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Troops ‘completed the encirclement of Gaza City’, says IDF
Here is another look at the IDF’s announcement that it has “completed the encirclement of Gaza City” via AFP:
Israeli ground troops encircled Hamas stronghold Gaza City on Friday, after close ally the United States urged “concrete steps” to minimise civilian casualties.
Ahead of top US diplomat Antony Blinken’s scheduled visit to Israel Friday, the country’s military said it had “completed the encirclement” of Gaza’s largest city – signalling a new phase in the month-long war against Hamas.
Israel’s military describes Gaza City as “the centre of the Hamas terror organisation”.
But it is also home to some half a million Palestinians who have endured weeks of withering aerial bombardments, dwindling supplies and daily bloodshed on an unprecedented scale.
Outside Gaza City’s Al-Quds hospital, displaced residents seeking shelter from Israeli strikes told AFP that civilians would not withstand the barrage much longer.
“This is not a life. We need a safe place for our kids,” said 50-year-old Hiyam Shamlakh.
“Everybody is terrified, children, women and the elderly.”
The conflict is turning to urban and underground warfare, with Hamas fighting from a tunnel complex believed to span hundreds of kilometres.
A new video posted by Hamas sought to illustrate the devastating impact of its underground network, with a gunman seemingly emerging from a tunnel to plant an explosive on a nearby and unsuspecting Israeli tank.
The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, insisted invading Israeli soldiers would go home “in black bags”.
“Gaza will be the curse of history for Israel,” spokesman Abu Obeida said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told group of elite soldiers on Thursday that Israeli forces were “advancing” despite “painful losses”, AFP reports.
“We are in the midst of the campaign. We have very impressive successes” he said at a base near Tel Aviv.
“We are already more than on the outskirts of Gaza City. We are advancing.”
A WhatsApp feature that generates images in response to users’ searches returns a picture of a gun or a boy with a gun when prompted with the terms “Palestinian”, “Palestine” or “Muslim boy Palestinian”, the Guardian has learned.
The search results varied when tested by different users, but the Guardian verified through screenshots and its own tests that various stickers portraying guns surfaced for these three search results. Prompts for “Israeli boy” generated cartoons of children playing soccer and reading. In response to a prompt for “Israel army” the AI created drawings of soldiers smiling and praying, no guns involved.
Meta’s own employees have reported and escalated the issue internally, a former Meta employee with knowledge of the discussions said.
US calls for ‘temporary, localized’ pauses in Israel-Hamas war
In case you missed this earlier: US President Joe Biden is calling for humanitarian pauses in the Israel-Hamas conflict that would involve a “temporary, localised” cessation of hostilities - well short of a general ceasefire – a senior White House official said Thursday.
At a campaign event on Wednesday Biden was urged by a member of the audience to call for a ceasefire in the war. Biden replied: “I think we need a pause.”
Talking to reporters Thursday National Security Council spokesman John Kirby clarified what such a pause would entail.
“A humanitarian pause... is temporary, localized and focused, focused on a particular objective or objectives, humanitarian aid in, people out,” Kirby said.
He added: “The general idea is that in that geographic space, for that limited time, there would be a cessation of hostilities, enough to allow whatever it is you’re trying to allow.”
The White House has previously called for “humanitarian pauses” to allow aid to be delivered into Gaza or to carry out evacuations, but has so far refused to discuss a ceasefire, believing it would exclusively play into the hands of Hamas.
Hezbollah on Wednesday published a letter from its fighters addressed to Palestinian groups in Gaza, saying they had their “finger with you on the trigger... to support Al-Aqsa mosque and our oppressed brothers in Palestine”, AFP reports.
The Shiite Muslim group has mainly restricted itself to targeting Israeli observation posts, military positions and vehicles near the border as well as drones, using what it says have been anti-tank missiles, guided missiles and even surface-to-air missiles.
Israel has responded by bombing sites along the border, while drones have targeted fighters near the frontier.
The border tensions have revived memories of Hezbollah’s devastating 2006 war with Israel that killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 in Israel, largely soldiers.
More now on what analysts expect ahead of Nasrallah’s speech, via AFP:
Some analysts believe that Hezbollah has little interest in becoming fully embroiled in a conflict that Israeli officials have threatened could destroy Lebanon.
Others say the decision lies with Iran, which leads the regional “axis of resistance” against Israel, which alongside Hezbollah includes armed groups from Syria, Iraq and Yemen, some of which have attacked Israel and US interests in the region in recent weeks.
But Amal Saad, a Hezbollah expert at Cardiff University, said: “Hezbollah is not a proxy of Iran, it’s an ally of Iran ... Hezbollah doesn’t need anyone’s permission to intervene.”
“Hezbollah has much more experience obviously fighting Israel than Iran does - Iran has not had a direct confrontation with Israel,” Saad added.
Hezbollah leader to speak on Friday
AFP reports that Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, will speak on Friday, in his first comments since 7 October.
Lebanon’s southern border has seen escalating tit-for-tat exchanges in recent weeks, mainly between Israel and Iran-funded Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, stoking fears of a broader conflagration.
The cross-border attacks heated up on Thursday, as Israel responded with a “broad assault” after Hezbollah attacked 19 Israeli positions simultaneously, according to the group.
Rockets also hit the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona near the border in a barrage claimed by the Lebanese section of Hamas’s armed wing.
Nasrallah’s highly anticipated speech will be broadcast as part of an event in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, at 3pm (13.00 GMT) on Friday, in memory of fighters killed in Israeli bombardments.
Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has warned that “the region is like a powder keg” and that “anything is possible” if Israel does not stop attacking Gaza.
US national security council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, “I don’t believe we’ve seen any indication yet specifically that Hezbollah is ready to go in full force. So we’ll see what he has to say.”
Updated
Reuters reports that Chilean President Gabriel Boric, who this week condemned Israeli military’s air bombardment of Gaza and recalled his envoy to Israel, on Thursday said he told President Joe Biden that Israel’s actions were violating international law.
Boric said he condemned the 7 October attack on Israel by the Hamas militant group that killed 1,400 people, and called for the release of Israeli hostages, but added Israel’s retaliatory bombardment of Gaza had been disproportionate and was violating international law.
“These Hamas attacks are without justification, they deserve global condemnation, but the response by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government also deserves our clearest condemnation,” he told reporters after his meeting with Biden at the White House.
There’s no doubt we can say the response has been disproportionate and is violating international humanitarian law,” he said. “The right of a state to defend itself has limits, and those limits imply respecting the lives of innocent civilians, especially children, and respecting civil humanitarian law.”
Asked about Biden’s response, Boric said it was not his place to speak for the American president.
The White House issued a statement later on Thursday that said Biden had “reaffirmed our continued efforts to urgently increase and sustain the delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance * including food, water, and medical care * to civilians in Gaza.”
Four Indonesians evacuated from Gaza
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said on Friday that four Indonesians and one wife of an Indonesian national had been evacuated from Gaza on 2 November.
The evacuees had arrived in Cairo, she said in a press conference.
Here is another profile of one of the 3,760 children killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza, from the Associated Press:
Aseel Hassan, 13 years old
Aseel Hassan was an excellent student, said her father, Hazem Bin Saeed. She devoured classical Arabic poetry, memorizing its rigid metric and rhyme scheme, and reveling in its mystical images and metaphors.
During the war, when Israeli bombardments came so close that their walls shook, she would regale her relatives by reciting famous verses from Abu Al Tayyib al-Mutanabbi, a 10th-century Iraqi poet, her father said.‘When I asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up, she would say, read,’ said 42-year-old Bin Saeed.
‘Poems were Aseel’s escape.’
An airstrike on 19 October leveled his three-story home in Deir al-Balah, killing Aseel and her 14-year-old brother, Anas.
Updated
The Associated Press has looked at the lives and aspirations of some of the 3,760 children killed in Gaza since 7 October.
Kenan, Neman, Joud and Tasnim Al-Sharif, 18 months, five and 10 years old
Karam al-Sharif, an employee with the UN Palestinian refugee agency, could barely speak Wednesday as he knelt over his children’s small shrouded bodies at the hospital. Gone were his daughters, 5-year-old Joud and 10-year-old Tasnim.
Also gone were his twin 18-month-old sons, Kenan and Neman. Al-Sharif sobbed as he hugged Kenan and said goodbye. Neman’s body was still lost beneath the rubble of the six-story tower where the family had sought refuge in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza.
“They had no time here,” Sami Abu Sultan, al-Sharif’s brother, said of the baby boys, a day after the building was destroyed. “It was God’s will.”
Israel 'severing all contact’ with Gaza and sending labourers back: govt
AFP: Israel will return Gazans working inside the country to the besieged Palestinian territory, the government said.
“Israel is severing all contact with Gaza. There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza,” the Israeli security cabinet announced in a statement late Thursday.
“Those workers from Gaza who were in Israel on the day of the outbreak of the war will be returned to Gaza,” it added, without specifying how many people would be sent back.
Before the Israel-Hamas conflict started, Israel had issued work permits to some 18,500 Gazans, according to Cogat, the Israeli defence body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs.
Cogat did not immediately return a request for information on the number of Gazans working inside Israel at the time of the attack on October 7, when Hamas militants stormed across the border and killed at least 1,400 people, according to Israeli officials.
7,000 Palestinian children have been injured since 7 October – reports
The Associated Press has taken a closer look at the toll on surviving children in Gaza: the war has injured more than 7,000 Palestinian children and left many with lifechanging problems, the Associated Press reports, citing doctors. The Guardian has not verified this figure independently.
3,760 children have been killed, according to the Gaza health ministry.
“People are running from death only to find death,” said Yasmine Jouda, who lost 68 family members in 22 October airstrikes that razed two four-story buildings in Deir al-Balah, where they had sought refuge from northern Gaza, after the IDF warned Palestinians to leave.
Just before the war, Jouda’s niece Milissa walked a few paces for the first time. She will never walk again. Doctors say the airstrike that killed the girl’s family fractured her spine and paralyzed her from the chest down.
Just down the hall from her in the central Gaza hospital, 4-year-old Kenzi woke up screaming, asking what had happened to her missing right arm.
“It will take so much care and work just to get her to the point of having half a normal life,” her father said.
Updated
What is the definition of genocide?
Reuters: The International Criminal Court defines the crime of genocide as the specific intent to destroy in whole, or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group by killing its members or by other means, including imposing measures intended to prevent births or forcibly transferring children from one group to another.
Asked about the independent experts’ statement at a press briefing, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said a determination of genocide could only be made by a relevant UN judicial body.
On 28 October, departing senior UN human rights official Craig Mokhiber wrote to the High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, saying:
We are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it.”
The UN rights office said that Mokhiber’s views were “personal” and did not reflect those of the office.
Speaking to Reuters after the experts’ statement was issued, one of its signatories said the people of Gaza had been deprived of the “the most basic elements for living”.
Pedro Arrojo Agudo, Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, said:
We are using the term risk of genocide because the process that is (underway) is absolutely indiscriminate, affecting, in this case, more than two million people.”
“And in this sense, I think we are facing a risk of genocide, effectively.”
Independent UN experts call for ceasefire
If you’re just joining us: A group of independent United Nations experts has called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, saying time was running out for Palestinians there who are at “grave risk of genocide”.
“We remain convinced that the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide,” the group of experts, made up of seven UN special rapporteurs, said in a statement.
“We demand a humanitarian ceasefire to ensure that aid reaches those who need it the most.”
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Junior says that Filipinos waiting to leave Gaza via Egypt’s Rafah border could leave by Friday or Saturday.
He cites a commitment from Israel.
Key event
AP: Bahrain’s government says its ambassador to Israel has returned home from Israel.
The state-run Bahrain News Agency issued a statement late Thursday saying the ambassador “returned to the kingdom some time ago,” hours after the lower house of its parliament made a series of claims about relations between the two countries.
The Israeli Embassy in Manama, Bahrain’s capital, had evacuated in mid-October amid security concerns.
The Bahraini statement did not say that the country had severed diplomatic and economic ties despite an earlier assertion by Bahrain’s lower house of parliament. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said, “Relations between Israel and Bahrain are stable.”
