Closing summary
We’re winding up our live coverage of the Middle East crisis for today. It’s 10pm in Jerusalem, Beirut and Gaza City, 8pm in the UK and 3pm in Washington DC. You can read our report on the news that the Israel will not be allowing Palestinians to return to their homes in northern Gaza here and analysis on what Donald Trump’s election win may mean for the Middle East here. Here’s a recap of the keys events that unfolded through today:
Israel’s government welcomed the election of Donald Trump as the next president of the US. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America”. President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas also congratulated Trump, expressing confidence that he would support Palestinians’ “legitimate aspirations” for statehood.
The UN’s aid agency for Palestinians is facing its “darkest hour,” its chief has said, as he implored member states to defend it against an Israeli decision to cut ties. “Without intervention by member states, Unrwa will collapse, plunging millions of Palestinians into chaos,” the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, Philippe Lazzarini said.
Four Israeli opposition leaders made a joint statement condemning Netanyahu for firing defence minister Yoav Gallant yesterday. There were protests for a second night in a row in Jerusalem over the sacking. Many protesters are calling for Netanyahu to resign, and demanding the new defence minister prioritise a hostage deal.
Hezbollah’s recently appointed new leader Naim Qassem has said it is not possible for Israel to win a war against the Iran-backed group, and said that peace will only be achieved on the battlefield, appearing to rule out any ceasefire negotiations unless Israel stopped its attacks first. He threatened nowhere in Israel was “off limits” to the Iran-backed militant group’s missiles.
United Nations agencies said they had completed the administration of a second dose of polio vaccine to the overwhelming majority of children in the Gaza Strip. In all, 556,774 children under the age of 10 received the second dose, amounting to 94% of the total population of that age group.
Lebanon said it had filed a complaint with the United Nations’ labour agency over the deadly attacks on communication devices across the country in September, which it blames on Israel. Lebanese labour minister Mustafa Bayram called the attack – which Israel has not an “egregious war against humanity, against technology, against work”, saying his country had filed the complaint with the UN’s International Labour Organization in Geneva.
Hezbollah said it launched attack drones at a military base south of Tel Aviv in Israel, adding it was targeting this military position for the first time.
Fighters launched a “squadron of attack drones at the Bilu base (belonging to the reserve paratroopers brigade...) south of Tel Aviv, for the first time,” Hezbollah said in a statement, AFP reported.
UN: Second dose of polio vaccine delivered to 94% of children in Gaza
United Nations agencies say they have completed the administration of a second dose of polio vaccine to the overwhelming majority of children in the Gaza Strip, AP reports.
In all, 556,774 children under the age of 10 received the second dose, the World Health Organization and the UN children’s agency said in a statement. That amounts to 94% of the total population that age in the territory, “a remarkable achievement given the extremely difficult circumstances,” they said.
But they also said coverage only reached 88% in northern Gaza, where Israel has been waging a major operation over the past month. An estimated 7,000 to 10,000 children in Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabaliya were inaccessible, the agencies said.
At least two doses and a minimum of 90% vaccination coverage are needed to prevent the spread of the disease in a given community, according to the agencies.
Updated
There are protests again tonight in Jerusalem over the sacking of Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Tonight’s protests follow on from demonstrations last night in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Many protesters are calling for Netanyahu to resign, and demanding the new defence minister prioritise a hostage deal.
Updated
Hezbollah said it targeted a naval base near the Israeli city of Haifa with drones and missiles, the fourth attack on the base in as many weeks.
Hezbollah fighters “targeted the Stella Maris naval base northwest of Haifa with a salvo of high-quality missiles and a squadron of attack drones”, the militant group said in a statement.
Updated
Israeli medics say a foreign worker was killed in a Hezbollah rocket attack, AP reports.
The Magen David Adom rescue service said the worker’s body was found near the northern city of Acre after a rocket barrage from Lebanon. It did not give a nationality.
Hezbollah’s rocket attacks last week killed seven people in Israel, including four Thai farm workers.
An Israeli airstrike landed dangerously close to Unesco-listed Roman ruins in the Lebanese city of Baalbek, AP reports.
Baalbek temple is a heritage site with some of the largest and best-preserved Roman temples outside Rome.
“This is the closest raid on Baalbek Temple since the beginning of the aggression, as a missile fell inside the castle’s parking lot,” the governor of Baalbek-Hermel province, Bachir Khodr, said in a post on X along with a grainy photo showing smoke rising in the distance. “The temple has not yet been inspected to determine if there is any damage inside it.”
Concerns have been mounting that Israel’s strikes may hit Lebanon’s heritage sites, including in Baalbek and the city of Tyre.
