news agency said it had verified the footage and that one person had died. Another video, filmed at night-time, reportedly showed the aftermath of an earlier attack.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Friday that he welcomed Israel’s agreed four-hour humanitarian pauses in its Gaza offensive, but that more needed to be done:
Far too many Palestinians have been killed. Far too many who suffered these past weeks, and we want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them and to maximise the assistance that gets to them.
Margaret Harris, a WHO spokesperson, said 20 hospitals in Gaza were out of action and that there was “intense violence” at Shifa. “I haven’t got the detail on al-Shifa but we do know they are coming under bombardment,” she said.
Harris said there was also “significant bombardment” on Rantisi hospital, the only hospital providing paediatric services in north Gaza.
Read the full story:
Updated
Another heavy rocket attack appears to be under way in Gaza City, according to video aired by Al Jazeera television. The pictures showed clusters of orange streaks falling to the ground, although it is not immediately clear where in the city they are striking.
Gaza city | O’ Lord.
— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) November 10, 2023
2 min ago on Al-Jazeera. pic.twitter.com/l7KWeWWxmm
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the al-Shifa hospital in the heart of Gaza city came under sustained attack earlier on Friday. Up to 50,000 people are sheltering there.
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IDF: 100,000 have fled Gaza City
Israel says more than 100,000 residents have fled south from Gaza City during the last two days as its military conducted operations targeting Hamas fighters, R Adm Daniel Hagari of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said.
In a televised briefing on Friday, Hagari acknowledged that efforts were under way to release hostages held by Hamas, but said they would take time, Reuters reported.
“We are working all the time and with initiative on a range of efforts to return the hostages. These efforts are complex, they are not final. They take time, they are going to take time,” he said.
On the ground in Gaza, conditions continue to deteriorate during the sustained Israeli onslaught. Streets lay in ruins as residents fled, and there were gunfights between Israeli soldiers and Hamas militants, according to a report by AFP.
Heavy gunfire, explosions and the buzz of Israeli military drones could be heard as night fell over Gaza City, the agency said, with the only glow of light coming from al-Shifa hospital, which is overwhelmed with casualties.
“I wasn’t optimistic that any of my children or I would come out unharmed, given the intensity of the bombing and gunfire,” resident Jawad Haruda told AFP. He described a journey fleeing the coastal Shati refugee camp as a “tragedy”.
The agency also spoke with Al Jazeera correspondent Wael Al-Dahdouh after he left the once bustling city, now devoid of shoppers and dense traffic.
“The situation is very difficult in Gaza. Bombing is hitting all areas, and there are many clashes, with the Israeli incursions,” he said.
Updated
Crowds of people marched through the centre of Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Friday for the funerals of Palestinians killed during a raid by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
As the Israeli offensive in Gaza continues, violence in the occupied West Bank is escalating. Nineteen Palestinians were killed across the territory on Thursday as clashes took place with the IDF.
According to Israeli media quoting IDF statements, the IDF launched a counter-terrorism operation during which forces exchanged fire with armed terrorists.
Jenin has long been a flashpoint between Hamas and Israeli security forces, outside the practical control of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and a stronghold of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
A letter to the British Medical Association signed by 2,900 doctors, as well as other BMA members, was sent on Friday to demand more action and stronger support of Palestinians.
“Our medical colleagues in Gaza are exhausted and essential resources needed to care for patients are running out,” it said.
This situation is not sustainable or humane, and is categorically morally and legally unacceptable.
The letter expressed “grave concern at the increasing political repression of those calling for a ceasefire and freedom for the Palestinian people”.
Medics have said they feel abandoned in Gaza, where as of last week more than a third of hospitals were no longer functioning.
Mohammed Zaqout, director-general of Gaza hospitals, said on Friday they were facing a “catastrophic situation” without electricity, water or food.
We are unable to provide services to the wounded and the hospitals are continuously bombed by Israel.
Updated
British healthcare workers in uniform protested outside Downing Street on Friday to commemorate almost 200 clinicians killed in Gaza since Israel’s bombardment began.
The vigil was organised to call on Rishi Sunak to push for an urgent ceasefire.
Many of the hospital workers taking part carried one of 189 different placards bearing the name of a healthcare worker killed in Gaza in the past month. Organisers said that in the time it took for the names to be printed, several more would have died.
Hospitals continue to be targeted in Gaza, with its largest hospital, al-Shifa, hit by Israeli fire early on Friday morning. The Israeli army claims Hamas hides in and under hospitals and has set up a command centre beneath al-Shifa – which hospital staff deny.
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Evacuations from Gaza to Egypt suspended - report
Evacuations from the Gaza Strip into Egypt for foreign passport holders and for injured Palestinians requiring urgent medical treatment were suspended on Friday, Reuters reported, citing three Egyptian security sources and a Palestinian official.
The suspension was due to problems bringing medical evacuees to the Rafah crossing from inside Gaza, according to the Palestinian official and an Egyptian medical source.
Several dozen foreign passport holders and their dependents, as well as a small number of medical evacuees had entered Egypt on Friday before crossings were suspended, the Egyptian sources said.
The Rafah crossing reopened on Thursday for limited evacuations after being suspended again earlier this week due to what the US state department referred to as unspecified “security circumstance”.
Nearly 700 foreign passport holders and dependents were reportedly able to leave Gaza through the crossing on Thursday as well as 12 medical evacuees and 10 companions.
Israel is considering a deal for Hamas to release all civilian hostages held in Gaza, according to a report.
Hamas and Israel are negotiating two hostage release proposals, the New York Times reported today, citing officials briefed on the talks. Qatar has been the main meditator in the talks, with senior US officials also involved, it said.
Under one of the proposals being discussed, Hamas would release 10 to 20 civilian hostages – including Israeli women and children as well as foreigners, including Americans – in exchange for a brief pause in fighting, one official said. That could be followed by a release of about 100 civilians if terms are met, they said.
In exchange, Hamas is asking for a brief pause, more humanitarian aid, fuel for hospitals and the release of women and children in Israeli prisons, according to the source. An official said Israeli authorities have expressed uncertainty about releasing their prisoners.
Hamas and other Palestinian groups are holding about 240 people hostage in Gaza, according to Israeli officials. Less than half of them are civilians, one official said.
Hamas has refused to release any of the military-age Israeli men it is holding in Gaza, officials said.
A senior official in the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad has denied what he said were Israeli claims that al-Shifa hospital in Gaza was being used by Palestinian fighters.
Mohamad al-Hindi, Islamic Jihad’s deputy secretary general, said Israel could reach al-Shifa hospital “within hours” and that claims the hospital was a resistance base were “false”, AP reported.
“Not one bullet was fired from Shifa hospital or any other hospital,” he said.
Israel has claimed that Hamas has placed parts of its military tunnel system and command network under civilian objects including al-Shifa hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza. Last month, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) released an infographic depicting what it said was Hamas’s command HQ under the hospital.
Hamas has denied allegations that the group was using the Shifa hospital as a shield for its underground military infrastructure, and said the claims have “no basis in truth”.
Updated
Three women appeared in a British court on Friday and pleaded not guilty to terrorism offences after they were pictured at a pro-Palestinian march in London carrying photos of paragliders.
Heba Alhayek, 29, Pauline Ankunda, 26, and Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo, 27, were 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”, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
The three women entered not guilty pleas to one count under the Terrorism Act and will stand trial at the same court in February.
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.
Prosecutor Mark Luckett said:
The prosecution say that there is a clear and unique association between the image of a paraglider and the Hamas terrorist attack a week earlier.