Bahrain was one of several Arab nations that diplomatically recognized Israel in 2020. In the time since, Bahrain has heralded its ties to the country, despite protests. Those ties have been strained by the war.
Bahrain is also home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet and long has had tense relations with Iran, which has backed Hamas.
The Associated Press has published a report from inside the Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, after the IDF struck Bureij refugee camp, which is home to 46,000 people. The Bureij strikes on Thursday killed at least 15, Gaza’s Civil Defense said. It said dozens of others were believed to be buried in the rubble.
The gray film covering the faces of children rushed to the hospital on Thursday made it hard to distinguish between the living and the dead.
After two Israeli airstrikes flattened an entire block of apartment buildings in the Bureij refugee camp and damaged two UN schools-turned-shelters, rubble-covered Palestinians big and small arrived at a hospital too packed to take them.
Tiny, motionless bodies lay flat against the hospital’s hard floor. A small boy bled out onto the tiles as medics tried to staunch the flow from his head. A baby lay next to him with an oxygen mask strapped on — covered in ash, his chest struggled to rise and fall. Their father sat beside them.
‘Here they are, America! Here they are, Israel!’ he screamed. ‘They are children. Our children die every day.’
It was not immediately clear why Israel targeted Bureij, which is located in central Gaza in an area where Israel has urged people to go to stay safe from heavy fighting further north.
Updated
Two Palestinians killed in West Bank: Palestinian health ministry
AFP: Two people were killed during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement early Friday, as fighting there continues alongside the conflict in Gaza.
A spokesperson for the Israeli military told AFP in a statement that the Israel Defense Forces were “currently conducting counterterrorism activities in the area”, without elaborating.
The latest deaths in the West Bank come on top of three Palestinians killed by Israeli fire on Thursday and an Israeli killed in a Palestinian shooting attack, according to first responders.
Two Palestinians were shot dead during an Israeli raid in El-Bireh near the city of Ramallah, while a third was killed in the northern town of Qalqilya, the Palestinian health ministry said.
The Israeli victim died when his car came under fire near Einav settlement in the northwest of the territory.
Around 130 Palestinians have now been killed in clashes with troops or Jewish settlers since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, according to the health ministry.
Here is our full report on the US House passing a Republican plan to provide $14.3bn in aid to Israel as it fights Hamas.
Democrats insist it has no future in the Senate and the White House has promised to veto the plan.
Reuters: Speaking after meeting the French contingent in Lebanon and ahead of a much-anticipated speech by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday, Lecornu said all of Lebanon’s leaders needed to understand the risk of going to war.
“The war here in Lebanon would plunge part of the Middle East into an abyss, into an abyss which we would have difficulty collectively to get back up from,” Lecornu said.
President Emmanuel Macron appointed a former foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in June to try to come up with a method to convince Lebanon’s political elite to put rivalries aside and appoint a new head of state after more than a year of blockage to carry out economic reforms and unlock vital foreign aid.
However, that has led to nowhere.
“It’s clear that in the difficulties we are experiencing, not having a contact person for over a year now makes no sense. This weakens Lebanon even more,” Lecornu said.
Reuters: France has passed messages to Hezbollah and Israel to not destabilise the United Nations’ Lebanon peacekeeping force Unifil and said that any broadening of the Hamas-Israel war to Lebanon would plunge the country “into an abyss”.
France has sought to use its historical relationship with Lebanon to try to defuse tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, but violence has spiked. Some 700 French soldiers are part of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) established in 1978 following violence on the Israel-Lebanon border.
“It is clear that we must not put Unifil in an untenable situation in which it will not be able to carry out the mission that the United Nations has given it,” Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu told France Info radio.
“This is the message we are sending to the various actors, on the Lebanese side as well as on the Israeli side.”
Japan air force plane evacuates 46 out of Israel
An aerial refuelling and transport plane operated by Japan’s Air Self-Defence Force left Israel for Japan late on Thursday carrying 46 passengers including 20 Japanese nationals, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.
Passengers aboard also included 15 South Koreans, four Vietnamese and one Taiwanese, the ministry announced on Friday.
The second such evacuation using Japanese military aircraft since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict last month took place amid Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa’s visit to Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Territories.
Republicans advance Israel funding without Ukraine, defying Biden
In the US, the Republican-led lower chamber of Congress has passed a $14bn aid package for Israel, defying President Joe Biden’s request to also include more money for Ukraine and other pressing priorities.
The bill, which diverts funding budgeted to the US tax collection agency, is almost certain to fail in the Democratic-controlled Senate, while Biden has also threatened to veto it.
The White House has requested a larger, multifaceted package of support for both Israel and Ukraine, as well as humanitarian aid for Gaza and additional funding for US border-related projects.
Summary of the day so far
It’s 1am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s where we stand:
Israeli forces have “completed the encirclement of Gaza City” and are fighting “with full force”, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said. Israel’s top military commander said his country’s forces have surrounded Gaza City on three sides and that Israeli troops are operating inside the city. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also said Israeli forces had pushed further in than the outskirts of Gaza City. “We’re at the height of the battle,” he said.
At least 9,061 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, including 3,760 children, the health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday. The current conflict began on 7 October when Hamas launched an onslaught on southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people and swept up hundreds more as hostages. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify figures from either Israeli or Palestinian authorities.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said four of its schools in Gaza that are being used as shelters have been damaged in less than 24 hours. At least 20 people have reportedly been killed and five others injured on Thursday after a school that is being used as a shelter was damaged at the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, the agency said in its latest update. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said at least 27 people were killed in a blast near a UN school in the Jabalia camp on Thursday.
At least 15 people have been killed after a blast in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry said. A spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence said the blast took place in a residential building, and residents reported scores of people trapped beneath the rubble.
At least 195 Palestinians were killed in two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday and Wednesday, a Hamas-run government media office said. Israel claims it killed senior Hamas officials in both attacks. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said Muhammad A’sar, the commander of Hamas’s anti-tank guided missile array, was targeted in Wednesday’s airstrike. The UN human rights office said Israel’s airstrike on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday could amount to war crimes.
Eighteen Israeli soldiers have been killed amid fierce fighting in Gaza, the IDF said, in a series of incidents that have underlined the mounting challenges facing the IDF in their attempts to push further into built-up areas of Gaza.
A journalist working for the Palestinian Authority’s television channel was killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza, his network reported. Mohammed Abu Hatab was killed along with 11 members of his family after an Israeli aistrike on their home, according to the PA’s official news agency WAFA. His death marks the 36th journalist who has been killed in the conflict, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam brigades, said its fighters in southern Lebanon were behind the shelling of the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, where four rockets landed in an industrial area, injuring two people and damaging buildings.
Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, said it had simultaneously attacked 19 positions in Israel on Thursday evening. The strikes came hours after Hezbollah said it had used two drones packed with explosives to attack an Israeli army command position in the disputed Shebaa Farms area on the Lebanese-Israeli border earlier in the day. It is the first time Hezbollah has acknowledged carrying out an attack against Israeli forces using such drones, and comes a few days after it said for the first time it had used a surface-to-air missile against an Israeli drone.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened for a second day to allow the evacuation of some injured Palestinians requiring hospital treatment and foreign passport holders. British nationals were able to get out of Gaza on Thursday, the UK Foreign Office confirmed. The US has been able to get 74 dual citizens out of Gaza, Joe Biden said. A total of 400 foreign passport holders as well as 60 severely wounded Palestinians were due to cross by the end of Thursday, a spokesperson for the Palestinian side of the crossing said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it is “almost impossible” to bring humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. The WHO’s emergencies director, Michael Ryan, said the basic safety of staff on the ground in Gaza could not be guaranteed at the moment. It was “unconscionable”, he said. WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the situation on the ground in Gaza is “indescribable”.
A group of United Nations experts have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, warning that “time is running out” as Palestinian people there find themselves at “grave risk of genocide”. In a statement, they expressed “deep frustration with Israel’s refusal to halt plans to decimate” the Gaza Strip and said they felt “deepening horror” about Israeli airstrikes against the Jabalia refugee camp.
Turkey is ready to take in cancer patients from the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital in Gaza after it went out of service after running out of fuel, Turkey’s health minister, Fahrettin Koca, said. Health officials yesterday said the hospital – the only cancer treatment hospital in the Gaza Strip – had used up its fuel and was out of service.
The US will not seek to impose any conditions on the support it gives Israel to defend itself in the wake of the Hamas attacks of 7 October, vice-president Kamala Harris said on Thursday. She refused to comment on Israel’s bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp, adding: “We are not telling Israel how it should conduct this war.”
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken will urge the Israeli government to agree to a series of “humanitarian pauses” to the fighting in Gaza, according to a report. Blinken told reporters on Thursday he would seek “concrete steps” from Israel to “minimise harm” to civilians in Gaza. He is due to spend the day on Friday in Israel, his fourth visit since 7 October.
Joe Biden called for a “pause” in the Israel-Hamas war on Wednesday and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is expected back in the region on Friday. Biden has been under pressure to call for a ceasefire or a meaningful humanitarian pause in Israel’s campaign. Israel did not immediately respond to Biden’s remarks, but Netanyahu has previously ruled out a ceasefire.
Netanyahu’s office announced that ministers have voted to transfer tax funds it had collected for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to Ramallah, but deducted the money earmarked for the Gaza Strip. “Israel is cutting off all contact with Gaza,” a statement from the office said on Thursday.
Blinken to push for 'humanitarian pauses' during visit to Israel - report
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken will urge the Israeli government to agree to a series of “humanitarian pauses” to the fighting in Gaza, according to a report.
Blinken will push Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and other Israeli officials to agree to a series of brief cessations of military operations in Gaza to allow for hostages to be released and for humanitarian aid to be distributed, the New York Times reported, citing White House officials.
White House officials said the request for pauses was far different from an overall ceasefire. Kan news reported that Netanyahu was considering honoring the US request.
A doctor has described the situation at Gaza’s largest hospital as “beyond catastrophic”.
Dr Marwan Abusada, chief of surgery at al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, told Medical Aid for Palestinians:
The situation is beyond catastrophic. The corridors are full of injured people. The ER rooms are beyond full. We have zero capacity to treat all the injured people.
The high number of displaced people are no longer sheltering in the courtyard of the hospital but are now inside the hospital, including in the corridors. There is a high chance of infectious diseases spreading between patients and those displaced.
Palestinian journalist killed in Gaza bombing, says network
A journalist working for the Palestinian Authority’s television channel was killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza, his network reported.
Mohammed Abu Hatab was killed along with 11 members of his family after an Israeli aistrike on their home, according to the PA’s official news agency WAFA.
Abu Hatab’s death marks the 36th journalist who has been killed in the conflict, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
#Update: Today, Mohammed Abu Hatab, a correspondent for the local channel Palestinian TV, was killed along with 11 members of his family in an Israeli airstrike in #Gaza.
— CPJ MENA (@CPJMENA) November 2, 2023
Up until now, 36 journalists have been killed in the #Israel-#Gaza war.https://t.co/lNtZEQfEOX
At least 15 people have been killed after a blast in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Aerial shots show the huge destruction of the camp, while residents searched for survivors in the rubble.
Turkey is ready to take in cancer patients from the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital in Gaza after it went out of service after running out of fuel, Turkey’s health minister, Fahrettin Koca, said.
Health officials yesterday said the hospital – the only cancer treatment hospital in the Gaza Strip – had used up its fuel and was out of service.
In a social media post, Koca said that if the necessary coordination was done, Turkey was ready to bring both cancer patients and others in need of emergency help to Turkey to continue their treatment. He added:
The international community and relevant institutions have unfortunately not taken enough initiative to prevent the attacks on the hospital. Saving the lives of the patients is now a duty that cannot be escaped.
Uluslararası toplum, hastaları bilerek ölüme terk etmekle hayatlarını kurtarmak arasında bir tercih yapmak zorunda.
— Dr. Fahrettin Koca (@drfahrettinkoca) November 2, 2023
Gazze’de faaliyet gösteren Türk-Filistin Dostluk Hastanesi, yakıtının tükenmesi ve İsrail’in devam eden saldırıları sonucunda dün faaliyetine tamamen son vermek…
On Wednesday, the Palestinian health minister Mai al-Kaila said the lives of 70 cancer patients inside the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital are “seriously threatened”.
