Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out a ceasefire in Gaza, declaring “this is a time for war”. In a press conference conducted in English on Monday, the Israeli prime minister said the army’s advance through Gaza opened opportunities to free hostages, which Hamas would do only under pressure.
Israeli forces appear to be advancing in two directions on Gaza City. In the north of the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces were operating close to the Mediterranean coast. Witness reports described Israeli tanks cutting the main north-south Salah al-Din road south of Gaza City and operating on the outskirts of the Zaytun district and Shejaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City. The cutting of the key road, if confirmed, would suggest that Israeli forces are attempting to cut off Gaza City from the south, effectively isolating and laying siege to the urban sprawl that extends north all the way to Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia.
Israel was “gradually moving ahead according to plan” in the Gaza Strip, chief military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said during a regular press briefing on Monday. The Israeli air force said it had struck 600 targets in the last day.
Israeli forces also struck targets in Syria and Lebanon, in response to launches from those areas into Israel, the country’s defence force has said. In separate tweets, the IDF said an aircraft had attacked Hezbollah targets in Lebanese territory, including “infrastructures for directing terrorism and military infrastructures of the organisation”, and that a fighter jet had attacked launchers in Syrian territory.
Hamas has released a video of three Israeli hostages in Gaza in an apparent effort to increase the pressure on Netanyahu’s government. Netanyahu’s office named the hostages as Daniel Aloni, Rimon Kirsht and Elena Trupanov. Their families held a press conference in Tel Aviv urging Red Cross to demand to see all of the hostages held in Gaza, and for the US president, Joe Biden, to “do any and everything in your power to bring everyone home.”
An Israeli soldier captured by Hamas has been rescued from Gaza in an overnight operation, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said. Ori Megidish, an army private, was freed on Sunday night, three weeks after she was abducted with more than 220 other hostages. After a medical check declared her healthy she was reunited with her family.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry has issued updated casualty figures, claiming that since Israel began its strikes on 7 October it has killed 8,306 Palestinians, including 3,457 children. Israel began its latest military campaign after the Hamas attack inside Israel on 7 October which killed more than 1,400 Israelis.
The head of the UN’s children agency (Unicef) has highlighted that this means more than 420 children are being killed or injured in Gaza each day – “a number which should shake each of us to our core”. One child is now being killed every 10 minutes in Gaza, according to Save the Children.
Shani Louk, a German-Israeli who was captured from a music festival in southern Israel on 7 October by Hamas, has been confirmed dead by Israel’s foreign ministry. In Germany, the Süddeutsche Zeitung quoted her mother saying that her daughter’s body had not yet been found but a splinter of a skull bone had been found and a DNA sample taken that had led to the identification. A widely-seen video from 7 October had shown Louk lifeless in the back of a truck.
A Palestinian stabbed and seriously wounded an Israeli police officer before being shot dead in annexed east Jerusalem, close to the green line. Guardian correspondents about 200 metres from where the shooting took place heard two bursts of gunfire in quick succession and saw armed police, horses and sharp shooters on motorbikes converging on a nearby petrol station.
International criminal court prosecutor Karim Khan said the ICC has “active investigations ongoing” into alleged war crimes in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. The prosecutor added: “There should not be any impediment to humanitarian relief supplies going to … civilians.”
The Palestinian Authority will not return to governing Gaza after the Israel-Hamas conflict without a comprehensive agreement that includes the West Bank in a Palestinian state, the authority’s prime minister has said. Israeli civilian and military officials have said their plan for the end of the Gaza war is to have some form of transitional authority rule the territory, perhaps involving Arab states.
The US does not believe a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is “the right answer” right now, the White House’s national security council spokesperson said. “We believe that a ceasefire right now benefits Hamas, and Hamas is the only one that would gain from that right now,” John Kirby said on Monday.
Civil rights groups in the US have warned of a “wave of McCarthyite backlash” against criticism of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza after Americans expressing support for the Palestinians have been sacked, faced threats of violence and hounded by pro-Israel groups.