He added that displaying an item associated with the Hamas attacks, particularly at a pro-Palestinian demonstration, “glorifies the actions of the group by celebrating the unique, successful tactic used by them”.
Thousands of Palestinians continued to flee south from northern Gaza on Friday a day after the White House announced that Israel would begin to implement four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in parts of the area to allow people to leave.
The US national security spokesperson, John Kirby, on Thursday said the pauses would allow people to pass along two humanitarian corridors.
Despite the US announcement on Thursday, there have been no immediate reports of a lull in fighting in northern Gaza. The Israeli military has said there will be “tactical, local pauses for humanitarian aid for Gazan civilians” but “no ceasefire”.
Israel has killed a further seven Hezbollah fighters on its northern border with Lebanon, taking the total death toll of Hezbollah fighters to 78 since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October.
The rising death toll in Lebanon and the killing of 18 Palestinians by Israeli security forces in the West Bank on Thursday prompted the Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, to declare that a wider regional escalation of the conflict was inevitable.
Hezbollah, the Lebanese political and militant group and Iran’s most prominent proxy movement, named the seven fighters in a statement that said they were “martyred on the road to Jerusalem”, the phrase Hezbollah often uses to record deaths. The Hezbollah death toll now well exceeds the numbers killed in the 2006 war with Israel, prompting internal debates about its next steps.
The group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, will make his second speech this month on Saturday, setting out his latest thinking. He ended his last one-hour speech on 3 November by saying he was leaving all military options on the table and that this dispute with Israel was of a different order to all its predecessors.
One person killed, many children wounded after Israeli snipers target al-Quds hospital, according to Palestinian Red Crescent
The Red Cross statement calling for the protection of patients, healthcare workers, medical facilities in Gaza comes as the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PCRS) said Israeli forces opened fire on the intensive care unit at al-Quds hospital in Gaza City.
One person was killed and 28 others were wounded in sniper fire by Israeli forces at the hospital, the organisation said.
The majority of the injured were children, it said, two of whom are in critical condition.
🚨Israeli Occupation forces opened fire on the intensive care unit at Al-Quds hospital.#AlQudsHospital #NotATarget #Gaza pic.twitter.com/ocIk0d8XLb
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 10, 2023
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Destruction affecting Gaza hospitals 'becoming unbearable', says Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned that the healthcare system in Gaza has “reached a point of no return” amid escalating violence that have “severely” affected hospitals and ambulances working in the besieged Palestinian territory.
In a statement on Friday, the ICRC said attacks on medical facilities and personnel have dealt a “heavy blow” to Gaza’s healthcare system – already “severely weakened” after more than a month of heavy fighting – and which is “taking a heavy toll” on civilians, patients and medical staff.
William Schomburg, head of ICRC sub-delegation in Gaza, said:
The destruction affecting hospitals in Gaza is becoming unbearable and needs to stop. The lives of thousands of civilians, patients and medical staff are at risk.
Children’s hospitals have not been spared from the violence, the organisation says, including the “heavily damaged” al-Nasser hospital and al-Rantisi hospital, which has had to cease its operations.
Noting that the al-Shifa medical complex now hosts thousands of displaced families, it said any military operation around hospitals “must consider the presence of civilians, who are protected under international humanitarian law”.
The ICRC urgently called for the respect and protection of medical facilities, patients and healthcare workers in Gaza.
Updated
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson Lt Col Richard Hecht has said that the Israeli military was maintaining its focus on Hamas in Gaza despite sporadic attacks on Israel from Lebanon and Syria involving drones.
During a press briefing on Friday, Hecht said that in Gaza the IDF last night “took out” two commanders in Hamas’s elite Nukhba forces: one who was involved in the attacks into Israel on 7 October which killed 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and the head of the Islamist organisation’s sniper teams in the north of Gaza.
Rocket fire is continuing out of Gaza aimed at Tel Aviv, he told reporters.
Answering questions about the IDF advance towards al-Shifa hospital, in the centre of Gaza City, which is full of seriously wounded or otherwise incapacitated patients, Hecht said the IDF was aware of the sensitivities of the hospitals in Gaza. He said:
The IDF does not fire on hostages but if we see a Hamas terrorist we will kill him.
The IDF has repeatedly claimed that Hamas is using the hospitals and similar sites to shield military installations, and using ambulances to transport militants.
Updated
At 8.30 on Friday morning, Jenin’s morgue was crowded. Outside, dozens of young men in black baseball caps, T-shirts and jeans stood quietly, some with their weapons between their knees, their green Hamas headbands tied tight across their foreheads. Older men sat in front of shuttered shops.
Inside, a metal door was opened and a corpse wrapped in the green flag of Hamas was drawn out on a stretcher. A teenager with an assault rifle in one hand touched the dead man lightly on the forehead, then helped to shoulder the stretcher and with five others set out through the throng, down the rubble-strewn streets to the home of Hamed Fayed, where the women of the family waited.
Moments later, a second body, wrapped in the black flag of Islamic Jihad, was carried out. Then a third body, a fourth, and more.
As the Israeli offensive in Gaza continues, a month after the Hamas attacks that killed 1,400 Israelis, mainly civilians, and wounded many more, levels of violence in the occupied West Bank are rising fast.
Nineteen Palestinians were killed across the territory on Thursday as clashes took place with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), 14 in the small northern town of Jenin. Casualties were aged from 15 to 40, and included several civilians.
Since 7 October, 167 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank; and a further eight, including one child, have been killed by Israeli settlers. Three Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians according to the UN.
Updated
Ziad, a 35-year-old Palestinian, recounts another day in Gaza when, amid the hunger and the shortages, an interminable queue for breakfast becomes a ‘falafel journey’ for her diary in the Guardian:
Thursday 9 November
8am Falafel is one of the most popular traditional foods in Gaza. We call it “the poor people’s food” because it is cheap. Palestinians who travel abroad are surprised at the prices of falafel sandwiches, and I know I speak for everyone in Gaza when I say that we believe the ones made in Gaza are the best.
Luckily for us, in the area we evacuated to there were two shops selling falafel. Unfortunately, one closed soon after we arrived because the owner ran out of gas. But we are among the few neighbourhoods that still have the luxury of getting falafel. The remaining shop works two shifts, one in the morning and one from 3 to 5pm. They no longer sell sandwiches, only falafel, since getting bread is very difficult. I usually go in the evening, because until recently we didn’t eat breakfast. I would wait for about 45 minutes to get my order, but it is OK: now you have to wait for everything, if it is available.
Today, I decide to get some falafel for breakfast. I thought I went early, but the line is so long. I am told that people start queueing shortly after 6am to secure a spot. I try to count how many people are ahead of me and get tired after 85. I see my friend so we stand together and decide to spend “the journey of getting falafel” together. I send a message to my sister telling her it will probably take me a long time to return.
The largest hospital in Gaza, where up to 50,000 people are sheltering, is facing bombardment, the World Health Organization has said.
Palestinian officials said Israel launched airstrikes on or near at least three hospitals on Friday, as the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, warned that “far too many Palestinians have been killed” in the war.
Night-time footage shows people gathered outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. An explosion can be heard and people are seen shouting and fleeing from the site. Margaret Harris, a WHO spokesperson, said 20 hospitals in Gaza were out of action and that there was “intense violence” at Shifa.
Updated
In the UK, two dozen climate justice groups have written to Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary of state for energy and net zero, describing his party’s refusal to support a ceasefire in Gaza a “disastrous moral abdication”.