Gaza’s health ministry said on Thursday that four cancer patients died due to the hospital being out of service.
The office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced that ministers have voted to transfer tax funds it had collected for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to Ramallah, but deducted the money earmarked for the Gaza Strip.
The decision by Israel’s security cabinet came amid tensions in the government over whether some West Bank tax revenues should be transferred to the PA.
“Israel is cutting off all contact with Gaza,” a statement from the office said on Thursday.
There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza and the workers who were in Israel on the day the war broke out will be returned to Gaza.
From Kan News’ Amichai Stein:
#BREAKING: Israel cuts off all contact with Gaza. The security cabinet decided there will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza in Israel
— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) November 2, 2023
Under interim peace accords, Israel’s finance ministry collects tax on behalf of the Palestinians and makes monthly transfers to the PA, which go to pay for public sector salaries and other government expenditure.
But Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, had refused to release the funds, accusing the Palestinian Authority of supporting the “horrific massacres of the Nazi terror organisation Hamas”.
Antony Blinken will spend the day on Friday in Israel, his fourth visit since 7 October.
The White House said the US secretary of state will urge the Israeli government to agree to a series of brief cessations of military operations in Gaza to allow for hostages to be released safely and for humanitarian aid to be distributed, Reuters reported.
Blinken will also head to Jordan before heading to Asia next week. Jordan, which was the second Arab nation to make peace with Israel, has withdrawn its ambassador to protest against the “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe” caused by the “ongoing Israeli war”.
Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, will tell Blinken that Israel must end its war on Gaza when the pair meet in Amman, a Jordanian ministry statement said.
The statement accused Israel of committing war crimes by bombing civilians and imposing a siege, adding that Israel’s unreadiness to end the war was pushing the region rapidly towards a regional war that threatened world peace.
Updated
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said he would seek “concrete steps” from Israel to “minimise harm” to civilians in Gaza amid mounting alarm over soaring casualties in Israel’s bombardment of the territory.
Speaking to reporters before departing on his second Middle East trip in less than a month, Blinken said discussions will also focus on the future of Gaza, when and if Hamas is defeated, as well as on getting more humanitarian aid into Gaza and on ways to ensure the conflict does not spread.
Speaking a day after Joe Biden said the US wanted Israel to allow humanitarian “pauses” to let through aid and people, Blinken said:
When I see a Palestinian child – a boy, a girl – pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building, that hits me in the gut as much as seeing a child in Israel or anywhere else. So this is something that we have an obligation to respond to, and we will.
The US (and the UK) have stopped short of calling for a ceasefire. A ceasefire would “give Hamas the ability to rest, to refit and to get ready to continue launching terrorist attacks against Israel”, US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said last month.
UN experts warned earlier today that “time is running out” as Palestinian people in Gaza find themselves at “grave risk of genocide”.
Updated
WHO says 'almost impossible' to bring humanitarian aid to people in Gaza
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it is doing everything it can to ensure that the people of Gaza have access to life-saving health and humanitarian services but that “in the current situation this is almost impossible”.
The WHO’s emergencies director, Michael Ryan, said the basic safety of staff on the ground in Gaza could not be guaranteed at the moment, Agence France-Presse reported. It was “unconscionable”, he said.
The UN agency had never found it as difficult to establish basic rules of engagement regarding minimum safety guarantees for humanitarians, he added.
Getting medical supplies to where they are needed “has not been facilitated, that has not been supported; in fact, if anything, quite the opposite”, he added.
WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the situation on the ground in Gaza is “indescribable”.
“We are running out of words to describe the horror unfolding in Gaza,” he said.
Hospital crammed with the injured, lying in corridors; morgues overflowing; doctors performing surgery without anesthesia. And everywhere, fear, death, destruction, loss. As health needs soar, our ability to meet those needs is plummeting.
It is too late to help the dead now. But we can help the living.
Updated
Ireland’s president, Michael D Higgins, has said “collective punishment” cannot be “something we accept” in the Israel-Hamas war.
Higgins said a solution must be found to both deliver “a reasonable security” to Israeli citizens and deliver “the long-neglected rights” of the Palestinians, PA news agency reported.
The enlistment of civilians for military purposes on any side has to be recognised and addressed; collective punishment is not something we can accept and claim to be advocates of international law.
It is simply unacceptable that hospitals and those being cared for within them are threatened by the basic lack of resources, damaged or indeed threatened with destruction, or those within them forced to be evacuated.
Higgins said there must be a push for the independent verification of facts, adding that it was important that those killed in the fighting were “not reduced to competing press releases”.
Updated
Israeli troops have 'completed the encirclement of Gaza City', says IDF
Israeli forces are fighting “with full force” in Gaza and focused on “destroying” Hamas and “making every effort” to bring all of the hostages home, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said.
A statement from Hagari on Thursday said IDF troops “completed the encirclement of Gaza City, which is the focal point of the Hamas terror organisation”.
Israeli forces are “killing terrorists in close combat, in any place in which fighting is required”, he said.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images we have received over the newswires from Gaza.
Updated
Amid ongoing debates at the international level about the merits and likelihood of pauses in hostilities, and demands from some quarters for a ceasefire, at this moment Israeli forces are firing into the northern part of the blockaded Gaza.
Cable news channel CNN is broadcasting right now images of flares and explosions lighting up the night sky over a portion of Gaza, from the US TV network’s camera positions in Sderot, Israel, at the north-east corner of the border between Gaza and Israel.
The channel is speculating that the aerial fire is fresh cover for an increase in Israeli ground troops being sent into the northern part of Gaza.
Intense bombardment of Gaza happening right now…. Around 10pm local time. Live coverage on @CNN
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) November 2, 2023
Meanwhile: Sec. Blinken is heading to Israel now to press for more to be done to protect Palestinian civilian lives. pic.twitter.com/b2rHUyVjD8
Updated
US 'not telling Israel how it should conduct this war', says Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris refused to comment on Israel’s bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.
A Palestinian government media office said at least 195 Palestinians were killed in two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday and Wednesday. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said a further 20 people were reportedly killed on Thursday after a blast at a school that is being used as a shelter was damaged at the Jabalia camp.
The US vice-president, during a trip to London, said:
We are not telling Israel how it should conduct this war, and so I’m not going to speak to that.
Updated
Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf has posted on X, formerly Twitter, that “we are witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza” and said Scotland “stands ready” to help treat injured civilians from Gaza.
He said: “We condemn the recent bombing of Jabalia refugee camp, and reiterate our calls for an immediate ceasefire to allow significant amounts of aid through.”
His connection to the crisis is personal as well as political. Last Sunday, Yousaf expressed relief after discovering his parents-in-law, who have traveled to Gaza from Scotland to visit relatives there, are alive, after he had not heard from them during a communication blackout Israel imposed on Gaza.
Within the last hour, Yousaf posted a clip of himself stating that “the people of Palestine, of Gaza, are a very proud people. They should not have to leave their land but of course many have been forced to leave … and of course many are lying injured in dying in hospitals”, which are fast running out of fuel and medical supplies.
He then said that Scotland was prepared, where possible, to bring such people there for treatment.
He said: “There’s not been a request for the UK to receive medical evacuations from Gaza, but we hope that if that does come then the UK, and indeed Scotland, will be ready to play its part.”
Yousaf called for an immediate ceasefire.
We are witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.@ScotGov has topped up its funding for @UNRWA's aid efforts to £750,000.
— Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) November 2, 2023
We condemn the recent bombing of Jabalia refugee camp, and reiterate our calls for an immediate ceasefire to allow significant amounts of aid through. pic.twitter.com/n1MT3B1Vig
Updated
A British surgeon who was stranded in Gaza has described scenes of “absolute chaos” at the Rafah crossing after becoming one of the first British people to cross into Egypt.
Abdel Hammad, a 67-year-old transplant surgeon from Liverpool working for a charity in Gaza, told his son, Salim Hammad, that he was stuck on a bus for five hours with 54 others as he waited for approval to cross into Egypt.
Salim, a doctor living in Goring, Oxfordshire, said his father finally entered Egypt at about 3.10pm after setting off at 5am. “He’s making his way down with the help of the Foreign Office to Cairo, and then hopefully from there will be able to travel home,” the 34-year-old told the Guardian.
I think the overriding emotion is just relief that he’s finally out and safe. I’m just happy to see him soon.
Jess Phillips, the Labour frontbencher, said Britons were not getting out quickly enough, arguing that the government’s diplomatic efforts did not appear to be having “much sway”.
Another person waiting to be evacuated from Gaza said the Foreign Office had told him that the British government would pay for two nights’ accommodation in Cairo but would not facilitate flights.
The Londoner, who did not want to be named, said he received a message saying: “Once you have passed into Egypt, we will provide you transport to Cairo and two nights’ accommodation should you need it. We are not facilitating flights from Egypt at this time.”
In another message sent on Thursday afternoon, the rapid deployment team messaged the man saying: “We can offer some support with planning your onward travel but we are not at present facilitating flights from Cairo to the UK – this is at your own cost.”
He told the Guardian:
I’m just sick that the British government has abandoned us.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s 9pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s where things stand:
Israel’s top military commander has said his country’s forces have surrounded Gaza City on three sides and that Israeli troops are operating inside the city. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also said Israeli forces had pushed further in than the outskirts of Gaza City. “We’re at the height of the battle,” he said.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said four of its schools in Gaza that are being used as shelters have been damaged in less than 24 hours. At least 20 people have reportedly been killed and five others injured on Thursday after a school that is being used as a shelter was damaged at the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, the agency said in its latest update. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said at least 27 people were killed in a blast near a UN school in the Jabalia camp on Thursday.
At least 15 people have been killed after a blast in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry said. A spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence said the blast took place in a residential building, and residents reported scores of people trapped beneath the rubble.
At least 9,061 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, including 3,760 children, the health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday. The current conflict began on 7 October when Hamas launched an onslaught on southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people and swept up hundreds more as hostages. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify figures from either Israeli or Palestinian authorities.
At least 195 Palestinians were killed in two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday and Wednesday, a Hamas-run government media office said. Israel claims it killed senior Hamas officials in both attacks. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said Muhammad A’sar, the commander of Hamas’s anti-tank guided missile array, was targeted in Wednesday’s airstrike. The UN human rights office said Israel’s airstrike on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday could amount to war crimes.
Eighteen Israeli soldiers have been killed amid fierce fighting in Gaza, in a series of incidents that have underlined the mounting challenges facing the IDF in their attempts to push further into built-up areas of Gaza.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened for a second day to allow the evacuation of some injured Palestinians requiring hospital treatment and foreign passport holders. British nationals were able to get out of Gaza on Thursday, the UK Foreign Office confirmed. The US has been able to get 74 dual citizens out of Gaza, Joe Biden said. A total of 400 foreign passport holders as well as 60 severely wounded Palestinians were due to cross by the end of Thursday, a spokesperson for the Palestinian side of the crossing said.
Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam brigades, said its fighters in southern Lebanon were behind the shelling of the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, where four rockets landed in an industrial area, injuring two people and damaging buildings.
Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, said it had simultaneously attacked 19 positions in Israel on Thursday evening. The strikes came hours after Hezbollah said it had used two drones packed with explosives to attack an Israeli army command position in the disputed Shebaa Farms area on the Lebanese-Israeli border earlier in the day. It is the first time Hezbollah has acknowledged carrying out an attack against Israeli forces using such drones, and comes a few days after it said for the first time it had used a surface-to-air missile against an Israeli drone.
Thai officials held talks with Hamas in Iran last week in an effort to secure the release of the 22 Thai people taken hostage. Officials, who held a two-hour meeting with Hamas in Tehran on 26 October, were told that the Thai hostages would be released at “the right time”, and they were being looked after, according to Areepen Uttarasin, a lead negotiator.
Joe Biden called for a “pause” in the Israel-Hamas war on Wednesday and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is expected back in the region on Friday. Biden has been under pressure to call for a ceasefire or a meaningful humanitarian pause in Israel’s campaign. Israel did not immediately respond to Biden’s remarks, but Netanyahu has previously ruled out a ceasefire.