In a separate post, Khodr said 38 had been killed and 54 wounded in 40 attacks by Israel, revising an earlier tally.
Updated
The UN has said it has no responsibility to replace Unrwa operations in Gaza and the West Bank, signalling it that it is Israel’s problem as the occupying power, according to a letter excerpt seen by Reuters.
“I would note, as a general point, that it is not our responsibility to replace Unrwa, nor do we have the capacity to do so,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ chef de cabinet, Courtenay Rattray, wrote to a senior Israeli foreign affairs official.
The mention of responsibility is a reference to Israel’s obligations as an occupying power – the UN views Gaza and the West Bank as Israeli-occupied territory. International humanitarian law requires an occupying power to agree to relief programmes for people in need and to facilitate them “by all the means at its disposal” and ensure food, medical care, hygiene and public health standards.
Israel’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment on Rattray’s letter.
Updated
AP provides a more detailed report on Unrwa chief Philippe Lazzarini’s plea to UN members to take action to prevent Israel from implementing a ban on its operations in Gaza and the West Bank.
Lazzarini told the 193-member General Assembly Wednesday that the ban “will collapse the UN humanitarian response” in Gaza, end education for 650,000 boys and girls in the territory, and severely harm the lives and future of Palestinians.
Philemon Yang, president of the General Assembly which established Unrwa in 1949, said Israel’s legislation, which takes effect in 90 days, “constitutes an intolerable affront to the authority of this assembly, an affront to international law and, most importantly, an affront to the human dignity of innocent Palestinian civilians.”
He warned that dismantling Unrwa will also undermine the pursuit of a lasting solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict and constitute “an attack on the foundations of a two-state solution.”
Yang said the assembly extended Unrwa’s mandate in December 2022 by an overwhelming majority until 30 June 2026, and urgently called on Israel to comply with its international legal obligations, the UN Charter and UN resolutions.
Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon reiterated Israeli accusations that Unrwa is riddled with supporters of Hamas and claimed it is not the backbone of humanitarian operations in Gaza and must be eliminated.
Sitting next to released Israeli hostage Mia Schem in the assembly chamber, Danon strongly criticised the General Assembly and all other UN bodies for failing to condemn Hamas or to hold a single session dedicated to the hostages.
Updated
Iraq has said it would not allow its territory to be used for attacks related to conflict in the Middle East following reports that Iran could launch a retaliatory attack on Israel from the country’s territory, AFP reports.
After a National Security Council meeting, a statement called reports suggesting Iraqi territory might be used as a launch point “pretexts aiming to excuse aggression against Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
The statement came after a recent report on US news site Axios cited an Israeli intelligence source as saying an Iranian response could come from territory inside Iraq.
Lebanon says death toll is over 2,600 since Israel intensified strikes
Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad said that more than 2,600 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since Israel launched intense air strikes on Lebanon in September.
“More than 2,600 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since September 23,” Abiad told the AFP news agency, adding that most of those who died were civilians.
Multiple news agencies are reporting that Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Donald Trump on the phone following his election victory.
The Israeli PM’s office said the conversation was “warm, cordial” and the two agreed to work together for Israel’s security and that they discussed the “Iranian threat”.
Updated
Israeli authorities say two people were lightly wounded in a car-ramming and stabbing attack in the West Bank, AP reports.
The Israeli military said the attacker was killed.
Twenty Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s Baalbek-Hermel governorate have killed 30 people and wounded 35, the region’s governor, Bachir Khodr said in a post on X.
٢٠ غارة على محافظة #بعلبك #الهرمل اليوم، سقط جراءها ٣٠ شهيد و٣٥ جريح.#بشير_خضر
— Bachir Khodr (@BachirKhodr) November 6, 2024
Unrwa chief: UN members must defend Palestinian agency against Israel ban
The UN’s aid agency for Palestinians is facing its “darkest hour,” its chief has said, as he implored member states to defend it against an Israeli decision to cut ties, AFP reports.
“Without intervention by member states, Unrwa will collapse, plunging millions of Palestinians into chaos,” the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, told the UN general assembly, calling for the body – which created Unrwa in 1949 – to prevent implementation of the Israeli ban.
Updated
The UN’s nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi has said he might head to Iran in the coming days to discuss its disputed atomic programme, Reuters reports.
He also said he expected to work cooperatively with US president-elect Donald Trump.
Grossi had previously said he hoped to go to Tehran ahead of the US election as he seeks to resolve several long-standing issues that have dogged relations between Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency and Western powers.