Keir Starmer, Labour’s leader, faces a growing rebellion over his stance on Gaza, which has included saying that Israel had a right to cut off Palestinians’ power and water supplies. Sources say Starmer faces a string of potential resignations from his parliamentary team over his refusal to call for a ceasefire.
But Miliband, himself a former Labour leader, has so far remained silent. “We find this silence even more unconscionable given the unprecedented scale of the catastrophe facing the Palestinian people in this moment,” the letter, signed by Labour for a Green New Deal, Extinction Rebellion and War on Want, among others, says.
It continues:
The Labour leadership’s refusal to back a ceasefire is a disastrous moral abdication. The notion of a ‘humanitarian pause’ to such an unspeakable crime is insulting: it will not end this mass killing. That’s why we support those frontbench Labour MPs who have publicly called for a ceasefire.
For the Palestinian people, for the planet, and for the sake of your ethical standing and legacy as a political leader, we implore you to immediately speak out for a ceasefire.”
The letter, which was sent to Miliband on Thursday afternoon, notes that Miliband did call for a ceasefire during Israel’s campaign in Gaza in 2014 when he was Labour leader. The 50-day war killed more than 2,100 Palestinians.
🚨BREAKING: 25 leading UK climate justice groups have condemned Labour’s refusal to demand an end to Israel’s mass killing in Gaza.
— Labour for a Green New Deal (@LabGND) November 10, 2023
In the letter to @Ed_Miliband, we highlight the links between the Palestinian cause & the climate crisis, and implore him to call for a ceasefire. pic.twitter.com/ZNuEWDHGEN
Updated
It’s just past 6pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv, here are the latest developments:
Palestinian officials said Friday that Israeli airstrikes hit three Gaza hospitals and a school on Friday, killing at least 22 people, and a ground battle was under way at another hospital, further stressing the Palestinian territory’s crumbling health system as it struggles to cope with thousands of people wounded or displaced in Israel’s war against Hamas militants. A senior Israeli security official said initial findings indicated that one strike at Shifa was the result of a misfire by militants. The Israeli army has alleged that Hamas hides in and under hospitals and that it has set up a command centre under Shifa – claims the militant group and hospital staff deny.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, says “far too many” Palestinians have died. While Blinken said the US “appreciates” Israel’s steps to minimise civilian casualties, he said it was not enough. He said the US has proposed additional ideas to the Israelis, including longer “humanitarian pauses” and expanding the amount of assistance getting into Gaza.
The number of people killed in Gaza by Israeli military actions since the start of the war on 7 October has risen to 11,078, including 4,506 children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Another 27,490 Palestinians in Gaza have been wounded, it said.
The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, has called for an investigation into what he described as Israel’s “indiscriminate” bombardment and shelling in densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip. “The extensive Israeli bombardment of Gaza, including the use of high-impact explosive weapons in densely populated areas ... is clearly having a devastating humanitarian and human rights impact,” Türk told reporters in Jordan. “The attacks must be investigated ... We have very serious concerns that these amount to disproportionate attacks in breach of international humanitarian law.”
Hamas fires rockets deep into Israel, setting off sirens in Tel Aviv. Medics reported two women in Tel Aviv suffered shrapnel wounds from the salvo.
Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel does not seek to conquer, occupy or govern Gaza after its war against Hamas, but a “credible force” would be needed to enter the Palestinian territory if necessary to prevent the emergence of militant threats.
Earlier, the Guardian reported that Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a deal for a five-day ceasefire with Palestinian militant groups in Gaza in return for the release of some of the hostages held in the territory early in the war, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.
Israeli officials say that a Gaza evacuation corridor opens for a sixth day. Cogat, the Israeli military civil body responsible for government policy in the occupied Palestinian territories, said the corridor will remain open for seven hours.
Food shortages affecting every single person in Gaza, a spokesperson for the UN’s World Food Programme has said. “We can safely say that 100% are food insecure at this moment,” said Kyung-nan Park, the director of emergencies for the UN agency.
The IDF has confirmed it struck what it said was a group in Syria that was responsible for a drone that hit a school in the southern Israeli city of Eilat on Thursday. The military did not say what organisation in Syria had launched the drone. It said: “The IDF holds the Syrian regime fully responsible for every terror activity emanating from its territory.”
The White House announced earlier that Israel would begin to implement four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in parts of northern Gaza to allow people to leave. But there are yet to be clear signs of this taking place. The Israeli military has said it has not agreed to a ceasefire but that it will continue to allow “tactical, local pauses” to let in humanitarian aid into Gaza. Any plans for short-term pauses in the fighting in Gaza must be carried out in coordination with the UN and after agreement by all sides to be “truly effective”, a UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric has said.
In Israel, healthcare professionals and the families of hostages and their supporters held a demonstration outside the International Committee of the Red Cros (ICRC) headquarters in Tel Aviv on 9 November. They were calling on the organisation to demand access to visit and treat the hostages still being held inside Gaza.
A UN report paints a stark picture of the Palestinian economy after a month of war and Israel’s near-total siege of Gaza. The gross domestic product shrank 4% in the West Bank and Gaza in the war’s first month, sending more than 400,000 people into poverty – an economic impact unseen in the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, or any previous Israel-Hamas war, the UN said.
Updated
The Palestinian Red Crescent has said that one person was killed and 28 others were injured in a shooting by Israeli forces at Al-Quds hospital in Gaza, according to Reuters.
The majority of the injured were children, the organisation said in a statement. Two are in critical condition as a result of sniper fire targeting the hospital, it added.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Palestinian officials said Friday that Israeli air strikes hit three Gaza hospitals and a school on Friday, killing at least 22 people, and a ground battle was under way at another hospital, as Israel’s forces took on Hamas in the heart of the territory.
Updated
More than 1,000 officials at the US Agency for international development (USAID) have signed an open letter urging the Biden administration to call for an immediate ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters.
“As development, public health, and humanitarian assistance professionals, we are alarmed and disheartened at the numerous violations of international law; laws which aim to protect civilians, medical and media personnel, as well as schools, hospitals, and places of worship,” the letter reads.
Published earlier this month, the letter has since garnered 1,029 signatures from across the aid agency.
Reuters described it as the latest sign of unease within the US government over Joe Biden’s unwavering support for Israel in its response to the 7 October attacks by Palestinian Hamas militants that killed 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians.
Washington has rebuffed calls from Arab and Palestinian leaders and others to call for Israel to halt its assault on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip which has killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, including over 4,500 children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Updated
The United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon has said the spillover from the Israel-Hamas war has already caused “significant damage” in Lebanon where Hezbollah and allied groups have been clashing with Israeli forces on the border for more than a month, according to the Associated Press.
In a statement, Imran Riza said that there have been “concerning signs of escalating tensions” along the border.
Riza said there have been “alarming attacks killing and injuring civilians in South Lebanon, including women, children, and media personnel” and much damage to private property, public infrastructure and farmland which has forced the displacement of more than 25,000 people.
On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike hit a car driving between the towns of Ainata and Aitaroun and killed four civilians, including three children and their grandmother, the Associated Press noted. The children’s mother was also wounded.
An Israeli military statement later said the car had been “identified as transporting terrorists” and that it was reviewing “allegations that there were civilians in the vehicle.”
Three Palestinian human rights groups have said they have asked the international criminal court (ICC) to investigate Israel, accusing it of committing war crimes including genocide by bombing and besieging Gaza, Reuters reports.