A group of United Nations experts have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, warning that “time is running out” as Palestinian people there find themselves at “grave risk of genocide”. In a statement, they expressed “deep frustration with Israel’s refusal to halt plans to decimate” the Gaza Strip and said they felt “deepening horror” about Israeli airstrikes against the Jabalia refugee camp.
Updated
Hamas and Hezbollah say they have attacked Israeli areas near Lebanon boundary
Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam brigades, said its fighters in southern Lebanon were behind the shelling of the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, where four rockets landed in an industrial area, injuring two people and damaging buildings.
In a second barrage, Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, said it had simultaneously attacked 19 positions in Israel on Thursday evening in the latest escalation on Israel’s northern border.
Thursday’s exchanges came before a speech by Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah, in Beirut on Friday that will be closely watched in Israel and across the region. Hezbollah, like Hamas, is a proxy of Iran.
The strikes hit hours after Hezbollah said it had used two drones packed with explosives to attack an Israeli army command position in the disputed Shebaa Farms area on the Lebanese-Israeli border earlier in the day.
It is the first time Hezbollah has acknowledged carrying out an attack against Israeli forces using such drones, and happened a few days after it said for the first time it had used a surface-to-air missile against an Israeli drone.
Updated
Dozens reportedly killed after four Gaza shelters damaged in less than 24 hours, says UN agency
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said four of its schools in Gaza that are being used as shelters have been damaged in less than 24 hours.
At least 20 people have reportedly been killed and five others injured on Thursday after a school that is being used as a shelter was damaged at the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, the agency said in its latest update. The Jabalia camp, the largest in the Gaza Strip, has come under intense bombardment since Tuesday.
The agency said that another school at al-Shati refugee camp, also in northern Gaza, was damaged, with one child reportedly killed.
Further south, two schools-turned-shelters in the Al Bureij Refugee Camp were hit. Two people were reportedly killed and 31 injured.
These shelters, which hosted nearly 20,000 displaced Palestinians, “should be a safe haven, under the flag of the United Nations”, the agency said.
Since 7 October, 72 UNRWA staff have been killed, often with their families, it said.
Overnight, we lost Mai, a bright software developer in her mid-20s with physical disabilities. She was displaced from her home and killed in the Jabalia refugee camp with members of her family.
How many more? How much more grief and suffering? A humanitarian ceasefire is overdue for the sake of humanity.
Updated
The Israeli mission to the United Nations said it was preparing a response to the joint statement by the UN experts.
Speaking to Reuters after the statement was issued, one of the signatories said the people of Gaza had been deprived of the “the most basic elements for living”.
Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, the special rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, said:
We are using the term ‘risk of genocide’ because the process that is (underway) is absolutely indiscriminate; affecting, in this case, more than 2 million people.
And in this sense, I think we are facing a risk of genocide, effectively.
Updated
The UN experts called for a ceasefire in Gaza to allow humanitarian aid to reach those who need it the most.
A ceasefire would also allow channels to be opened to ensure the release of hostages held in Gaza, they said in a statement.
They called on all parties to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law, adding:
The Palestinian people in Gaza, particularly women, children, persons with disabilities, youth, and older persons, have endured decades of hardship and deprivation. We call on Israel and its allies to agree to an immediate ceasefire. We are running out of time.
They expressed concern about the safety of UN and humanitarian workers and hospitals and schools in Gaza, as well as the safety of journalists, media workers and their family members.
Updated
The UN experts said they felt “deepening horror” about Israeli airstrikes against the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, which the local health ministry said have killed and injured hundreds of Palestinians since Tuesday.
The Israeli airstrike on a residential complex in the Jabalia refugee camp is a brazen violation of international law – and a war crime. Attacking a camp sheltering civilians, including women and children, is a complete breach of the rules of proportionality and distinction between combatants and civilians.
Unicef has separately described “horrific and appalling” scenes of carnage after two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on the Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday and Wednesday.
People’s homes have been levelled, hundreds apparently injured and killed, with many children reportedly among the casualties.
The Hamas-run health ministry called the strikes a “heinous massacre” that killed 195 people, including seven hostages. Israeli officials said the bombing had killed senior Hamas commanders who sought to shield behind civilians.
Updated
Biden: 74 dual citizens have been allowed to leave Gaza
The US has been able to get 74 Americans with dual citizenship out of Gaza, Joe Biden said at the White House a little earlier, one day after evacuees began crossing into Egypt, Reuters reported.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, the US president said:
Good news, we got out today 74 American folks, dual citizens.
Biden yesterday said that US citizens would be able to start leaving Gaza into Egypt via the Rafah border crossing on Wednesday.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, talked to reporters before leaving Washington for a flight to Israel and said the US is determined to prevent escalation of the war there on all fronts, including southern Lebanon, the West Bank or elsewhere in the region.
He will be talking to the Israeli government “and partners” in the region, he said.
For more updates from the US, do follow our US politics liveblog.
Updated
Time is running out to prevent genocide in Gaza, UN experts warn
A group of United Nations experts have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, warning that “time is running out” as Palestinian people there find themselves at “grave risk of genocide”.
A statement from a group of UN-mandated experts, including the special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, expressed “deep frustration with Israel’s refusal to halt plans to decimate” the Gaza Strip. It says:
We remain convinced that the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide. The time for action is now. Israel’s allies also bear responsibility and must act now to prevent its disastrous course of action.
All signs are that Gaza has “reached a breaking point”, the experts went on to say, pointing to images from the weekend of people desperately grabbing essentials from a UN warehouse, or reports of children being forced to drink sea water in the absence of clean water.
The situation in Gaza has reached a “catastrophic tipping point”, they said, warning of the dire need for food, water, medicine, fuel and essential supplies and the risk of looming health hazards.
Water is essential to human life and today, 2 million Gazans are struggling to find drinking water.
Updated
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has accused Israeli forces of bombing a group of civilians in front of a major hospital in Gaza City.
In a social media post, the humanitarian organisation said the attack near the al-Quds hospital resulted in unspecified fatalities and injuries.
In a separate statement, the PRCS said a Palestinian child and young man were critically injured after they were hit in the chest and abdomen while standing in front of al-Quds hospital. It added:
Several bullets, fired indiscriminately by Israeli military vehicles approximately 1km south of the hospital, penetrated the sixth-floor walls of the hospital, which serves as a shelter for a significant number of displaced children and women.
Updated
Dozens of students walked out of a class taught by Hillary Clinton in New York on Wednesday in protest at their university’s alleged role in the “shaming” of pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
About 30 students were involved in the protest at Columbia University, where the former secretary of state and previous senator for the state was delivering a foreign policy lecture as part of her global affairs class.
The walkout followed an incident last week in which photographs of students who signed a declaration blaming Israel for the 7 October Hamas attacks were displayed on video screens on trucks parked near the university campus above the words “Columbia’s biggest antisemites”, the New York Times reported.
The photographs, according to the protesters, were lifted from a “secure and private” student portal at Columbia’s school of international and public affairs (Sipa).
The Times reported that the walkout was planned and peaceful, with those leaving almost halfway through Clinton’s two-hour lecture, attended by about 300 students, joining several dozen other demonstrators in the lobby of the school.
They were demanding “immediate legal support for affected students” and “a commitment to student safety, well being and privacy”, according to the Times.
Updated
Hospitals in northern Gaza are acting as places of shelter for about 117,000 Palestinian people displaced from their homes since the war began, ActionAid said.
Meanwhile, the areas surrounding hospitals have come under bombardment and at least 73 healthcare workers have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, the charity said.
Without food and water, fuel to cook with, clothes or hygiene products, conditions are becoming unbearable.
Riham Jafari, communications and advocacy coordinator at ActionAid Palestine, said:
If fuel runs out in Gaza, it will be an unimaginable catastrophe for babies on incubators and those in intensive care units relying on ventilators. Instead of being a place where people needing urgent care are treated, hospitals have become a place where patients are sent to morgues, rather than discharged.
Hospitals in Gaza are reaching “breaking point” because they are running “dangerously low” on fuel, putting the lives of newborn babies in incubators at grave risk, an international charity has warned.
The main generator for the Indonesian hospital – one of the main hospitals in the north of Gaza – went out of service on Wednesday night, according to ActionAid.
Hospital staff are now having to rely on a secondary generator that can service only some parts of the hospital, as they continue to receive an influx of patients from the nearby Jabalia refugee camp, which was bombed on both Tuesday and Wednesday, it said.
A youth volunteer at Dar al-Shifa hospital – the largest medical facility in Gaza – told the charity that the hospital’s incubator department could be forced to go out of service because of the lack of fuel.
More than 45 incubators just in al-Shifa Hospital could stop. And these newborn babies could simply [die] ... Because they need special care. These [babies] in incubators with an age of 42-45 weeks of pregnancy, days old, are [at] threat of [dying].
Updated
More British citizens crossed into Egypt from Gaza on Thursday
British nationals have been able to get out of Gaza through the Rafah crossing for a second day, the UK Foreign Office has confirmed.
A statement from the FCDO said:
We can confirm that more British nationals have been able to cross into Egypt from Gaza via the Rafah crossing today.
We continue to work with Egyptian and Israeli authorities to support all those seeking to leave in the coming days.
About 200 Britons in Gaza have registered with the authorities, PA reported. The UK has provided the Israeli and Egyptian authorities with a list of British nationals and their dependants, prioritising by medical vulnerability. The total number is thought to be in the low hundreds.
Downing Street confirmed that two UK aid workers were among those to make it through the Rafah crossing on Wednesday.
Labour frontbencher Jess Phillips warned that Britons were not getting out quickly enough, as she criticised the UK government’s diplomatic efforts as not having “much sway”.
Updated
Israel’s top military commander has said his country’s forces have surrounded Gaza City on three sides and that Israeli troops are operating inside the city.
Describing fierce fighting, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, the Israel Defence Forces chief of staff, said:
[Israeli forces] are in the heart of northern Gaza, operating in Gaza City, surrounding it.
In an apparent warning to the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah, with whom the IDF has been engaged in daily cross-border exchanges, Halevi added that “less than half the Israeli air force” was involved in airstrikes on Gaza with “most of its force ready, with bombs loaded should the need arise to attack on other fronts”.
Halevi was speaking before a speech by Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut on Friday, the first public remarks he has made since Hamas’s surprise attack on southern Israel on 7 October in which 1,400 Israelis and foreign nationals were massacred.
Israel and Hezbollah continued to exchange fire on Thursday across the Lebanese border, with a rocket fired from Lebanon hitting a house in the northern town of Kiryat Shmona. Hezbollah also claimed it has used two drones to target Israeli forces.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images sent over the newswires from the Rafah crossing, where hundreds more foreigners and dual nationals fled Gaza for Egypt today.
A total of 400 foreign passport holders as well as 60 severely wounded Palestinians were due to cross by the end of Thursday, Wael Abu Mohsen, a spokesperson for the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing said.
A list of those approved to travel on Thursday showed hundreds of US citizens and 50 Belgians along with smaller numbers from various European, Arab, Asian and African countries, AFP reported.
Egypt said it eventually plans to help evacuate 7,000 foreigners through the Rafah crossing. The evacuation marks a fraction of the 2.4 million people trapped in Gaza under weeks of bombardment.
Updated
At least 27 people were killed in a blast near a UN school in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, the Palestinian health ministry said.
AFP footage showed several casualties as crowds of people rushed to help them.
The Guardian has not been able to verify the death toll. The Hamas-run ministry has blamed an Israeli strike. There was no immediate comment from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which runs the school.
Farther south, an Israeli strike hit a residential building in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza earlier today, AP reported, citing a Gaza civil defence spokesperson. At least 15 people have been killed, the spokesperson said.
Updated
Israel could allow fuel into Gaza if hospitals run out, says IDF commander
The chief of staff of Israel Defence Forces (IDF) was asked about fuel supplies to Gaza during a televised appearance on Thursday.
“We have not brought fuel in to this point,” Lt Gen Herzi Halevi said.
For more than a week now, they have been telling us that ‘tomorrow the fuel in hospitals will run out’. So far it has not run out.
Israel has barred all fuel shipments from entering Gaza since the war began, accusing Hamas of hoarding fuel and diverting it for military use.