Issues at stake include Tehran’s barring of experts from IAEA inspection teams and its failure to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites. Iran has also stepped up nuclear activity since 2019, after then-president Trump abandoned a 2015 deal Iran reached with world powers under which it curbed enrichment – seen by the West as a disguised effort to develop nuclear weapons capability – and restored tough US sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Tehran is now enriching uranium to up to 60% fissile purity, close to the roughly 90% required for an atom bomb. It has enough higher-enriched uranium to produce about four nuclear bombs, if refined further, according to an IAEA yardstick. Iran has long denied any nuclear bomb ambitions, saying it is enriching uranium for civilian energy uses only.
Earlier we reported on new Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem’s speech marking 40 days since the assassination of the previous leader Hassan Nasrallah. In that same speech he spoke about the US election, dismissing the result.
He said the Lebanese militant group “is not basing its expectations on the results of the American elections”.
“We will make the enemy seek to demand an end to the aggression,” Qassem said, speaking from an undisclosed location in a pre-recorded televised address. “Our military capabilities are available for a long time, and we do not rely on the results of the American elections.”
“Whether Harris wins or Trump wins, they have no value to us,” he said.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
It is approaching 5pm in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Gaza City, 6.30pm in Tehran, and 10am in Washington DC. Here are the headlines …
Israel’s government has welcomed the election of Donald Trump as the next president of the US. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America”. Israeli president Isaac Herzog has called the former president “a champion of peace”
President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas also congratulated Trump, expressing confidence that he would support Palestinians’ “legitimate aspirations” for statehood
Four Israeli opposition leaders made a joint statement condemning Netanyahu for firing defense minister Yoav Gallant yesterday. Yair Lapid said the Israeli public “cannot trust” Netanyahu, who was putting his own political interests ahead of the conduct of the war. Benny Gantz vowed to “fight the prime minister’s attempt to rule unchallenged”
Hezbollah’s recently appointed new leader Naim Qassem has said it is not possible for Israel to win a war against the Iran-backed group, and said that peace will only be achieved on the battlefield, appearing to rule out any ceasefire negotiations unless Israel stopped its attacks first. He threatened nowhere in Israel was “off limits” to the Iran-backed militant group’s missiles
A barrage of 50 rockets fired in to northern Israel is reported to have caused injuries in the northern border community of Avivim. Israeli media reports a power outage in the northern Israeli city of Safed as a result of rockets from the direction of Lebanon
Hezbollah has claimed it fired missiles at a military base near Israel’s Ben Gurion airport. The airport said it remained operating normally
The deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp has said Tehran has not ruled out that Israel and the US might carry out a joint pre-emptive strike on the country to prevent Iran retaliating to the Israeli strikes on Iranian infrastructure on 26 October
Director general of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi has said he might visit Tehran in the coming days
Lebanon said that it had filed a complaint with the United Nations’ labour agency over the deadly attacks on communication devices across the country in September, which it blames on Israel
Lebanon’s National News Agency reports an Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hreik. Earlier Israel’s military issued an order for civilians to flee specific locations it claimed were housing Hezbollah operations in the suburbs of Beirut.
More details soon …
Reuters has managed to speak to three people in Gaza about what they think the re-election of Donald Trump as president of the US means for their future.
Abu Osama, a displaced Palestinian currently living in Khan Younis, called Trump’s election victory a “new catastrophe in the history of the Palestinian people”.
“Despite the destruction, death, and displacement that we have [already] witnessed, what is coming will be more difficult, it will be politically devastating,” he told Reuters.
An engineer in Gaza, Mohammed Barghouthi, told the agency “I think Trump if he wins … he promised the Muslim people in America to stop the war in Gaza. We hope that happens.”
Khaled Dasouso, owner of a grocery in Khan Younis, was more blunt. “We, as Arabs and Palestinians, will not be naive enough. We have to deal with him as an enemy. We have to determine who is the enemy. They are enemies.”
Israel’s air force says that a barrage of about 50 rockets were fired into northern Israel in the Upper Galilee area.
Citing first responders, Emanuel Fabian, military correspondent at the Times of Israel, reports that “Several people are wounded in a rocket impact in the area of the northern border community of Avivim.”
More details soon …
Updated
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that four people have been killed in Gaza City by an Israeli drone strike.
Lebanese media are reporting a series of Israeli strikes in locations across the country, while there are also reports that people have been injured in Avivim in Israel, which is close to the UN-drawn blue line that separates Lebanon and Israel.
More details soon …
In his speech, Hezbollah’s recently appointed new leader Naim Qassem has said it is not possible for Israel to win a war against the Iran-backed group.
Palestinian news sources quote him saying “Victory is ours and we are ready for a war of attrition no matter how long it takes. This war is not winnable for Israel. We will remain steadfast, and [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu cannot win.”