The request comes one week after the families of Israeli victims of the 7 October attacks filed papers at the ICC urging the court to investigate Hamas’s indiscriminate killing of hundreds of non-combatants, including children, and the abduction of more than 200 others in Gaza.
On Friday the three rights groups – Al Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestine Human Rights Campaign – said they had asked the ICC to focus on Israeli airstrikes on densely populated civilian areas in Gaza, the siege of the territory and the displacement of the population.
“These actions amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and incitement to genocide,” they said in a joint statement.
Israel – which is not a member of the Hague-based court and does not recognise its jurisdiction – did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Reuters noted that officials in the country have previously said allegations of genocide are deplorable and that its actions target Hamas militants, not civilians.
Updated
The visual poet and the graffiti artist never expected to set off a global phenomenon and then a furious backlash.
Nitzan Mintz and her partner, Dede Bandaid, launched the now ubiquitous red and white posters of Israelis abducted by Hamas – each one with a photograph and the age of the disappeared under the banner “KIDNAPPED” – a couple of days after the 7 October attack in an attempt to ensure that the 200-plus hostages were not forgotten in the looming war in Gaza.
But after posting a few hundred flyers around New York, the couple was taken aback at how swiftly the posters became plastered across cities from the US to Argentina, to the UK and around Europe. The faces of grandmothers, three-year-old twins, young men and women, and entire families with small children, stare out from Manhattan lampposts, London telephone boxes and railings at Sydney’s Bondi beach.
Then came the firestorm.
UN staff around the world will observe a minute of silence and flags will fly at half mast on Monday, the global body has said, to mark the deaths of more than 100 UN employees in Gaza since 7 October.
UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, described the war as deadliest conflict ever for the UN in such a short period of time.
“They represent what is happening to the people of Gaza. They happen to work for the UN,” Juliette Touma, the director of communications at UNRWA, told Reuters. “They and every other civilian in the Gaza Strip...should never have been killed.”
In London, the organisers of the pro-Palestine march due to take place on Armistice Day believe “hundreds of thousands” of people will turn out for what they say will be one of Britain’s biggest days of mass protests after the row over whether the event would be banned.
Ben Jamal, director of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, a lead organiser of the protests, said he understood that people would be travelling from all over the UK to march on Saturday from Park Lane towards the US embassy in south-west London.
“We think it is going to be huge,” Jamal said.
Updated
Thousands of people sheltering at Shifa hospital have fled after strikes - reports
Palestinian evacuees fleeing Gaza’s northern combat zone have told the Associated Press that thousands of displaced people who had sheltered at al-Shifa hospital in the heart of Gaza City have fled following overnight explosions there.
The hospital had been sheltering nearly 80,000 people.
Some of those fleeing Friday said only a few hundred badly wounded patients and doctors remained behind. Doctors at Shifa hospital could not immediately be reached for comment because of phone and internet connectivity disruptions.
The Israeli army has alleged that Hamas hides in and under hospitals and that it has set up a command centrr under Shifa – claims the militant group and hospital staff deny.
Gaza health officials said strikes were carried out near four hospitals overnight and early Friday.
A senior Israeli security official told the Associated Press that a review was being carried out and that initial findings indicated that one strike at Shifa was the result of a misfire by militants.
Updated
UN rights chief urges investigation of Israel's 'high-impact' weapons
The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, has called for an investigation into what he described as Israel’s ‘indiscriminate’ bombardment and shelling” in densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip, Reuters reports.
“The extensive Israeli bombardment of Gaza, including the use of high-impact explosive weapons in densely populated areas ... is clearly having a devastating humanitarian and human rights impact,” Turk told reporters in Jordan. “The attacks must be investigated ... We have very serious concerns that these amount to disproportionate attacks in breach of international humanitarian law.”
Türk did not specify what weapons he was referring to.
Asked for comment, Israel’s permanent mission to the UN in Geneva told Reuters: “Israel abides by international humanitarian law at all times. Terrorists don’t.”
Israel has laid blame on Hamas for the civilian deaths in Gaza, saying the group uses the population as human shields and hides weapons and equipment around hospitals, which have been hit by bombardments.
The Palestinian group killed 1,400 Israelis in a cross-border Oct. 7 attack, according to Israeli tallies, and the U.N. has said the assault involved war crimes. Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 11,000 Palestinians according to Gaza health authorities.
Türk pointed to both sides’ obligation to protect civilians:
Any use by Palestinian armed groups of civilians and civilian objects to shield themselves from attack is in contravention of the laws of war … But such conduct by Palestinian armed groups does not absolve Israel of its obligation to ensure that civilians are spared.”
Updated
Death toll in Gaza since 7 October exceeds 11,000 people, including 4,506 children
Gaza’s health ministry has said 11,078 people have been killed since the hostilities began, including 4,506 children, Reuters reports.
The figures provided by the ministry do not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths.
While the US president, Joe Biden, has challenged the figures from the Hamas-run ministry as exaggerated, the Associated Press notes that US assistant secretary of state, Barbara Leaf, told lawmakers earlier in the week that it was “very possible” the numbers were actually even higher than reported.
Here are some of the latest images coming to us from Gaza and Tel Aviv:
Photograph: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters
Women’s rights groups in Israel have warned of significant failings in preserving forensic evidence that could have shone a light on the scale of sexual violence committed against women and girls in last month’s Hamas attacks.
Several incidents of sexual assault and rape from 7 October have been documented by Hamas body camera footage, verified material uploaded to social media, and photographs and videos taken by civilians and first responders, according to several people involved in analysing the footage.
A major worry for Israeli women’s rights groups is that it appears that very little, if any, investigative work was done to document sexual violence before bodies were returned to their families for funerals, meaning that the gender-based nature of some of the violence has largely gone under the radar in Israeli and international media.
Israeli strike on Gaza's largest hospital kills 13, says Hamas government in Gaza
An Israeli strike on the Al-Shifa compound has killed 13 people, the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip has said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“Thirteen martyrs and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike on al-Shifa compound today” in central Gaza City, a government statement said. While journalists have not yet been able to verify the claim, an AFP journalist reported seeing at least seven covered bodies outside the hospital.
The Israeli military did not offer an immediate comment. Israel had reported heavy fighting on Thursday near the hospital, saying it had killed dozens of militants and destroyed tunnels that are key to Hamas’s capacity to fight.
The Israeli army has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals, particularly al-Shifa, to coordinate their attacks against the army and also as hideouts for its commanders.
Hamas authorities and doctors deny the accusations.
Mohammed Zaqout, director-general of Gaza hospitals, said they were facing a “catastrophic situation” without electricity, water or food.
“We are unable to provide services to the wounded and the hospitals are continuously bombed by Israel,” Zaqout said.
Updated
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah has claimed that Israeli fire killed seven of its fighters, though it did not specify where or when they died, news agency Agence France-Presse reports.
In a statement, the group named the seven fighters and said they were “martyred on the road to Jerusalem”, the phrase Hezbollah uses to mourn members – now numbering 68 – killed since border clashes with Israel began last month.
Earlier on Friday, Israel’s military said it struck an organisation in Syria, which it did not name, saying the group was behind a drone crash into a school in southern Israel a day earlier.
The border area between the two countries has seen daily exchanges of fire, in particular between Iran-backed group Hezbollah and Israel, since 7 October.
Updated
Reuters has more on the reports of Israeli strikes close to hospitals in Gaza following a press conference with WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris.
Earlier we reported that Harris had told reporters that the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, which ranks as the biggest hospital in the Gaza Strip, was “coming under bombardment.”