Hospitals in the Palestinian territory have been increasingly raising alarms about their own electricity supplies waning. On Wednesday, Palestinian health authorities said the only hospital offering cancer treatment in the Gaza Strip was forced to go out of service after running out of fuel.
Halevi said Israel is closely monitoring the situation in Gaza and believes the hospitals still have enough to operate. He added:
We will watch for when that day arrives. Fuel will be transferred, with monitoring, to the hospitals. We will do everything needed to ensure that it will not reach Hamas infrastructures, that it will not end up serving war aims but the real needs of treating the sick.
But Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said in a press briefing that the government had not “made any decision about transferring fuel” to Gaza. He told reporters:
I haven’t given any (such) instruction and the war cabinet has not authorised any decision.
Updated
Thai officials held talks with Hamas in Iran last week in an effort to secure the release of the 22 Thai people taken hostage during its attack on Israel.
Officials, who held a two-hour meeting with Hamas in Tehran on 26 October, were told that the Thai hostages would be released at “the right time”, and they were being looked after, according to Areepen Uttarasin, a lead negotiator.
Thousands of Thais work in Israel’s agricultural sector, and the Israeli government has said they make up the biggest group of foreign people killed or missing in the Hamas attacks.
A total of 1,400 people were killed and more than 230 taken hostage during the violence on 7 October. Among them were 32 Thais who were killed, 22 who were abducted and 19 injured, the Thai government has said. Four remain in hospital. The Israeli government has said it believes that more people – up to 54 – could be being held captive.
Areepen, who led the three-person team that went to Tehran, said he asked for the release of the Thai hostages and emphasised their innocence.
“They assured me that they were taking good care of them, but they couldn’t tell me the release date … They were waiting for the right time” he said, adding that after the talks the Thai team – who are all Muslims – prayed with the Hamas representatives.
He added:
They acknowledged our concerns because they know that Thailand has offered kindness and benefits to the Muslim community … They respect Thailand.
Updated
Israeli troops 'at the height of battle' after pushing through Gaza City outskirts, says Netanyahu
Israeli troops have pushed through the outskirts of Gaza City, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said.
A statement released by his office reads:
We’re at the height of the battle. We’ve had impressive successes and have passed the outskirts of Gaza City. We are advancing.
In a post on social media, the Israeli PM wrote:
Today with our fighters in the field. We have very impressive successes, we are already more than the outskirts of Gaza City. We are making progress. Nothing will stop us. We will move forward. We will advance and win.
היום עם הלוחמים שלנו בשטח. יש לנו הצלחות מאוד מרשימות, אנחנו כבר יותר מבפאתי העיר עזה. אנחנו מתקדמים. שום דבר לא יעצור אותנו.
— Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) November 2, 2023
אנחנו נתקדם. אנחנו נתקדם וננצח, ונעשה את זה בעזרת ה' ובעזרת הלוחמים הגיבורים שלנו.
אני סומך עליכם, אני מאמין בכם. עם ישראל כולו עומד מאחוריכם - עד… pic.twitter.com/qWSOLH8bV5
Updated
Sirens sound across central and northern Israel
Sirens are sounding in central Israel, in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area and around Ben Gurion airport.
Incoming rocket sirens are also sounding in the north, in Kiryat Shmona, Margaliot and Manara, close to the border with Lebanon.
From the Times of Israel’s Emanuel Fabian:
Rocket sirens sounding in Kiryat Shmona, Margaliot, Manara
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) November 2, 2023
Updated
The war has had “a painful and difficult price”, with 18 Israeli soldiers being killed in the ground operation in Gaza so far, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, the chief of staff for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), said.
We lost the best of our sons in the war, we embrace their families … we will continue to win.
He said the IDF has an “obligation” to return home all the hostages being held in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army is fighting “in the name of the sanctity of life, against an enemy who has engraved death on his flag. We are fighting for our right to live in safety and to thrive in our homeland,” he said.
We are acting with composure, intelligence and determination.
Updated
Israeli troops 'operating inside and surrounding Gaza City', says IDF
The chief of staff of Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has said troops are operating inside Gaza City and are surrounding it from several directions.
In a statement from an air force base, reported by the Times of Israel, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi said:
We have advanced another significant stage in the war. The forces are in the heart of northern Gaza, operating in Gaza City, surrounding it, and deepening [the ground offensive], and achievements.
Israeil forces are “fighting in a dense and complex urban area, that requires professional combat, and courage,” he said.
He added that his forces are fighting “in close quarters against a cruel enemy”, and that ground forces are accompanied by “accurate intelligence, with fire from the air and sea,” adding:
This partnership makes combat much more effective.
Hello, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong in Washington taking over the live blog. You can contact me at leonie.chao-fong@theguardian.com.
Updated
It is just past 5pm in Gaza City and in Tel Aviv. Here is a summary of the latest news:
At least 9,061 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, including 3,760 children, the health ministry in Gaza has said. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify figures from either Israeli or Palestinian authorities.
Israeli forces say “dozens” of Hamas fighters killed in overnight operations. Israel’s air force has released a statement saying IDF fighters and armoured forces were fired on with anti-tank weapons and grenades in overnight operations.
Joe Biden has said there should be a “pause” in the fighting in Gaza to enable the release of hostages. The US president was speaking at a campaign fundraiser in Minneapolis on Wednesday when a woman shouted at him, telling him to call for a ceasefire. Biden responded: “I think we need a pause. A pause means give time to get the prisoners out.” White House officials later clarified he was referring to hostages being held by Hamas.
The lower parliament of Bahrain has announced Bahrain is severing all economic ties with Israel. The kingdom was one of the original signatories to the Abraham accords that normalised relations between Israel and some Arab states.
An Israeli strike has hit a residential building in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, killing at least 15 people, according to Gaza’s civil defence rescue organisation.
At least 195 Palestinians were killed in two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday and Wednesday, a Hamas-run government media office said. Israel claims it killed senior Hamas officials in both attacks. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said Muhammad A’sar, the commander of Hamas’s anti-tank guided missile array, was targeted in Wednesday’s airstrike.
The UN human rights office said Israel’s airstrike on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday could amount to war crimes. The agency said it had “serious concerns” given the “high number of civilian casualties and the scale of destruction” after the strikes. The UN’s humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, said the airstrikes were “just the latest atrocity to befall the people of Gaza” and said the world “seems unable, or unwilling, to act”.
The scale of tragedy in Gaza is “unprecedented”, the commissioner general for the main UN agency in Palestine has said after visiting the besieged territory for the first time since 7 October. Philippe Lazzarini of the UNRWA described his visit to the Gaza Strip as “one of the saddest days in my humanitarian work” and urged a “meaningful” humanitarian response to prevent people in Gaza from dying.
Four hundred people holding foreign passports are expected to cross the Rafah border crossing on Thursday, in addition to 60 wounded, according to one Egyptian official. The crossing opened for the first time on Wednesday.
More than 20,000 wounded people are still trapped in the Gaza Strip, according to Médecins Sans Frontières, despite the evacuation of some foreign passport holders and badly injured Palestinians across the border to Egypt on Wednesday.
Eighteen Israeli soldiers have been killed amid fierce fighting in Gaza, in a series of incidents that have underlined the mounting challenges facing the IDF in their attempts to push further into built-up areas of Gaza. The heaviest loss of life occurred when a “Namer” armoured personnel carrier was hit at about noon on Tuesday by an anti-tank guided missile, killing 11 soldiers and wounding several more.
Thai officials held direct talks with Hamas in Iran last week. Negotiators met Hamas officials in Tehran on 26 October and were given a pledge that the 22 Thais being held in Gaza would be released at the “right time”, Areepen Uttarasin told reporters in Bangkok on Wednesday.
The only cancer treatment hospital in Gaza has gone out of service after it ran out of fuel, health officials said on Wednesday. The director of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital told a press conference: “We tell the world: don’t leave cancer patients to a certain death due to the hospital being out of service.”
Updated
About a third of hospitals in Gaza non-functional - WHO
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has described the situation in Gaza as “deeply worrisome”.
On social media, he said that 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are non-functional due to the lack of fuel as well as damage, attacks and insecurity.
The hospitals that have managed to remain open are operating at 40% above capacity, he added.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the WHO chief added: “Twenty-three hospitals have been ordered to evacuate in Gaza City and north Gaza, and forced evacuation in these circumstances would put the lives of hundreds of patients in a life-threatening situation.”
Deeply worrisome:
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) November 2, 2023
14 out of 36 hospitals and 2 specialty centers in #Gaza are non-functional due to lack of fuel as well as damage, attacks and insecurity.
The hospitals that remain open are overloaded with 40% more patients than they are designed to manage.
@WHO calls for… pic.twitter.com/RdDNydtzwE
Updated
Lebanon's Hezbollah says it used drones to attack Israeli army position
Reuters reports that Hezbollah has said it used two drones packed with explosives to attack an Israeli army command position in the disputed Shebaa Farms area at the Lebanese-Israeli border on Thursday.
In a statement, the Iran-backed group said the drones were filled with “a large quantity of explosives” and had hit their targets.
More details soon…
Updated
The lower parliament of Bahrain, one of the original signatories to the Abraham Accords that normalised relations between Israel and some Arab States, has announced Bahrain is severing all economic ties with Israel. There was no immediate confirmation by the Bahrain ministry of foreign affairs.
The parliament known as the council of representatives said the Israeli ambassador had left and Bahrain was recalling its ambassador. The parliament said Israel is in breach of international humanitarian law. The announcement appeared on the parliament’s website.
Israel confirmed its ambassador had left, but said relations remained stable, and implied he had left for security reasons.
It would be an extraordinary step for the Kingdom to take since only last December the two countries hailed the closeness of their ties when Isaac Herzog the Israeli President with his wife visited Bahrain.
Israel has been using its social media channels in Bahrain to highlight the barbarity of the attack by Hamas on 7 October.
Earlier this week Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, withdrew Jordan’s ambassador to Israel, and asked Israel to reciprocate. Jordan is not a signatory to the accords that were drawn up in the Trump era, but have the support of the Biden administration.
Bahrain’s decision, reflecting popular opinion inside the kingdom, puts pressure on Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates, the other three signatories to the accords to follow suit. Some Emirati politicians have said there is no need to do so, but at the UN, the UAE has been a leading voice calling for a cessation of hostilities.
Bahrain’s parliament did not set conditions for the full restoration of diplomatic relations, let alone any timetable.
In a joint statement with the UK issued earlier this week, Bahrain only called for a humanitarian pause, a less stringent demand than the one Bahrain’s diplomats supported in a vote last Friday at the UN General Assembly.
Spain has said it plans to evacuate between 140 and 170 Spanish citizens and their family members from the Gaza Strip on Thursday or Friday, Reuters has reported, citing the country’s acting defence minister, Margarita Robles.
Around 400 foreign passport holders as well as 60 severely wounded Palestinians in ambulances are expected to make it through the Rafah crossing on Thursday.
A total of 361 foreigners and dual nationals left Gaza on Wednesday after Rafah opened for the first time following more than three weeks of brutal conflict.
Egypt has said it expects to evacuate 7,000 foreigners through the Rafah crossing, though it has not offered specific details or a timeline.
Here are some of the most recent images sent to us over the news wires from the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, where emergency responders say an airstrike has killed at least 15 people:
An Israeli tank commander who was hailed as a hero for his actions during Hamas’s attack on Be’eri kibbutz, the scene of one of the worst massacres on 7 October, has been killed while commanding his tank battalion in northern Gaza.
Lt Col Salman Habaka, 33, a member of Israel’s Druze minority, had rushed to Be’eri with his troops when news of the Hamas attack broke on the morning of 7 October, bringing two tanks to the kibbutz, which engaged members of the militant Islamist group in houses where they were hiding.
He is the most senior officer to have been killed during the IDF’s ground operation in the Gaza Strip, bringing the Israeli military death toll since the ground invasions started last weekend to 18.
15 killed after airstrike on Bureij refugee camp, says Gaza civil defence
An Israeli strike has hit a residential building in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, killing at least 15 people, the Associated Press reports, citing a spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence.
Residents said dozens of people were trapped under the rubble. Mahmoud Bassal told Qatar’s Al Jazeera television that first responders were struggling to clear the rubble, citing crippled infrastructure and fuel shortages.