Israeli media reports a power outage in the northern Israeli city of Safed as a result of rockets from the direction of Lebanon.
Hezbollah's new leader: we have tens of thousands of fighters and no place in Israel is off limits to missiles
In an appearance marking 40 days since the assassination of the previous leader Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s recently appointed new leader Naim Qassem has said nowhere in Israel is “off limits” to the group’s missiles, and that it retains tens of thousands of fighters. He said the battlefield was the only route to peace.
Palestinian news sources quote Qassem saying:
We have tens of thousands of trained resistance fighters capable of confronting the enemy. There is no place in Israel that is off limits to planes and missiles. We will make the enemy seek to demand an end to the aggression.
Dismissing prospects for a negotiated deal, Reuters reports Qassem said the war would only be ended on the battlefield, not through any political action. He said that if Israel stopped its actions against Hezbollah, then there would be a path to indirect negotiations via the Lebanese state.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Gaza, Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Updated
Israeli media is reporting that two people were lightly wounded in a suspected ramming attack at Shilo Junction in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Emanuel Fabian, military correspondent at the Times of Israel, reports that the IDF is demanding civilians in Beirut evacuate three specific buildings ahead of airstrikes.
The IDF is calling on civilians near three buildings in Beirut's southern suburb to immediately evacuate ahead of airstrikes.
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) November 6, 2024
Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF's Arabic-language spokesman, publishes maps alongside the announcement, which call on civilians to distance themselves at… pic.twitter.com/2XKWUDgXot
Director general of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi has said he might visit Tehran in the coming days.
Speaking in Rome, Reuters reports he told the media “Maybe in a few days, we still have to confirm the moment but it will be done.”
Grossi was also asked about the prospect of working with president-elect Donald Trump of the US.
“I have already worked with the Trump administration and we have worked cooperatively. I expect to continue in the same form,” he said, adding that any new administration means “adjustments, different approaches.”
In 2018 Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal.
Israel’s settler leaders have welcomed Donald Trump’s victory after Joe Biden’s administration imposed sanctions and asset freezes on settler groups and individuals involved in violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“We expect to have an ally standing unconditionally beside us as we fight the battles that are a war on the entire West,” Israel Ganz, chairman of the main Yesha settler council, said in a statement to Reuters.
Nearly two thirds of Israelis believe Trump would be better for Israel than his Democratic Party rival Kamala Harris, according to a survey from the Israel Democracy Institute. “I think it’s good for Israel,” said Jerusalem resident Nissim Attias. “He proved the last time he was the president, he moved the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and everything that he said, he did.”
Some settler groups, emboldened by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, have eyed resettling Gaza. Israeli settlements were dismantled in the Strip in 2005. Over the past year of war with Hamas, several members of the prime minister’s Likud party have also openly endorsed resettling Gaza – and there is growing speculation that the ongoing evacuation of the northern part of Gaza is a plan to remove the Palestinian population there.
President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas congratulated Donald Trump on his US presidential election victory, expressing confidence that he would support Palestinians’ “legitimate aspirations” for statehood, AFP reports.
Abbas, who is also chair of the Fatah party and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), has been all but sidelined by local and international actors since the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas broke out last year.
“We are confident that the United States will support, under your leadership, the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people,” Abbas said in a statement carried by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, reaffirming the Palestinian commitment to “the pursuit of freedom, self-determination and statehood, in accordance with international law.”
Updated
Lebanon files UN complaint against Israel over pager attacks
Lebanon said that it had filed a complaint with the United Nations’ labour agency over the deadly attacks on communication devices across the country in September, which it blames on Israel, AFP reports.
Lebanese labour minister Mustafa Bayram called the attack an “egregious war against humanity, against technology, against work”, saying his country had filed the complaint with the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva.
“It’s a very dangerous precedent,” he told journalists in the Swiss city.
Israel has not officially taken responsibility for the attacks, but Bayram said it was “widely accepted internationally ... that Israel was behind this heinous act”.
Asked why Lebanon had chosen to file the complaint with the ILO, Bayram said workers who use pagers and walkie-talkies for their job were targeted. “We deemed it necessary to point out that this runs contrary to work environment, security and safety, contrary to decent work principles ... defended by the ILO,” he said.
He added that Lebanese authorities could still file complaints over the pager attacks in other international forums, including the World Trade Organization.
AP provides some more detail on the earleir rocket attack on Israel by Hezbollah:
Sirens blared across northern and central Israel on Wednesday, including in the populous metropolitan area of Tel Aviv, as Hezbollah launched 10 rockets towards Israel.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue services said there were no reports of injuries.