She also said there was “significant bombardment” on Rantissi hospital, the only hospital providing paediatric services in northern Gaza.
The Rantissi hospital has children on life support and receiving dialysis, Harris added, saying it would be impossible to evacuate them safely. She did not attribute blame.
Twenty of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are now out of action entirely, she said. Earlier this week the WHO said this tally included the only psychiatric hospital in the Gaza Strip.
🚨This week, Gaza's only psychiatric hospital became non-functional after sustaining damages due to an attack on 5 Nov.
— WHO in occupied Palestinian territory (@WHOoPt) November 9, 2023
Health workers were forced to discharge inpatients and halt other services.
Due to the growing conflict-related psychological distress, these services are… pic.twitter.com/zmqwgMvGtd
Updated
Summary
It’s just past 2pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv, here are the latest developments:
Palestinian officials said Israel launched airstrikes on or near at least three hospitals on Friday, further stressing the Palestinian territory’s precarious health system as it struggles to cope with thousands of people wounded or displaced in Israel’s war against Hamas militants. Israel has not responded to the claims.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, says ‘far too many’ Palestinians have died. While Blinken said the US “appreciates” Israel’s steps to minimise civilian casualties, he said it was not enough. He said the US has proposed additional ideas to the Israelis, including longer “humanitarian pauses” and expanding the amount of assistance getting into Gaza.
Hamas fires rockets deep into Israel, setting off sirens in Tel Aviv. Medics reported two women in Tel Aviv suffered shrapnel wounds from the salvo.
Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel does not seek to conquer, occupy or govern Gaza after its war against Hamas, but a “credible force” would be needed to enter the Palestinian territory if necessary to prevent the emergence of militant threats.
Earlier, the Guardian reported that Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a deal for a five-day ceasefire with Palestinian militant groups in Gaza in return for the release of some of the hostages held in the territory early in the war, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.
Israeli officials say that a Gaza evacuation corridor opens for a sixth day. Cogat, the Israeli military civil body responsible for government policy in the occupied Palestinian territories, said the corridor will remain open for seven hours.
Food shortages affecting every single person in Gaza, a spokesperson for the UN’s World Food Programme has said. “We can safely say that 100% are food insecure at this moment,” said Kyung-nan Park, the director of emergencies for the UN agency.
The IDF has confirmed it struck what it said was a group in Syria that was responsible for a drone that hit a school in the southern Israeli city of Eilat on Thursday. The military did not say what organisation in Syria had launched the drone. It said: “The IDF holds the Syrian regime fully responsible for every terror activity emanating from its territory.”
The White House announced earlier that Israel would begin to implement four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in parts of northern Gaza to allow people to leave. But there are yet to be clear signs of this taking place. The Israeli military has said it has not agreed to a ceasefire but that it will continue to allow “tactical, local pauses” to let in humanitarian aid into Gaza. Any plans for short-term pauses in the fighting in Gaza must be carried out in coordination with the UN and after agreement by all sides to be “truly effective”, a UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric has said.
In Israel, healthcare professionals and the families of hostages and their supporters held a demonstration outside the International Committee of the Red Cros (ICRC) headquarters in Tel Aviv on 9 November. They were calling on the organisation to demand access to visit and treat the hostages still being held inside Gaza.
A UN report paints a stark picture of the Palestinian economy after a month of war and Israel’s near-total siege of Gaza. The gross domestic product shrank 4% in the West Bank and Gaza in the war’s first month, sending more than 400,000 people into poverty – an economic impact unseen in the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, or any previous Israel-Hamas war, the UN said.
Hamas fires rockets deep into Israel, setting off sirens in Tel Aviv
Sirens have sounded in Tel Aviv and surrounding areas as Hamas said it fired rockets deep into Israel, reports Reuters.
Medics reported two women in Tel Aviv suffered shrapnel wounds from the salvo, which followed a relative lull in rocket fire as Israeli forces press a ground offensive in Gaza in the fifth week of the war.
The military said some 9,500 missiles, rockets and drones had been fired at Israel from Gaza and other fronts since 7 October. It added that 2,000 of them had been shot down by air defences, while some 12% of Gaza rockets, which are mostly locally made, had fallen short within Palestinian territory.
“With the entry of (Israeli) forces on the ground, there has a significant drop-off in the number of launches,” it said.
The figures given by the military have not been verified by the Guardian.
Israel’s emergency medical responders, Magen David Adom, said on social media that its teams were en route to several strike sites.
Red Alert sirens heard across large areas in Central Israel in the last few minutes: MDA teams are on route to reported rocket strike sites. pic.twitter.com/gbp5qHqRgo
— Magen David Adom (@Mdais) November 10, 2023
Updated
The Israeli military has said it has arrested 41 Palestinians during a large-scale raid in the occupied West Bank, according to the Associated Press.
The Israeli military said 14 of those arrested were militants. It said it also destroyed the homes of two militants who it accused of carrying out an August attack that killed an Israeli woman and seriously wounded an Israeli man. At the time, an offshoot of the secular nationalist Fatah party, the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Israeli forces also said they had “sealed” a shop in Hebron which they said was used to print “incendiary material for Hamas” and raided three West Bank refugee camps where they said they had confiscated weapons.
The Israeli military says it has arrested 1,540 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war, identifying 930 of them as affiliated with Hamas. The Palestinian Prisoner’s Club, which represents Palestinian detainees, puts the numbers much higher, at 90 detained Thursday night and 2,400 arrested in the West Bank since the start of the war.
Updated
A safe space for Gaza's children - video
The Guardian has a dispatch from the city of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, where volunteers are offering children a brief escape from the conflict by playing games and fun activities with them.
‘The kids come back really happy, they revive their playful spirit,’ says one parent.
While it won’t bring back their homes or loved ones, volunteers are hoping that making time for play in a war zone will help these children recover from the trauma of living under siege.
Updated
The UN humanitarian office, OCHA, has said that “several hundred thousand people” are still in northern Gaza, beyond the reach of aid supplies.
“We cannot drive to the north at the current point, which is of course deeply frustrating because we know there are several hundred thousand people who remain in the north,” said OCHA’s spokesperson, Jens Laerke, according to Reuters.
“If there is a hell on earth today, its name is northern Gaza,” he added.
He continued:
It is a life of fear by day and darkness at night. And what do you tell your children in such a situation, it’s almost unimaginable – that the fire they see in the sky is out to kill them?”
Updated
The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has said that the Palestinian Authority is ready to assume responsibilities in the Gaza Strip as part of a comprehensive political solution for the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, Reuters reports.
Last month the Guardian delved into the question of what might lie ahead for the Gaza Strip, writing:
“Even if the Palestinian Authority could be pressured or bribed into considering taking control, it is far from clear if they would be accepted, or able to do it. A government installed by the Israeli military would not be seen as legitimate. The PA are already widely resented in the West Bank for their weakness in the face of Israeli authorities, for being inefficient, unrepresentative and riddled with corruption.”
More than 100 people who worked for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, have been killed since 7 October, the commissioner Philippe Lazzarini has said on social media.
Devastated. Over 100 @UNRWA colleagues confirmed killed in 1 month.
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) November 10, 2023
Parents, teachers, nurses, doctors, support staff. @UNRWA is mourning, Palestinians mourning, Israelis mourning. Ending this tragedy needs #Humanitarianceasefire now.
Updated
More on the reports of Israeli strikes close to hospitals in Gaza:
Margaret Harris, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization, said on Friday that the al-Shifa hospital had been “coming under bombardment”, Reuters reported.