The strike created a large crater and severely damaged the surrounding buildings. A survivor speaking to the television network compared it to an earthquake.
Updated
Here is our full story on the evacuations of foreigners and dual-national Palestinians and Joe Biden’s call for a “pause” in fighting in order to extricate hostages:
The Norwegian ministry of foreign affairs has said it is “saddened and disturbed” by the loss of 33 journalists in the conflict between Hamas and Israel.
Saddened & disturbed by the death of 33 journalists in the war between Israel & Hamas. They took great personal risk to ensure the flow of information. Norway is committed to protecting and supporting journalists all over the world - @EspenBarthEide #EndImpunity pic.twitter.com/4ZfF5U7pI3
— Norway MFA (@NorwayMFA) November 2, 2023
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the journalists and media workers confirmed dead to date include 28 Palestinians, four Israelis and one person from Lebanon.
Another eight journalists have been reported injured and nine are reported to be missing or detained.
Updated
Rishi Sunak and the UN secretary general, António Guterres, have agreed on the pressing need to increase the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, the prime minister’s office has said.
“The leaders ... discussed the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza and agreed on the importance of urgently scaling up the delivery of life-saving humanitarian aid,” a Downing Street spokesperson said, according to Reuters.
“The prime minister and the secretary general agreed on the need to reinvigorate international efforts to reach a lasting resolution to the conflict and progress work towards a two-state solution.”
The two met during the final day of the inaugural AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park.
Updated
UNRWA, the UN relief and works agency for Palestinian people, says that their installations in the Gaza Strip are sheltering about 690,000 internally displaced people.
The situation is “desperate”, it says:
Our shelters are almost 4x their intended capacity and overcrowded conditions continue to create severe health and protection concerns.”
The situation across the 📍#GazaStrip is desperate.
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) November 2, 2023
Some 690,000 Internally Displaced People are sheltering in 149 @UNRWA installations.
Our shelters are almost 4x their intended capacity and overcrowded conditions continue to create severe health and protection concerns. pic.twitter.com/iO2SMAoscz
Updated
Politico is reporting that Joe Biden and his top aides believe that Benjamin Netanyahu’s grip on political power is weakening, and that this sentiment has been relayed to Israel’s prime minister in a recent conversation between the two leaders.
The report cites two senior administration officials as well as a current and former US official. All of them reportedly said that the administration believes that Netanyahu’s time in office is limited.
“There’s going to have to be a reckoning within Israeli society about what happened,” one told Politico. “Ultimately, the buck stops on the prime minister’s desk.”
The report notes, however, that Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and that he has defied political expectations in the past.
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About 100 foreign nationals leave via Rafah - AFP
Wael Abu Mohsen, spokesman for the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing, has told Agence France-Presse that about 100 foreign passport holders have been allowed to leave Gaza so far today.
A total of 400 foreign passport holders, as well as 60 severely wounded Palestinians in ambulances were due to cross by the end of the day, he added.
A list of those approved to travel Thursday shows hundreds of US citizens and 50 Belgians along with smaller numbers from various European, Arab, Asian and African countries.
Those being evacuated are a tiny proportion of the 2.4 million people trapped in Gaza, AFP noted.
Updated
In London, Jewish protesters calling for a ceasefire accused police of “attempting to arrest Jews in prayer,” after officers intervened during a service held during rush hour in St Pancras station on Thursday.
The service was accompanied by a sit-in at the station. In a statement, Jewish Anti-Zionist Action said they organised the protest. They said they were a coalition of Jewish people in the UK who “will not allow a genocide to happen in our name”.
The group said “hundreds of Jewish Anti-Zionists and allies” had taken part in a sit-in that began at 7.45am at St Pancras station.
Video showed Jewish worshippers jostled by police at the central London hub, while they and others chanted: “Let us pray”.
Police are attempting to arrest Jews in prayer.
— Black-Jewish Alliance ✊🏿✡ (@BlackJewishA) November 2, 2023
We shout “let us pray” for Palestine.
The police have confiscated copies of our speeches.
GET YOUR COP HANDS OFF OUR JEWISH COMRADES pic.twitter.com/FhwLwVXLI9
Claire Hymer, a journalist with Novara Media, also posted footage of the protest, which showed police appearing to surround one individual who was wearing Jewish prayer garb.
HAPPENING NOW: Jewish anti-Zionists are leading a morning prayer service at St Pancras train station in support of Palestine. pic.twitter.com/pTtyuYodSN
— Clare Hymer (@ClareHymer) November 2, 2023
A spokesperson for British Transport Police said: “Just after 8am today, our officers attended a sit-in protest at St Pancras railway station. The group were reported to be peaceful and there were no reports of disorder. There was no impact on the station services and by 8.45am the group had moved on.”
Updated
The Associated Press has shared the stories of some of the more than 3,700 children in the Gaza Strip who have been killed in the conflict:
Aseel Hassan, 13, was an excellent student, said her father, Hazem Bin Saeed. She devoured classical Arabic poetry, memorizing its rigid metric and rhyme scheme, and revelling in its mystical images and florid metaphors.
During the war, when Israeli bombardments came so close that their walls shook, she would regale her relatives by reciting famous verses from Abu Al Tayyib al-Mutanabbi, a 10th-century Iraqi poet, her father said.
“When I asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up, she would say, read,” said Bin Saeed. “Poems were Aseel’s escape.”
An airstrike on Oct. 19 levelled his three-story home in Deir al-Balah, killing Aseel and her 14-year-old brother, Anas.
Majd Souri, 7, was terrified by the explosions, said his father Ramez Souri.
He missed playing football with his school friends. He was devastated that the war had cancelled his Christian family’s much-anticipated trip to Nazareth, the town in Israel where tradition says Jesus grew up.
“Baba, where can we go?” Majd asked again and again when airstrikes roared. The family, devout members of Gaza’s tiny Christian community, finally had an answer — St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza City.
Souri said his son calmed down when they arrived at the church, where dozens of Christian families had taken shelter. Together, they prayed and sang.
On 20 October shrapnel crashed into the monastery, killing 18 people. Among the dead were Majd and his siblings, 9-year-old Julie and 15-year-old Soheil. Israel says it had been targeting a nearby Hamas command centre.
Majd was found beneath the rubble with his hands around his mother’s neck. His face was completely burned.
“My children just wanted peace and stability,” said Souri, his voice cracking. “All I cared about was that they were happy.”
Four Palestinians, including three teenagers, were shot dead in different parts of the occupied West Bank early Thursday, the Associated Press reports, citing the Palestinian health ministry.
More than 130 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war.
Bethan McKernan, the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, recently filed this dispatch, capturing how a spike in settler violence since 7 October is affecting Palestinians in the West Bank.
Updated
Gaza health ministry says Palestinian death toll climbs to 9,061, including 3,760 children
At least 9,061 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, Reuters reports, citing the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza. Another 32,000 people have been injured.
Those killed include 3,760 children as well as 2,326 women, according to the ministry.
Updated
It is just past 12.30pm in Gaza City and in Tel Aviv. Here is a summary of the latest news:
Israeli forces say ‘dozens’ of Hamas fighters killed in overnight operations. Israel’s air force has released a statement saying IDF fighters and armoured forces were fired on with anti-tank weapons and grenades in overnight operations.
Joe Biden has said there should be a “pause” in the fighting in Gaza to enable the release of hostages. The US president was speaking at a campaign fundraiser in Minneapolis on Wednesday when a woman shouted at him, telling him to call a ceasefire. Biden responded: “I think we need a pause. A pause means give time to get the prisoners out.” White House officials later clarified he was referring to hostages being held by Hamas.
At least 195 Palestinians were killed in two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday and Wednesday, a Hamas-run government media office said. Israel claims it killed senior Hamas officials both attacks. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said Muhammad A’sar, the commander of Hamas’s anti-tank guided missile array, was targeted in Wednesday’s airstrike.
The UN human rights office said Israel’s airstrike on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday could amount to war crimes. The agency said it had “serious concerns” given the “high number of civilian casualties and the scale of destruction” after the strikes. The UN’s humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, said the airstrikes were “just the latest atrocity to befall the people of Gaza” and said the world “seems unable, or unwilling, to act”.
The scale of tragedy in Gaza is “unprecedented”, the commissioner general for the main UN agency in Palestine has said after visiting the besieged territory for the first time since 7 October. Philippe Lazzarini of the UNRWA described his visit to the Gaza Strip as “one of the saddest days in my humanitarian work” and urged a “meaningful” humanitarian response to prevent people in Gaza from dying.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened for the first time on Wednesday, after more than three weeks of brutal conflict to allow the evacuation of dozens of injured Palestinians requiring hospital treatment and hundreds of foreign passport holders. By late Wednesday, at least 335 dual nationals and 76 injured seriously wounded and sick people had crossed the border. Four hundred people holding foreign passports are expected to cross Thursday in addition to 60 wounded, according to one Egyptian official.
More than 20,000 wounded people are still trapped in the Gaza Strip, according to Médecins Sans Frontières, despite the evacuation of some foreign passport holders and badly injured Palestinians across the border to Egypt on Wednesday.
Fifteen Israeli soldiers have been killed amid fierce fighting in Gaza, in a series of incidents that have underlined the mounting challenges facing the IDF in their attempts to push further into built-up areas of Gaza. The heaviest loss of life occurred when a “Namer” armoured personnel carrier was hit at about noon on Tuesday by an anti-tank guided missile, killing 11 soldiers and wounding several more.
Thai officials held direct talks with Hamas in Iran last week. Negotiators met Hamas officials in Tehran on 26 October and were given a pledge that the 22 Thais being held in Gaza would be released at the “right time”, Areepen Uttarasin told reporters in Bangkok on Wednesday.
The only cancer treatment hospital in Gaza has gone out of service after it ran out of fuel, health officials said on Wednesday. The director of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital told a press conference: “We tell the world – don’t leave cancer patients to a certain death due to the hospital being out of service.”
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 8,796 Palestinians, including 3,648 children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its campaign of airstrikes and incursions. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify figures from either Israeli or Palestinian authorities. The UN’s humanitarian office has reported that at least 123 Palestinians, including 34 children, have been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since 7 October.
A British surgeon with 16 family members trapped in Gaza has expressed disappointment that no UK citizens appear to be on the latest list of foreign passport holders allowed to leave the territory via the Rafah crossing.
Dr Ahmad Abou-Foul has told how his family, which includes a four-month-old baby, are in a “horrific situation”, crammed into a one-room basement as they wait to flee.
The UK Foreign Office has said that the Rafah border crossing with Egypt was being opened for “controlled and time-limited periods to allow specific groups of foreign nationals and the seriously wounded to leave”.
It said it has agreed a list of British nationals that want to leave Gaza with Egyptian and Israeli authorities, and added on Wednesday evening that the first UK nationals had been allowed across.
Saudi Arabia has launched a campaign to raise relief funds for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Associated Press.
The state-run Saudi Press Agency said Thursday that King Salman has donated about $8m (£6.5m) to the fund and the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has donated over $5m.
The funds will be raised through the online donation platform Sahem, which the kingdom has used to contribute to relief efforts in other countries.
Before the outbreak of the war in Gaza, Saudi Arabia had been in talks with the US over normalizing ties with Israel. The kingdom has called for a halt to the violence and for progress toward establishing an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Updated
Germany has said it will ban activities linked to Hamas, already a designated terrorist organisation in the country, as well as those of the pro-Palestinian group Samidoun, Reuters reports.
“With Hamas, I have today completely banned the activities of a terrorist organisation whose aim is to destroy the state of Israel,” the interior minister, Nancy Faeser, said in a statement.
Samidoun’s German wing will also be disbanded, it added. In the hours following the Hamas attacks on 7 October, the group in Berlin was linked to what police described as “people celebrating the attacks on Israel by handing out baked goods” along a main avenue.
The bans come as officials across Europe are scrambling to curtail any spillover of tensions from the conflict.
In Germany, where the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has vowed to take a “zero tolerance” approach to antisemitism, assailants hurled two molotov cocktails at a synagogue in central Berlin and the Star of David was found daubed on the facades of several buildings where Jews live in Berlin.