A large portion of a rocket slammed into a parked car in the central Israeli city of Raanana. Rockets also struck an open area near Israel’s main airport, Israeli media reported, though the airport said flights were operating as normally.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue services said there were no injuries. Israeli police said they arrested 40 people during protests on Tuesday night when the demonstrators blocked Israel’s main highway in Tel Aviv.
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah continues to send dozens of rockets and drones towards Israel. The projectiles have killed 72 people in Israel so far, including 30 soldiers, according to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
My colleague Julian Borger is in Jerusalem for the Guardian, and offers this analysis of what Donald Trump’s election victory in the US means for Benjamin Netanyahu. Here is an excerpt:
The restoration of Donald Trump removes a substantial barrier to Israel’s full control and potential annexation of at least part of Gaza and the West Bank. The incoming president has shown himself unburdened by the weight of international law and UN security council resolutions when it comes to territory. His administration recognised Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights in 2019.
It is far from clear who would lead Middle East policy in a new Trump administration, but in the pool around the president-elect are notable supporters of the settler movement, such as his son-in-law Jared Kushner (who has talked of real estate potential of “waterfront property” in Gaza) and former ambassador to Israel David Friedman, whose application for a new job in the incoming administration took the form of a book extolling Israel’s divinely inspired right to seize the West Bank.
The boost given to the annexationist wing of the Israeli far-right may be the most immediate and momentous ramification of a Trump win for the Middle East, because of its potential to redraw the map.
Read more of Julian Borger’s analysis here: Trump win is a victory for Netanyahu, but Israeli PM may not get it all his way
Reuters has a quick snap that Hezbollah has claimed it fired missiles at a military base near Israel’s Ben Gurion airport.
There have been no reported casualties in the incident, and earlier Israel’s airport authority said it continued to operate normally.
Lapid: Netanyahu has 'weakened and damaged' the IDF by firing defense minister Gallant
Hebrew media site Ynet is carrying more words from the joint press conference by Israel’s opposition leaders, quoting Yair Lapid as saying the Israeli public “cannot trust” prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Ynet quotes him saying:
The firing of defense minister [Yoav] Galant yesterday is an act of madness by an incompetent prime minister. In the middle of a war, while Israel is fighting on seven fronts, Netanyahu weakened and damaged the IDF.
Gallant was not fired because of professional disagreements. Only last week Netanyahu stood here in the Knesset and spoke about the assassinations of Nasrallah, Haniyeh, Sinwar – and then fired the defense minister who led all these successes.
Part of the row between Netanyahu and Gallant was an ongoing dispute that has lasted months over whether ultra-Orthodox Jewish men should be exempt from being drafted into the military. Lapid said the prime minister had chosen to support those trying to avoid service, not those carrying it out. He continued:
What happened yesterday is not normal. It goes beyond all logic. Any Jewish mother will know that she has no one to trust. You cannot trust the prime minister or the cabinet. The only person who could be trusted was fired yesterday. Netanyahu is not qualified. He cannot lead Israel in wartime. The troops can’t trust him. He had a choice – and he chose disgrace.
A digital billboard congratulating Donald Trump on his victory in the US election has appeared in Jerusalem.
Israeli opposition leaders issue joint statement condemning Netanyahu for firing Gallant
Israeli opposition leaders have issued a joint statement condemning Benjamin Netanyahu for his decision yesterday to fire defense minister Yoav Gallant, and replace him with the foreign minister, Israel Katz.
“Firing the defense minister because of a political need to pass legislation dismissing the ultra-Orthodox from army service deals severe damage to the Israeli people’s security and spirit, but it will not break us,” said Benny Gantz, leader of the Israel Resilience Party and himself a former defense minister.
Joining him in the statement were Yair Lapid, Avigdor Lieberman and Yair Golan.
Gantz continued by vowing to “fight the prime minister’s attempt to rule unchallenged.”
He said the leaders represented “a large majority of Israelis,” and not just the Knesset members from their respective parties.
In a message on social media, Lapid added that members of Netanyahu’s Likud party were “cowards” for remaining silent on the issue.
In a statement late on Tuesday, Gallant had said his dismissal was triggered by disputes over Ultra-Orthodox conscription, Israel’s “moral obligation to return the hostages” and the need for a full inquiry to learn lessons of the 7 October terror attacks.
While the move was not entirely unexpected, Netanyahu chose to fire Gallant yesterday, on the day of the US elections, when world – and Israeli – media attention chiefly had eyes elsewhere.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reports that a Kuwaiti plane delivering humanitarian aid for the estimated 1.2 million Lebanese people forced from their homes by Israeli’s repeated airstrikes on the country has landed in Beirut.
Leaders of Israeli settlers have welcomed the imminent victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election.