Harris had been asked about the allegation by Gaza’s health ministry of an Israeli strike on al-Shifa hospital’s courtyard. She said: “I haven’t got the detail on al-Shifa but we do know they are coming under bombardment.”
When asked to elaborate, she said there was “intense violence” at the site, quoting colleagues on the ground.
Israeli forces have yet to comment.
Updated
US secretary of state Antony Blinken says 'far too many' Palestinians have died
Speaking in New Delhi, Blinken has said the US “appreciates” Israel’s steps to minimise civilian casualties but that it is not enough, the Associated Press reports.
He said the US has proposed additional ideas to the Israelis, including longer “humanitarian pauses” and expanding the amount of assistance getting into Gaza.
Israel’s efforts to formalise pauses in its military operations and the creation of a second safe corridor for them to use to escape harm are appreciated, he said.
The steps, he said “will save lives and will enable more assistance to get to Palestinians in need,” but at the same time, “much more needs to be done to protect civilians and to make sure that humanitarian assistance reaches them.”
The US diplomat said “far too many Palestinians have been killed, far too many have suffered these past weeks” and that everything possible should be done to prevent them harm and maximise the assistance they need.
Updated
As we wait for more on the four-hour pauses in fighting announced by the White House, a former Israeli deputy foreign minister has suggested that the pauses would will not cover a wide area.
Speaking to Sky News, Danny Ayalon was asked about how wide an area the pauses would cover. He said: “The idea right now is to have it localised.”
His understanding, he added, was that the pauses were being seen as a way to allow more aid trucks to cross into Gaza via Rafah as well as protect those who are fleeing northern Gaza. “What we will see is the IDF facing only with the Hamas terrorists without civilians in between,” he told the broadcaster.
“There is no [wider] ceasefire because the pressure on Hamas should mount, without that they will have the time to regroup and to prolong war and misery for their own population.
“Part of the problem [is that] Hamas … prevents those civilians from moving away from the battlefield … so this is pretty much the strategy of the idea.”
Updated
Gaza evacuation corridor opens for sixth day – Israeli officials
Cogat, the Israeli military civil body responsible for government policy in the occupied Palestinian territories, has said on social media that the Israel Defence Forces have opened an evacuation corridor.
The corridor will remain open for seven hours, it added, along with a video that it said showed “tens of thousands of Gazans” moving to the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
🚨Tens of thousands of Gazans are moving to the southern part of the Gaza Strip for their safety.
— COGAT (@cogatonline) November 10, 2023
For the 6th consecutive day, the @IDF has opened an evacuation corridor.
The evacuation corridor is open today 9:00-16:00. #FreeGaza from Hamas. #HumanitarianEffort pic.twitter.com/oB9l5idqSq
Updated
Russia has said that it has sent 25 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Egypt to be delivered to the Gaza Strip, according to Agence France-Presse.
“A special aircraft of the Russian emergencies ministry delivered 25 tonnes of humanitarian aid to the Arab Republic of Egypt,” Russia’s emergency services said on social media.
It published images of staff loading cargo on to an Il-76 plane in an airport in the central Russian city of Kazan, saying the shipment contained food and hygiene products, as well as clothing and portable cookers.
“The humanitarian cargo has already been handed over to representatives of the Egyptian Red Crescent Society. Further Russian aid will be sent to the residents of the Gaza Strip,” it said.
This is at least the fifth aid shipment from Russia to Gaza, the emergency service’s social media claimed.
Updated
Food shortages affecting every single person in Gaza – WFP official
In Gaza, all of the 2.3 million inhabitants are lacking sufficient food and facing malnutrition, a World Food Programme official has said.
“Before 7 October, 33% of the population were food insecure,” Kyung-nan Park, the director of emergencies for the UN agency, told Reuters.
We can safely say that 100% are food insecure at this moment.”
She cited the lack of fuel and supplies to explain why only one of the 23 bakeries contracted by the agency is still functioning.
“Right now we are entering 40 to 50 trucks,” said Kyung-nan. “For just WFP food assistance, we would need 100 trucks a day to be able to provide any meaningful humanitarian food to the people in Gaza.”
She continued:
“There are stories of people going there, being in line for 10 days and leaving empty handed … It’s quite serious.”
Updated
The spokesperson for the Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry has said there are only a “few hours” remaining until the hospitals in Gaza and northern Gaza stop providing services, according to the Associated Press.
In a statement Ashraf al-Qidra of the health ministry said ambulances cannot reach Al-Nasr children’s hospital to evacuate casualties because it is being targeted.
He said authorities in Gaza have made all attempts to keep health services running, but A-Qidra appealed for Arab and Muslim countries “and the free people of the world” to take immediate action to bring medical supplies and fuel into hospitals before “the major disaster occurs”.
Dozens of protesters, holding up a sign saying “stop arming Israel” and waving Palestinian flags, have blocked the entrances to a BAE Systems factory in south-east England on Friday, Reuters reports.
BAE said it does not directly export any equipment to Israel, but the group is a tier 1 supplier of the US-made F-35 fighter jets which are flown by Israel, Reuters notes.
“We are horrified by the situation in Israel and Gaza and the devastating impact it’s having on civilians in the region and we hope it can be resolved as soon as possible,” said a BAE spokesperson. “We respect everyone’s right to protest peacefully. We operate under the tightest regulation and comply fully with all applicable defence export controls, which are subject to ongoing assessment.”
The protest comes after unions in Belgium and Spain have refused to handle shipments of military material in recent weeks, citing the conflict.
Updated
Israeli strikes hit near several hospitals in Gaza City early Friday – Gaza media office
The strikes come as the Israeli military pushes deeper into dense urban neighbourhoods in its battle with Hamas militants, the Associated Press reports.
Israel has accused Hamas fighters of hiding in hospitals and using the Shifa hospital complex as its main command centre. The claim has been denied by the militant group and hospital staff, who say Israel is creating a pretext to strike it.
Early Friday, Israel struck the Shifa courtyard and the obstetrics department, according to the head of the Hamas-run media office in Gaza, Salama Maarouf. Strikes were carried out near three hospitals in total, Maarouf told the broadcaster Al Jazeera, but gave no casualty figures.
Health authorities in Gaza later said one person had been killed at Shifa hospital and several were wounded.
Israeli forces have yet to comment. The Guardian is seeking additional verification.
Updated
Turkey’s president has said he told the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that the number of aid trucks entering Gaza each day should be increased to at least 500.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told reporters that he raised the issue with Blinken during talks earlier this week, according to the Associated Press.
Erdoğan said Blinken’s approach to the proposal – conveyed to him by the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, in Ankara – was “positive”.
Erdoğan was quoted as saying by NTV television and other media that the current number of aid trucks crossing into Gaza is “20 to 30 trucks”.
Erdoğan said Turkey wanted to address a shortage of ambulances in Gaza and was cooperating with other countries to supply food and medicine. He added that Ankara was also ready to treat Gaza civilians with chronic illnesses, such as cancer, in its hospitals.
Updated
UN human rights chief: Israel must protect Palestinians in West Bank
Reuters has further comments from the UN high commissioner for human rights, who this morning said Israel must take immediate measures to protect Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Speaking to reporters in Jordan, Volker Türk, said at least 176 Palestinians, including 43 children and one woman, had been killed in incidents involving Israeli security forces since the beginning of October. At least eight Palestinians had been killed by Israeli settlers.