China is working to evacuate Chinese nationals from Gaza as soon as possible, the country’s foreign ministry said on Thursday. Spokesperson Wang Wenbin did not elaborate on evacuation plans but said that efforts were under way to ensure the safety of Chinese nationals trapped in the latest conflict.
At least five Chinese nationals have been killed in the violence in Israel and Palestine and there is at least one Chinese-Israeli hostage, 26-year-old Noa Argamani.
Updated
400 with foreign passports expected to cross border at Rafah today - Egyptian official
An Egyptian official at the crossing has said that while hundreds were expected to cross Thursday, the numbers could fluctuate during the day.
“Four hundred people holding foreign passports are expected to cross today in addition to 60 wounded,” the official told AFP.
On the Palestinian side, Hisham Adwan, the Rafah crossing’s Gaza director, said about 100 wounded people and 400 foreigners and dual nationals, including US citizens, were expected to cross during the day
The Egyptian official said a total of 361 foreigners and dual nationals had entered Egypt on Wednesday, a slight rise over the figure of 335 given a day earlier.
Those being allowed to leave represent a tiny fraction of the 2.4 million people in the Gaza Strip.
Unicef has described the “scenes of carnage” following two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp as “horrific and appalling,” in a statement that reiterated the agency’s call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
The two airstrikes come after weeks of ongoing bombardment that have reportedly killed more than 3,500 children, it said on Wednesday.
This would be over 400 children killed or injured per day, for 25 straight days. This cannot become the new normal … Children have endured too much already. The killing and captivity of children must stop. Children are not a target.”
The scenes of carnage coming out of Jabaliya camp in the Gaza Strip following attacks yesterday and again today are horrific and appalling.
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) November 1, 2023
Many children are reportedly among the casualties.
Full statement: https://t.co/FEjUW3HhIT
Updated
Here are some of the most recent images sent to us over the news wires from the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, where Palestinians with dual citizenship are waiting for permission to leave Gaza.
Egyptian officials have said 76 wounded Palestinians and 335 foreign passport holders had crossed into Egypt on Wednesday.
Among those who were allowed to cross were 31 Austrians, four Italians, five French nationals and several Germans, their governments have said.
Updated
The Tunisian tennis player Ons Jabeur has pledged to donate part of the prize money won at the WTA Finals to help Palestinians.
The promise by Jabeur, the first Arab player to reach a Grand Slam singles final, came after her first win at the tournament in Cancun. “I am very happy with the win but I haven’t been very happy lately. The situation in the world doesn’t make me happy,” said Jabeur.
“It’s very tough seeing children and babies dying every day. It’s heartbreaking. I have decided to donate part of my prize money to help the Palestinians. I can’t be happy with this win.
“It is not a political message, it is humanity,” she added. “I want peace in this world. That’s it.”
Updated
Egypt’s foreign ministry has said it will help evacuate “about 7,000” foreigners and dual nationals from the Gaza Strip, according to news agency Agence France-Presse.
In a meeting with foreign diplomats, the country’s assistant foreign minister said Egypt was preparing “to facilitate the reception and evacuation of foreign citizens from Gaza through the Rafah crossing”.
The official said the figure of “about 7,000” represents “more than 60” nationalities.
#BREAKING Egypt says will help evacuate 'about 7,000' foreigners, dual nationals in Gaza pic.twitter.com/l0bj3Je7Tf
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) November 2, 2023
An estimated 1.4 million people are currently displaced in the Gaza Strip, according to the main UN agency in Palestine.
Since 7 October, UNRWA said 70 of its colleagues have been killed and another 22 injured.
“This is the highest number of UN aid workers killed in a conflict in such a short time,” it added.
🔺 It's estimated that 1.4 million people are currently displaced in the📍#GazaStrip
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) November 1, 2023
🔺 Since 7 October, 70 @UNRWA colleagues have been killed and at least 22 injured. This is the highest number of @UN aid workers killed in a conflict in such a short timehttps://t.co/9QSqnxsMF4 pic.twitter.com/KdQcdoEreL
In the north of Israel, the sound of exchanges between the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and Hezbollah and other armed factions in Lebanon have become a daily fact of life for the few who have opted to stay in its deserted towns and communities.
The roads close to the frontier, planted years ago with eucalyptus trees to screen cars from overlooking heights across the border, have signs warning drivers they are entering a danger zone.
The gates to border communities in the Upper Galilee such as Metula and Menara are closed and guarded by soldiers. The tourist cabins and attractions are empty. The sound of drones is now a constant, irritating buzz. Occasionally, a boom can be heard in the distance.
In recent days, anti-tank guided missiles, mortars and an anti-aircraft missile have been fired from the Lebanese side of the frontier, while Israel has used artillery and drone strikes to kill at least 50 members of Hezbollah.
Amir Ottolenghi, 65, was at home with his wife in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona when a rocket struck his neighbour’s residence next door, smashing through the red-tiled roof and setting it on fire.
We heard the missile come from the Lebanese side of the frontier, and then the boom-boom of Iron Dome [Israel’s anti-missile system]. Then another bang as the rocket hit the house. The instruction is to wait for 10 minutes. But we could hear the house opposite on fire. The sound of glass being blown out.”
The meaning of the exchanges, however, remains ambiguous, with some analysts suggesting that while Hezbollah is keen to signal that it is engaged at a low level, it does not want to escalate to a full-blown conflict, amid opposition to war from a large section of Lebanese society already battered by economic and political crisis.
Israeli forces say 'dozens' of Hamas fighters killed in overnight operations
Israel’s air force has released a statement saying IDF fighters and armored forces were fired on with anti-tank weapons and grenades in overnight operations.
The forces engaged in prolonged battles with the terrorists, assisted by brigade fire from artillery and tanks, while directing an aircraft to attack from the air and directing a missile ship to attack from the sea. At the end of the fighting, dozens of terrorists were killed.”
Updated
Japan’s foreign minister has said she will communicate Japan’s readiness to provide aid in meetings with Palestinian counterparts this week.
Yoko Kamikawa is also set to meet Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen during her two-day trip from Friday.
“I hope to discuss how to respond to the grave humanitarian situation in the Gaza region as well as directly communicate Japan’s readiness to continue providing aid,” Kamikawa said of her meeting with her Palestinian counterparts.
All 10 Japanese nationals and their eight Palestinian family members wishing to leave Gaza evacuated to Egypt on Wednesday, Kamikawa said, adding that the evacuees were in good health.
She said Japan would remain in touch with one Japanese national living in Gaza who wished to remain there and did not evacuate.
More than 20,000 wounded people are still trapped in the Gaza Strip, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), despite the evacuation of some foreign passport holders and badly injured Palestinians across the border to Egypt on Wednesday.
MSF said that 22 of its international staff members in Gaza had been among those who left the territory via the Rafah border crossing.
“However, there are still over 20,000 injured people in Gaza with limited access to healthcare due to the siege,” it said.
MSF’s Palestinian staff were still offering care in the territory, it added, and another international team was waiting to enter the territory to replace those who left “as soon as the situation allows”.
The organisation went on to call for a greater number of people to be evacuated, as well as for a ceasefire and for more critical aid to be allowed in.
“Those who wish to leave Gaza must be allowed to do so without further delay. They must also be allowed the right to return,” the statement said.
Egypt has been caught in a dilemma for weeks about opening the Rafah crossing into Gaza: wanting to help the most seriously injured Palestinians leave, but adamantly refusing to contemplate a surge of Palestinian refugees into the Sinai peninsula.
Some have criticised Egypt and its authoritarian president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, for not opening his borders, but Palestinians also fear a repeat of what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe – the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians in 1948 after the creation of Israel.
It appears also that Egypt does not want to repeat the experience of Lebanon and Jordan, which have been housing Palestinian refugees for decades. Sisi considers the housing of up to 1 million Palestinians in camps in his country a political risk not worth taking.
References to a mass exodus makes Sisi jumpy. The Cairo-based Mada Masr news outlet was suspended for six months and referred to the prosecutor-general after running a report on what it said were plans for the displacement of Gaza’s Palestinians in Sinai.
On Wednesday, Rafah opened for the evacuation of dozens of injured Palestinians and hundreds of foreign passport holders, but no one knows how long that situation will last. Moreover, the selection process for who can leave – negotiated between Israel and Egypt in Qatar – is opaque. National embassies, it seems, can lobby for nationals to cross the border, but do not have a say.
Egypt’s concern is that the current trickle turns into an avalanche: Sisi has assembled a mass of tanks on the Egyptian side of the border to prevent such an occurrence.
It’s now 8am in Gaza and 6am in London.
If you’re just waking up and want to get up to speed, we’ve published a fresh wrap of all the latest news from the Israel-Hamas war. You can read it here:
The Associated Press has sent through a dispatch from the Gaza side of the Egyptian border, as hundreds wait to leave via the Rafah crossing.
The news agency reports that hundreds of Palestinians with foreign passports and dozens of seriously wounded patients desperate to escape the war in Gaza crowded at the border gate.
AP reporters describe restless children pressing their faces against the wire mesh, as families wait for the Hamas authorities to call their names over a scratchy loudspeaker.
“We are relying on God and hoping that we get out,” Rania Hussein, a Jordanian resident of Gaza said. She said entire neighbourhoods had been razed by airstrikes with families crushed to death.
A large number of foreign passport holders remain stuck in Gaza, including an estimated 400 Americans who want to leave. AP says a widely shared Google spreadsheet outlined just a few hundred names of those cleared for departure.
“No one understands how you get on this list or why you’re not on this list,” said Hammam al-Yazji, a Palestinian businessman trying to get out of Gaza with his 4-year-old American son.
“We came here today to the Egyptian borders hoping to leave Gaza, but our Canadian embassy didn’t contact [us] due to the bad network,” said Asil Shurab, a Canadian citizen.
The US says it expects more foreign nationals will be allowed to leave over the coming days.
Thai officials hold talks with Hamas in Iran
Thai officials held direct talks with Hamas in Iran last week, reports Agence France-Presse, citing the Thai negotiating team.
Negotiators met Hamas officials in Tehran on 26 October and were given a pledge that the 22 Thais being held in Gaza would be released at the “right time”, Areepen Uttarasin told reporters in Bangkok on Wednesday.
Areepen, who led the three-person team appointed by the speaker of the Thai parliament, said they held a two-hour meeting with Hamas officials in Iran.
“I asked them to release them because they are innocent,” he said, adding “they assured me that they were taking good care of them, but they couldn’t tell me the release date... they were waiting for the right time.”
He said after the talks the Thai team prayed with the Hamas representatives.
Israeli authorities say 1,400 people, many of them civilians, were killed and more than 230 hostages taken in the 7 October attack launched by Hamas from Gaza.
Thai prime minister Srettha Thavisin has said his government is working hard to bring the hostages home, and his foreign minister held talks in Qatar and Egypt this week.
Srettha spoke by phone with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday.
“He told me he would do his best to help the Thai hostages immediately,” Srettha said.
Netanyahu’s office said after the call that he had assured Srettha that “Israel is making every effort to free all of the hostages”.
About 30,000 Thais are working in Israel, mostly in the agriculture sector, according to the kingdom’s labour ministry. Thirty-two Thai nationals have been killed and 19 wounded in the conflict, and the kingdom has evacuated more than 7,000 of its citizens on repatriation flights.
You can read more of the Guardian’s coverage of the Thai hostages being held in Gaza here:
The Associated Press is reporting that democrats in Michigan have warned the White House that president Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict could cost him enough support within the Arab American community to sway the outcome of the 2024 election in a state he almost certainly can’t afford to lose.
The situation has prompted the White House to discuss ways to alleviate tensions with some of the state’s prominent democrats, including several who have been vocal critics of the president over the war.
“The message has been relayed. We’ve had calls with the White House,” said Abraham Aiyash, the third-ranking democrat in the state’s House of Representatives. “We’ve been clear in saying the humanity should matter, but if that is not a calculation that you’re going to make in this moment, recognise that there will be electoral reverberations to this.”
Victory in Michigan was critical in helping Biden win the White House in 2020, after Donald Trump unexpectedly won the state in 2016. In the last few years Democrats have felt more confident about their standing in Michigan, particularly after the state’s governor notched a commanding 10-point reelection victory last year.