“We expect to have an ally standing unconditionally beside us as we fight the battles that are a war on the entire West,” Israel Ganz, chairman of the main Yesha settler council, said in a statement to Reuters.
Joe Biden’s US administration had placed sanctions on some Israeli settlers involved in violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Nearly two thirds of Israelis had believed Trump would be better for Israel than his Democratic Party rival Kamala Harris, according to a survey from the Israel Democracy Institute.
The feeling was not necessarily shared among the Jewish community in the US, with the Times of Israel reporting that early exit polling – which can be inaccurate – showed that 79% of Jews said they voted Democratic, compared to 21% who voted Republican.
Speaking in the Knesset today, far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said, in response to the presumed result, “this is the time for sovereignty, this is the time for complete victory,” and said it was time to pass the death penalty in Israel for terrorists.
Israel abolished the death penalty for murder in 1954, but in March 2023, the Israeli parliament began work on a bill introducing a mandatory death sentence for those deemed to be terrorists.
Israel’s military reports that one of a recent barrage of rockets aimed at Israel from inside Lebanon struck an area near the Ben Gurion airport on the outskirts of Lod. There were no reports of any injuries.
Itay Blumental, a military correspondent for Israel’s Channel 11, has posted to social media clip which shows that some debris from an intercepted rocket landed and hit a car in the city of Ra’anana in central Israel. Again, there were no reports of any casualties.
פגיעת רסיס ברעננה pic.twitter.com/NfkXAdJjNL
— איתי בלומנטל 🇮🇱 Itay Blumental (@ItayBlumental) November 6, 2024
Reuters has spoken to Moussa Zahran, a Lebanese man who lived in a building in Barja that was targeted by an Israeli airstrike.
He had returned to what was left of his home today. Lebanon’s health ministry said just before midnight that the strike had killed 20 people and wounded 14, but said the toll could still rise.
Zahran told the agency “These rocks that you see here weigh 100 kilos, they fell on a 13 kilo kid,” he said, referring to his son and the apartment wall that had collapsed onto him during the strike.
Reuters reported the man had burned feet which were wrapped in gauze, and his son and wife were in hospital after being wounded in the strike.
The deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp has said Tehran has not ruled out that Israel and the US might carry out a joint pre-emptive strike on the country to prevent Iran retaliating to the Israeli strikes on Iranian infrastructure on 26 October.
The ISNA news agency quotes Ali Fadavi saying that “Iran and the resistance front are ready, and the Zionists do not have the strength to confront us, and they must wait for our response.”
He said that the geographical area of Israel was small and that Iran carried a large arsenal of weapons.
The Israeli strikes on 26 October were in reponse to a large volley of missiles fired into Israel by Iran on 1 October. They in turn were an Iranian response Israeli assassinations of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Senior Iranian figures in recent days appear to be signalling that the country is planning its third direct state-to-state attack on Israel this year.
Israel’s military says that “approximately 10 projectiles were identified crossing into Israel from Lebanon” within the last few minutes.
In a statement on its official Telegram channel, the IDF said “Some of the projectiles were intercepted. The IDF is currently unaware of injuries.”
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that Israeli security forces have arrested 12 more people in the last few hours in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The agency notes that more than 11,600 arrests have been made by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank since the 7 October attack.
Israel's president Herzog: Trump is a 'champion of peace'
In a message congratulating Donald Trump on his anticipated election victory in the US, the Israeli president Isaac Herzog has called the former president “a champion of peace.”
In the post on social media, Herzog wrote:
Congratulations to president Donald Trump on your historic return to the White House. You are a true and dear friend of Israel, and a champion of peace and cooperation in our region.
I look forward to working with you to strengthen the ironclad bond between our peoples, to build a future of peace and security for the Middle East, and to uphold our shared values.
On behalf of the Jewish and democratic state of Israel, and all our people, I wish you much success.
Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, has also offered congratulations to Donald Trump.
In a message on social media, he wrote:
Congratulations to president-elect Donald Trump on winning the US presidential election. I wish you all the best during your term and look forward to working together again to strengthen our strategic relationship and partnership, and to advancing our shared efforts in promoting security and stability both in the region and globally.
Since the 7 October attack inside southern Israel, Qatar, alongside Egypt, has been one of the most active nations in the region attempting, with little success, to act as a mediator and broker peace between Hamas and Israel. A temporary ceasefire and hostage release deal ended late in 2023, and nothing has been able to be agreed since then.
Israel’s military reports that warning sirens are again sounding in the north of the country.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Lebanon, showing the wreckage after an Israeli strike yesterday on Barja, a coastal town about 20km (12 miles) south of Beirut.