Prior to the start of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, it was already the deadliest year on record for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with about 200 killed.
Türk added:
It is Israel’s duty to ensure that all incidents of violence are promptly and effectively investigated, and that victims are provided with effective remedies.“Continued widespread impunity for such violations is unacceptable, dangerous, and it is in clear violation of Israel’s obligation under international human rights law.”
Updated
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, has described Israel’s decision to allow four-hour pauses in fighting as “very cynical and cruel”.
“There has been continuous bombings, 6,000 bombs every week on the Gaza Strip, on this tiny piece of land where people are trapped and the destruction is massive. There won’t be any way back after what Israel is doing to the Gaza Strip,” Albanese told reporters in Adelaide, Australia, according to the Associated Press.
“So four hours ceasefire, yes, to let people breathe and to remember what is the sound of life without bombing before starting bombing them again. It’s very cynical and cruel.”
Her remarks come after the White House said Israel would begin to implement the hours-long pauses in parts of northern Gaza to allow people to leave. But there are yet to be clear signs of this taking place.
In response to the US announcement, the UN spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said any plans for short-term pauses in the fighting in Gaza must be carried out in coordination with the UN and agreed to by all sides in order to be “truly effective”.
Updated
The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, has called on Israel to take immediate measures to protect Palestinians in the West Bank, Reuters reports.
The appeal comes one day after Israel’s Defence Forces killed 18 Palestinians and injured at least 20 others during an hours-long daytime raid on Jenin city and its refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
Israel’s military said it was conducting counter-terrorism raids in Jenin and gave no further details.
From the Jordanian capital of Amman, Türk told reporters:
I also appeal, as a matter of urgency, for Israeli authorities to take immediate measures, to take steps to ensure the protection of Palestinians in the West Bank, who are being on a daily basis subjected to violence from Israeli forces and settlers, ill treatment, arrests, evictions, intimidation and humiliation.”
Updated
Iran has warned that the scale of civilian suffering caused by Israel’s war on Hamas will inevitably lead to an expansion of the conflict, Reuters is reporting.
“Due to the expansion of the intensity of the war against Gaza’s civilian residents, expansion of the scope of the war has become inevitable,” Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, told his Qatari counterpart, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, on Thursday evening.
Iran’s state-run Press TV reported the comments, made during a telephone conversation, on Friday.
The comments could ramp up concerns over whether Washington’s diplomatic efforts and deployment of US naval forces to the eastern Mediterranean will be able to keep the conflict from further destabilising the Middle East, Reuters notes.
Updated
The World Health Organization has sounded the alarm regarding the spread of infectious diseases in Gaza due to intense overcrowding, contaminated water and scant access to hygiene facilities.
In a statement the WHO said that since mid-October 2023, more than half of the 33,551 reported cases of diarrhoea are among children under the age of five.
The organisation said it was a significant increase from the 2,000 or so monthly cases in children under five seen throughout 2021 and 2022.
In health facilities, damaged water and sanitation systems, and dwindling cleaning supplies have made it almost impossible to maintain basic infection prevention and control measures. These developments substantially increase the risk of infections arising from trauma, surgery, wound care and childbirth.
“Insufficient personal protective equipment means that healthcare workers themselves can acquire and transmit infections while providing care to their patients. The management of medical waste at hospitals has been severely disrupted, further increasing exposure to hazardous materials and infection.”
Updated
The 7 October Hamas raid on Israel – and Israel’s response – has brought long-simmering tensions to the surface at college campuses across the US.
Threats and clashes have sometimes come from within, including at Cornell, where a student is accused of posting online threats against Jewish students, according to the Associated Press. A University of Massachusetts student was arrested after allegedly punching a Jewish student and spitting on an Israeli flag at a demonstration. At Stanford, an Arab Muslim student was hit by a car in a case being investigated as a hate crime.
The Guardian has this dispatch from Columbia University, where fierce debates about the conflict and the US response have riven the university. Students have clashed in duelling statements, rallies, and occasional physical confrontations and hundreds of faculty members have also become involved.
Read our report here:
Updated
Associated Press is reporting that diplomats and defence chiefs of India and the US met on Friday, focusing on security issues involving the Indo-Pacific, China and the Israel-Hamas war.
India’s external affairs minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, said the situation in the Middle East was a big concern. “India has always advocated the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine living within secure and recognised borders, side-by-side at peace with Israel.”
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the US and India had a strong partnership and they would discuss matters with implications for the future.
Blinken is in Asia engaging in intense diplomacy with regional partners to show unity over Russia’s war in Ukraine and other major issues and prevent existing differences on Gaza from deepening.
Updated
Summary
It’s 8:37am in Gaza and here are the latest developments:
Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel does not seek to conquer, occupy or govern Gaza after its war against Hamas, but a “credible force” would be needed to enter the Palestinian territory if necessary to prevent the emergence of militant threats.
Earlier, the Guardian reported that Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a deal for a five-day ceasefire with Palestinian militant groups in Gaza in return for the release of some of the hostages held in the territory early in the war, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.
The IDF has confirmed it struck what it said was a group in Syria that was responsible for a drone that hit a school in the southern Israeli city of Eilat on Thursday. The military did not say what organisation in Syria had launched the drone. It said: “The IDF holds the Syrian regime fully responsible for every terror activity emanating from its territory.”
Palestinian officials said Israel launched airstrikes on or near at least three hospitals on Friday, further stressing the Palestinian territory’s precarious health system as it struggles to cope with thousands of people wounded or displaced in Israel’s war against Hamas militants. Israel has not responded to the claims.
The White House announced earlier that Israel would begin to implement four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in parts of northern Gaza to allow people to leave. But there are yet to be clear signs of this taking place. The Israeli military has said it has not agreed to a ceasefire but that it will continue to allow “tactical, local pauses” to let in humanitarian aid into Gaza. Any plans for short-term pauses in the fighting in Gaza must be carried out in coordination with the UN and after agreement by all sides to be “truly effective”, a UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric has said.
In Israel, healthcare professionals and the families of hostages and their supporters held a demonstration outside the International Committee of the Red Cros (ICRC) headquarters in Tel Aviv on 9 November. They were calling on the organisation to demand access to visit and treat the hostages still being held inside Gaza.
A UN report paints a stark picture of the Palestinian economy after a month of war and Israel’s near-total siege of Gaza. The gross domestic product shrank 4% in the West Bank and Gaza in the war’s first month, sending more than 400,000 people into poverty – an economic impact unseen in the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, or any previous Israel-Hamas war, the UN said.
A poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research says it has found Democrats are split on how President Joe Biden is handling the Israel-Hamas conflict. The poll found 50% of Democrats approve of how Biden has navigated the conflict while 46% disapprove – and the two groups diverge substantially in their views of US support for Israel.
Updated
It’s approaching mid-morning in Gaza now. The Guardian and other outlets have been reporting that the White House announced Israel would begin to implement four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in parts of northern Gaza to allow people to leave. However, there is yet to be a clear sign that this is taking place. Here are some scenes from the strip yesterday.
Here is our latest full report on recent developments in the Israel-Hamas war. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said he isn’t seeking to govern Gaza, after earlier saying Israel may be responsible for its security indefinitely. It also includes reports of attacks on three hospitals in the territory, including the main Al Shifa hospital.