But local democrats are concerned the war may have a more lasting political impact. Michigan holds the largest concentration of Arab-Americans in the nation and over 310,000 residents are of Middle Eastern or North African ancestry. Many in the community are pledging not to support Biden’s reelection unless he calls for a ceasefire in the war.
In 2020, Muslim voters nationally supported Biden over Trump 64% to 35%, according to polls.
On Wednesday the White House announced that it would develop a national strategy to battle Islamophobia, a plan that has been expected for months but which has gained momentum in the wake of the conflict in the Middle East.
The Biden administration in May released a national strategy to combat antisemitism that also made a reference to countering hatred against Muslims.
Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister and army chief, has spoken to Foreign Policy magazine, saying Israel will “probably lose the support of public opinion” over its response to the 7 October Hamas attack.
In a transcript of the interview published on the publication’s website, the former prime minister said, “our objective is to limit the military and government capabilities of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. This could not be accomplished by airstrikes alone. We have to deploy probably many thousands of boots on the ground.”
When asked about US support, he said “We know that within a week or two we will probably lose the support of public opinion in many parts of the free world, and within another two or three weeks we might lose support of many of the governments in the free world. I think that America will still be with us, but it will be more and more complicated for them to stay behind us.”
On Israel’s military strategy, the former prime minister said it would take “probably about 50,000 or more troops in order to make sure that we win.”
Even if it develops into a full-scale regional conflict with Hezbollah, which has 10 times more rockets and missiles, or if the West Bank or Golan Heights are involved, Israel is still stronger. It’s not an existential threat, but it will take more time, more losses, and more friction with our supporters in the world.”
Updated
Israel says 'no damage' to drone over Lebanese border
The Israeli military has disputed a statment from Hezbollah, in which the group claimed to have destroyed an Israeli drone over south Lebanon with a surface-to-air missile.
Earlier we reported that Hezbollah had said in a statement that its fighters shot down the drone just after midnight over two villages on the Lebanese side of the frontier.
The Israeli military said that a surface-to-air missile was launched from Lebanon toward one of its drones.
“In response, the [military] struck the terrorist cell that fired the missile and the launch site,” the military said in a statement, adding that “there was no damage to the [drone]”.
Neither side provided evidence to back up its claims and the Guardian is unable to verify either account.
It was the second time this week that Hezbollah claimed to down an Israeli drone with a surface-to-air missile. Cross-border clashes have escalated since the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on 7 October.
Al Jazeera has spoken to some of the injured who were waiting to cross into Egypt from Gaza.
The Rafah border crossing opened for the first time on Wednesday after more than three weeks to allow the evacuation of dozens of injured Palestinians needing hospital treatment, as well as hundreds of foreign passport holders.
Saeed Imran, 23, told the broadcaster that he was on his way to his job as a labourer on 10 October when an Israeli air attack struck a building close to him in Khan Younis. He woke up in the hospital, with shrapnel in his head and his right eye.
“I can only see out of my left eye now … I did an operation on my right eye, but the hospital said I needed another one to save my eye and a referral. But the second operation got cancelled because the supplies needed were in a warehouse that Israel bombed.”
Imran was accompanied by his father, Amin, who told Al Jazeera “The situation is very difficult … people, afraid that they will be buried alive in their own homes, are sleeping in the streets. Others queue from 2am until the afternoon just to get a bag of bread at a bakery.”
Amin was turned back at the crossing as he did not have his passport with him. Injured patients required only their identification cards, issued by the Israeli military, Al Jazeera reports. But those travelling with the injured needed their passports to cross.
Of saying goodbye to his family, Imran said “I don’t know whether they will be alive or dead by the time I get back … I just hope life gets better for everyone in Gaza.”
A spokesperson for an Australian family of four who managed to escape through Gaza into Egypt on Wednesday said crossing the heavily militarised checkpoint had taken hours and was “nerve-racking”.
The family was “exhausted” and travelling to a hotel in Egypt before their expected repatriation to Australia out of Cairo.
“They are incredibly grateful to the Australian government and to everyone who has assisted and advocated for their evacuation,” the spokesperson said.
The family remains extremely concerned for the lives of their loved ones in Gaza. They have left behind ill, elderly parents, who have run out of essential medication. They have left behind siblings, nieces and nephews who are petrified and want a chance at a normal life in safety. They may never see their family again. Parting with them prior to crossing the border was distressing and something no family should have to endure.”
The spokesperson said the family was asking the Australian government to bring their loved ones to safety as well as other Australian Palestinians.
The family had previously told Guardian Australia they feared they would not survive the bombardment of Israeli airstrikes, one of which destroyed their family’s home.
Australia’s foreign minister confirmed 20 Australian citizens were able to cross the border out of Gaza, along with a permanent resident and two family members.
Officials say there are 65 Australians still stuck in Gaza and that they are being provided with consular assistance.
Main generator at key Gaza hospital 'out of service' - reports
The main generator at the Indonesian hospital in Gaza went out of service on Wednesday night, according to the head of the hospital, Dr Atef Al Kahlout, who was speaking to CNN.
Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesperson for the Gaza health ministry, said in a televised news conference on Thursday that the main power generator at the hospital was no longer functioning due to lack of fuel.
He said that the hospital was switching to a back-up generator but would no longer be able to power mortuary refrigerators and oxygen generators.
“If we don’t get fuel in the next few days, we will inevitably reach a disaster,” he said.
Since the conflict began, Israel has refused to let humanitarian convoys bring in fuel, citing concern that Hamas fighters would divert it for military purposes.
Last week the Guardian reported that there had been blackouts at the Indonesian hospital after the fuel that powers the generators there had run short.
New images have been released from the site of Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, which was hit by Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing 195 people according to Hamas.
Israel says the strikes on both days were targeting senior Hamas officials.
Satellite images from Maxar Technologies and the AP news agency show an overview of the camp before and after the airstrikes.
Rescuers have continued to search through the rubble for survivors. After more than three weeks of intense bombardment of Gaza, it’s become harder for heavy machinery to reach some bomb sites and people on the ground say fuel to operate machines is running out.
The below is an image from the centre of the rescue operation.
At least 195 Palestinians killed in strikes on Jabalia refugee camp - Hamas
At least 195 Palestinians were killed in two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday and Wednesday, a Hamas-run government media office said.
About 120 were still missing under the rubble, and at least 777 more were wounded, the office said in a statement.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it targeted and killed Muhammad A’sar, the commander of Hamas’s anti-tank guided missile array, in the strikes on Wednesday.
The IDF said it had targeted the camp on Tuesday to kill Ibrahim Biari – a key Hamas commander linked to the group’s 7 October attack on Israel who, it said, had taken over civilian buildings in Gaza City with his fighters.
On Wednesday the UN human rights office said Israel’s airstrike on the Jabalia camp on Tuesday could amount to war crimes.
Joe Biden has said he expects more Americans to cross from Gaza into Egypt “in the coming days.”
The president said his administration is “working nonstop to get Americans out of Gaza as soon as safely as possible,” after the first US citizens were able to exit through the Rafah crossing on Wednesday,
“I want to thank our partners in the region and particularly Qatar who’ve worked so closely with us to support negotiations to facilitate the departure of these citizens,” he said.
State department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the United States has contacted US citizens in Gaza over the past 24 hours to assign them “specific departure dates” to leave through Rafah, the only Gaza crossing not controlled by Israel.
US officials have been saying for weeks that they were seeking to help US citizens leave Gaza and blamed Hamas for delays. Secretary of state Antony Blinken has sought to intervene with Hamas through Qatar, a US partner where the militants maintain an office.
Blinken told a Senate hearing on Tuesday that the United States was tracking 400 US citizens and another 600 of their relatives seeking to leave Gaza.
Biden calls for a humanitarian 'pause'
Joe Biden called for a “pause” in the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza after he was confronted by a protester calling for a ceasefire at a campaign fundraiser.
Biden was speaking to about 200 people when the protester shouted: “As a rabbi, I need you to call for a ceasefire right now.”
Biden responded: “I think we need a pause. A pause means give time to get the prisoners out.”
The White House later clarified that Biden was referring to the hostages held by Hamas since its 7 October attack on Israel in which 1,400 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage.
The White House has previously said it supports a “humanitarian pause” to allow aid deliveries to Gaza and the release of hostages. Biden has thrown his support behind Israel, but he has shifted his response in recent weeks as the humanitarian situation worsens in Gaza and the civilian death toll rises.
The president has faced intensifying pressure from human rights groups, fellow world leaders and even liberal members of his own Democratic Party, who say that the Israeli bombardment of Gaza is collective punishment and that it is time for a ceasefire.
The difference between a ceasefire and pause may seem semantic, but a pause is generally considered less formal and shorter than a ceasefire.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says at least 8,796 Palestinians – including 3,648 children – have been killed by Israeli strikes since the start of the conflict.
Updated
Opening and summary
Welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas. My name is Jonathan Yerushalmy and I’ll be with you for the next few hours.
Joe Biden has called for a humanitarian “pause” in fighting during a speech in Minneapolis on Wednesday evening. The US president said that a pause means “time to get the prisoners out.” White House officials later clarified he meant hostages and humanitarian aid.
He was speaking after the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened for the first time during the current conflict to allow the evacuation of some injured Palestinians and foreign nationals.
Here’s a summary of the day’s other main events:
At least 195 Palestinians were killed in two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday and Wednesday, a Hamas-run government media office said. Israel claims it killed senior Hamas officials both attacks. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said Muhammad A’sar, the commander of Hamas’s anti-tank guided missile array, was targeted in Wednesday’s airstrike.
The UN human rights office said Israel’s airstrike on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday could amount to war crimes. The agency said it had “serious concerns” given the “high number of civilian casualties and the scale of destruction” after the strikes. The UN’s humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, said the airstrikes were “just the latest atrocity to befall the people of Gaza” and said the world “seems unable, or unwilling, to act”.
The scale of tragedy in Gaza is “unprecedented”, the commissioner general for the main UN agency in Palestine has said after visiting the besieged territory for the first time since 7 October. Philippe Lazzarini of the UNRWA described his visit to the Gaza Strip as “one of the saddest days in my humanitarian work” and urged a “meaningful” humanitarian response to prevent people in Gaza from dying.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened for the first time on Wednesday, after more than three weeks of brutal conflict to allow the evacuation of dozens of injured Palestinians requiring hospital treatment and hundreds of foreign passport holders. By late Wednesday, at least 335 dual nationals and 76 injured seriously wounded and sick people had crossed the border, with more expected to follow.
The families of some British citizens trapped in Gaza have said it is devastating that their loved ones have been turned away from the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, as the Foreign Office said the first UK nationals have made it through. It is understood that initially only two of the 500 people on a list of those eligible to leave were British nationals.
An Australian minister confirmed that 20 Australian nationals had crossed the border at Rafah to exit Gaza on Wednesday. He went on to confirm that there are still 65 Australians stuck in Gaza that the government is “supporting” and are being provided consular assistance.
US citizens were able to exit Gaza on Wednesday as part of the first group of “probably more than 1,000” people, Joe Biden said. The US president said the opening of the Rafah border crossing to wounded Palestinians and foreign nationals came after “intense and urgent American diplomacy with our partners in the region”. Some American citizens trapped in the Gaza Strip and their families in the US have launched legal action after weeks of desperate and futile attempts to exit the war zone.
Fifteen Israeli soldiers have been killed amid fierce fighting in Gaza, in a series of incidents that have underlined the mounting challenges facing the IDF in their attempts to push further into built-up areas of Gaza. The heaviest loss of life occurred when a “Namer” armoured personnel carrier was hit at about noon on Tuesday by an anti-tank guided missile, killing 11 soldiers and wounding several more.
The only cancer treatment hospital in Gaza has gone out of service after it ran out of fuel, health officials said on Wednesday. The director of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital told a press conference: “We tell the world – don’t leave cancer patients to a certain death due to the hospital being out of service.”
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 8,796 Palestinians, including 3,648 children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its campaign of airstrikes and incursions. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify figures from either Israeli or Palestinian authorities. The UN’s humanitarian office has reported that at least 123 Palestinians, including 34 children, have been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since 7 October.