Al Jazeera’s Arabic service is reporting that at least 15 Palestinians have been killed in a strike this morning on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict. Al Jazeera has been banned from operating inside Israel by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
The Palestinian Quds news network is carrying a statement from Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip.
He told them:
The situation is still very difficult and we are still besieged inside the hospital. Ten days ago, most of the medical staff were arrested, and I am left with only two doctors and a number of nurses.
Unfortunately, we lost a number of wounded people due to the lack of surgical specialties, as most cases come on foot and require surgical intervention. After the crews were arrested, the occupation did not allow surgical crews to enter, and there is not a single ambulance in the northern Gaza Strip. As a result, many of the injured die in the streets because they are unable to reach us. This is very dangerous.
In addition, in the past two days, the occupation directly and randomly bombed the hospital buildings, and hospitalised children and crews providing services in the place were injured.
Unfortunately, we appealed to the world and international and humanitarian institutions, but we did not receive an answer.
New Israeli defense minister Katz says Trump presidency will 'bring back the hostages' and defeat Iran
Israel Katz has been so freshly appointed defense minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, that his social media account still describes him as foreign minister, which he was until yesterday. He has also offered warm congratulations to Donald Trump, posting:
Congratulations to president-elect Donald Trump on his historic victory. Together we’ll strengthen the US-Israel alliance, bring back the hostages, and stand firm to defeat the axis of evil led by Iran.
Congratulations to President-Elect @realDonaldTrump on his historic victory. Together 🇮🇱🇺🇸, we'll strengthen the US-Israel alliance, bring back the hostages, and stand firm to defeat the axis of evil led by Iran.#BringThemHome #USIsraelAlliance pic.twitter.com/aEYfttfPt1
— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) November 6, 2024
Lebanon’s army has issued a warning to residents in the Ghobeiry area of the southern suburbs of Beirut that today between 10.30am and 1.30pm it will “detonate unexploded ordnance” in the area.
Netanyahu says a Trump victory offers 'powerful recommitment' to alliance between US and Israel
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered his congratulations to Donald Trump, who appears on course for re-election in the US.
In a post to social media, Netanyahu, who yesterday fired Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant, triggering protests across Israel, said:
Dear Donald and Melania Trump, congratulations on history’s greatest comeback! Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America. This is a huge victory! In true friendship, yours, Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu.
Democratic party president Joe Biden, and the party’s candidate for election, Kamala Harris, have repeatedly backed Israel in public since the 7 October attack in 2023, and faced domestic criticism for it.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that a woman and three children have been killed by an Israeli strike on a house in Beit Lahia, in the north of the Gaza Strip.
It stated “Local sources reported that the occupation’s warplanes bombed a house belonging to the infant’s family, which led to the death of the mother and her three children, noting that her husband is detained in the occupation’s prisons.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Yesterday Israel’s military ordered an evacuation of the area, telling civilians they must flee into the south of Gaza.
About 100 people expected to be evacuated from Gaza today for medical reasons
Images sent to us over the news wires indicate that a scheduled medical evacuation from Gaza was taking place this morning.
Yesterday the World Health Organization announced that about 100 patients were to be evacuated from Gaza into Israel via the Kerem Shalom border crossing, and then taken on to the UAE and Romania for healthcare. A spokesperson for the organisation said that as many as 12,000 people in Gaza were awaiting transfer for medical reasons.
In an opinion piece in the Times of Israel, David Horovitz has described the firing of defense secretary Yoav Gallant as “reckless, divisive and dangerous to Israel”. He writes:
Gallant was … the most important advocate of maximal efforts to secure a hostage-ceasefire deal in Gaza, arguing, with the support of the nation’s security chiefs, that Israel should be pursuing a wide arrangement that would both end the fighting in the north — where Hezbollah has been greatly degraded, though certainly not destroyed — and in Gaza, where Hamas no longer functions as an organized fighting force.
Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners, however, bitterly oppose any such arrangement, and have repeatedly threatened to bolt the coalition were it to advance what they have denounced as a “reckless” deal. With Gallant out of the way, Netanyahu considers that his ultra-Orthodox and far-right partners can be accommodated, his most irritating critic will be gone, and his hold on power will be secure for the foreseeable future.
Lebanese media has reported Israeli strikes on several locations overnight, with a report that in Bayut Al-Siyad seven bodies were recovered from the rubble of a building.
Here are some more of outgoing Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant’s words yesterday evening about his sacking from Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. He said:
I will continue to uphold my principles.
Throughout my long years in the IDF, during operations and training – on land, above the water, and below it – I learned that in conditions of darkness and fog, one must navigate by the conscience.
In our current situation, when the fog of battle is thick and an ethical darkness surrounds us, I am bound by my conscience.