In Israel, healthcare professionals and the families of hostages and their supporters held a demonstration outside the International Committee of the Red Cros (ICRC) headquarters in Tel Aviv on 9 November. They were calling on the organisation to demand access to visit and treat the hostages still being held inside Gaza. Here are some scenes from that protest:
Let’s get a bit more on our earlier post on Israel’s response to the drone that hit a school in the southern Israeli city of Eilat. The Israeli military has now posted on X (formerly Twitter) about the strike it says it carried out. On the post the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say that they believe an organisation in Syria was responsible and that the IDF has now hit back. There’s no more detail yet as to which organisation Israel is referring to. Here’s the post below:
In response to a UAV from Syria that hit a school in Eilat, the IDF struck the organization that carried out the attack a short while ago.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 10, 2023
The IDF holds the Syrian regime fully responsible for every terror activity emanating from its territory.
We will respond to every…
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have occupied the lobby of The New York Times on Thursday, demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza while accusing the media company of showing a bias toward Israel in its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the publication’s Manhattan headquarters. Many entered the building’s atrium for a sit-in and vigil that lasted more than an hour.
Led by a group of media workers calling themselves “Writers Bloc,” demonstrators read off the names of thousands of Palestinians killed in Gaza, including at least 36 journalists whose deaths have been confirmed since the war began.
The sit-in followed a series of actions at high-profile locations in New York intended to bring attention to the growing death toll in Gaza.
An email sent to New York Times staffers by the publication’s head of corporate security described the protest as “peaceful,” noting that “no entrances are blocked.”
On Tuesday, activists with the group Jewish Voice for Peace briefly took over the Statue of Liberty. The week prior, hundreds of people packed into Grand Central Terminal, shutting down the commuting hub during rush hour while hoisting banners that read “Ceasefire Now.”
A new UN report paints a stark picture of the Palestinian economy after a month of war and Israel’s near total siege of Gaza.
The gross domestic product shrank 4% in the West Bank and Gaza in the war’s first month, sending more than 400,000 people into poverty – an economic impact unseen in the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, or any previous Israel-Hamas war, the UN said.
Gaza’s Hamas rulers launched a surprise attack on Israel on 7 October, killing more than 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and kidnapping about 240 others.
More than two-thirds of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have fled their homes since Israel launched weeks of intense airstrikes, followed by an ongoing ground operation. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said Thursday that 10,818 Palestinians, including more than 4,400 children, have been killed so far.
The rapid assessment of economic consequences of the Gaza war released on Thursday by the UN Development Program and the UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia was the first UN report showing the devastating impact of the conflict.
If the war continues for a second month, the UN projects that the Palestinian GDP, which was $20.4bn before the war began, will drop by 8.4%. That’s a loss of $1.7bn. If the conflict lasts a third month, Palestinian GDP will drop by 12%, with losses of $2.5bn and more than 660,000 people pushed into poverty, it projects.
UN Development Program Assistant Secretary-General Abdallah Al Dardari told a news conference launching the report that a 12% GDP loss at the end of the year would be “massive and unprecedented.” By comparison, he said, the Syrian economy used to lose 1% of its GDP a month at the height of its conflict, and it took Ukraine a year and a half of fighting to lose 30% of its GDP, an average of about 1.6% a month.
Here are some of the latest images coming from inside Gaza as the fighting continues:
A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research says it’s found Democrats are split on how President Joe Biden is handling the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The poll found 50% of Democrats approve of how Biden has navigated the conflict while 46% disapprove – and the two groups diverge substantially in their views of US support for Israel.
Biden’s support on the issue among Democrats is down slightly from August, as an AP-NORC poll conducted then found that 57% of Democrats approved of his handling of the conflict and 40% disapproved.
The war could complicate Biden’s re-election effort as he faces having to balance factions of his party with very different views on the conflict and who is ultimately responsible.
The poll was of 1,239 adults, conducted between 2 and 6 November.
The Reuters news agency is reporting that Israel’s military says an organisation in Syria launched a drone that hit a school in the southern Israeli city of Eilat on Thursday, and that it struck the group in response.
The military did not say what organisation in Syria had launched the drone toward Eilat, on the Red Sea.
But it said in a statement it holds Syria’s government fully responsible “for any terror activity emanating from its territory.” There were no reports of injuries from the drone strike, which caused light damage, according to Reuters.
The drone incident adds to a spate of attacks directed from the region since the 7 October outbreak of Israeli fighting with Gaza’s Hamas militants.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. I’m Reged Ahmad and these are the latest developments:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said of his government: “we don’t seek to conquer Gaza, we don’t seek to occupy Gaza, and we don’t seek to govern Gaza”. But he said “a credible force” would be needed to end Hamas rule of the territory. “What we have to see is Gaza demilitarised, deradicalised and rebuilt,” he told Fox News in the US. “We have to destroy Hamas, not only for our sake, but for the sake of everyone.” His comment come days after he suggested Israel would keep control over Gaza indefinitely after its war against Hamas ends, saying his country will take “overall security responsibility” for the territory.
Gaza officials said Israel launched air strikes on or near at least three hospitals on Friday, further stressing the Palestinian territory’s precarious health system as it struggles to cope with thousands of people wounded or displaced in Israel’s war against Hamas militants.
At least 10,812 Palestinians, including 4,412 children, have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the health ministry in Gaza has said in its latest update. The death toll from the Hamas attacks on Israel is 1,400 and 240 hostages remain in Gaza.
18 Palestinians have been killed and at least 20 others injured by the Israel Defence Forces during a raid on Thursday on Jenin city and its refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. According to Palestinian health ministry figures, at least 178 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the 7 October attack on Israel.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said one of their paramedics was shot in the back and wounded by Israeli forces targeting an ambulance during the raid in Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.
Officials and diplomats are negotiating a days-long ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the release of hostages, including children, women, elderly and sick people, the Guardian understands. The discussions include the possibility of a one- to three-day ceasefire, although nothing has been agreed, sources with knowledge of the negotiations have said.
The White House announced that Israel would begin to implement four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in parts of northern Gaza to allow people to leave. The US national security spokesperson, John Kirby, described it as “a significant first step”. The US state department later said on Thursday that there will be two humanitarian corridors for civilians to leave hostile areas of northern Gaza.
The Israeli military has said it has not agreed to a ceasefire but that it will continue to allow “tactical, local pauses” to let in humanitarian aid into Gaza. A senior Israeli official told the Times of Israel the new four-hour pauses will take place in a different northern Gaza neighbourhood each day, with residents notified three hours ahead of time. There were no immediate reports of a lull in fighting raging among the ruined buildings in the north of the Gaza Strip on Thursday. Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said it was undertaking “localised and pinpoint measures” for civilians to leave but “these things do not detract from the war fighting”.
Any plans for short-term pauses in the fighting in Gaza must be carried out in coordination with the UN and following agreement by all sides to be “truly effective”, a UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric has said.
Thousands of Palestinians continued to flee south from northern Gaza. Israel said it had allowed movement along the Salah al-Din road – the main highway that runs along the Gaza Strip – for the fifth consecutive day. Images of the mass exodus showed many people evacuating on foot with their belongings tied to their backs, with some pushing wheelchairs and prams.
Yemen’s Houthi forces have said they launched “a barrage of ballistic missiles” targeting “various sensitive targets” in southern Israel. A Houthi military spokesperson said some of those missiles were heading for the Red Sea city of Eilat. Israel’s military said a drone hit a building in the southern Israeli city, and that no physical injuries were reported.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt reopened on Thursday for limited evacuations. Nearly 700 foreign passport holders and dependents were reportedly able to leave Gaza through the crossing on Thursday as well as 12 medical evacuees and 10 companions, after the crossing was suspended for a day.
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