My hope is that, in addition to the people of the defense establishment, who have always followed this path, the public’s elected officials will also adopt this approach. It is the right thing to do.
Gallant, who had been considered in some quarters a more moderate element in Netanyahu’s cabinet, had said in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas 7 October attack that Israel was fighting “human animals”, and at the time said he was imposing a complete siege. “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” he said. His words from 9 October 2023 were cited in the case presented by South Africa before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide.
In the last few minutes Palestinian news sources have said there has been a new Israeli airstrike on the Halima Saadia school in Jabalia, northern Gaza. The school, which has been sheltering displaced Palestinians, has been targeted before. Israel has claimed that Hamas has been using the building as a command and control centre. At least eight people were reported killed there by a strike in September.
More details soon …
Israel claims to have killed a Hezbollah commander amid 70 airstrikes on Lebanon and Gaza
Israel’s military has claimed to have killed another Hezbollah commander inside Lebanon, and said its air force had carried out 70 strikes on targets in Lebanon and Gaza in the last 24 hours.
It a statement posted to the official IDF Telegram channel, Israel’s military named Hussain Abd Al-Haleem Harb as killed, and said he had been Hezbollah’s Khiam region Commander, who they claimed “directed and executed many rocket attacks against communities in the Galilee, and against the area of Metula specifically.”
On Monday Israel’s military allowed a limited media presence into the empty Metula to show damage claimed to have been caused by Hezbollah rockets. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced from their home in northern Israel by repeated rocket fire from inside Gaza.
The message from Israel’s military continued:
Over the past day, the IAF struck approximately 70 terror targets belonging to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, including terrorist cells, terror infrastructure sites, weapons storage facilities, missile launchers, and additional terror infrastructure. In Gaza, IDF troops continue operational activity in Jabalia, and have eliminated approximately dozens of terrorists over the past day.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and wider crisis in the Middle East. Here’s a snapshot of the latest to bring you up to speed.
Thousands of Israelis have protested across the country after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu sacked Yoav Gallant, calling on the defense minister’s successor to prioritise a deal to return the hostages in Gaza.
Demonstrators gathered in central Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening, blocking the city’s main highway and crippling traffic, while several thousands also protested outside the Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the city.
In Tel Aviv some protesters held up signs with slogans such as “We deserve better leaders” and “Leaving no one behind!” while some wore T-shirts saying “Bring them home now!” in reference to the hostages.
Foreign minister Israel Katz took over the defense portfolio on Tuesday, after Netanyahu fired Gallant over what the prime minister said was eroded trust between them over the past months of the Gaza war.
In other developments:
Gallant said after his dismissal that he believed “everyone of conscription age must serve in the IDF and defend the state of Israel” – including the Ultra-Orthodox – and that it was Israel’s “moral obligation and responsibility” to bring Israeli hostages home “with as many alive as possible”, adding there would not be any atonement for abandoning the captives and for “those leading this mistaken path”. He also spoke of the need for a state inquiry into any security failures that enabled the 7 October attacks
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, called Gallant’s dismissal “the last thing Israel needs”. Opposition leader Yair Lapid said the move was an “act of madness” in the middle of a war and that “Netanyahu’s is selling Israel’s security and the Israeli army soldiers for a disgraceful political survival”. The far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, praised Netanyahu for firing the defence minister, saying that “with Gallant … absolute victory cannot be achieved”
Israel Katz vowed to prioritise the return of Israel’s hostages and the “destruction” of Hamas and Hezbollah, in his first post on X since accepting the defence minister’s role
An Israeli strike targeting a residential building in the town of Barja, about 20km south of Beirut, killed at least 20 people on Tuesday, Lebanon’s health ministry said. The ministry said an earlier strike on the coastal town of Jiyeh killed one person and wounded 20
Hezbollah claimed on Tuesday it fired rockets and drones into northern Israel and targeted Israeli troops near the border inside Lebanon
Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians in the West Bank in separate operations, Palestinian officials said. The Israeli military told AFP it had targeted “terrorists”
The Syrian town of Al-Qusayr came under air attack for the second time in a week, with the Israeli military saying it carried out “an intelligence-based strike on weapons storage facilities used by Hezbollah’s munitions unit”. Syria’s official Sana news agency said Al-Qusayr industrial zone was hit and Israel also targeted residential buildings surrounding the zone, near Lebanon’s border
The World Health Organisation said a large-scale medical evacuation was planned from Gaza this week, with as many as 113 seriously ill and injured patients set to be evacuated on Wednesday and be taken to the United Arab Emirates or Romania. If it went ahead, it would be the largest evacuation from Gaza since October 2023, according to UN health agency data
