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Summary
It is shortly after 7am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here is where things stand:
The United Nations says it has been told by the Israeli military that some 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza should relocate to the enclave’s south within the next 24 hours, a request it considers to be impossible “without devastating humanitarian consequences.” “The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order, if confirmed, to be rescinded avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation,” the UN spokesperson said. Dujarric said the order by the Israeli military also applied to all UN staff and those sheltered in UN facilities, including schools, health centres and clinics.
The Israeli air force has dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza since Saturday, it said late on Thursday. “Dozens of fighter jets and helicopters attacked a series of terrorist targets of the Hamas terrorist organisation throughout the Gaza Strip. So far, the IAF has dropped about 6,000 bombs against Hamas targets,” the IAF said on X. The attacks have killed 1,500 Palestinians, a third of them children, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 6,600 have been wounded.
The UN called for $294m for ‘urgent needs’ in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. The United Nations has issued an emergency appeal for $294m to address “the most urgent needs” in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where more than 400,000 Palestinians have fled their homes in recent days. The funds would be used to help more than 1.2 million people, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said, adding that recent fighting in the region had left aid groups without adequate resources.
Israel’s parliament approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s emergency unity government on Thursday, including a number of centrist opposition lawmakers, to display its determination to fight the war with Hamas in Gaza.
As Israel’s unity government was sworn in, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech in which he promised, referring to hostages taken by Hamas, “We will not slacken in the effort to bring them back home.” Referring to Hamas, he called for countries that “maintain their presence” to face sanctions. As he ended the speech, he said, “Difficult days await us”.
More than 1,300 people, including 222 soldiers, have been killed in Israel, according to the military. The majority of the dead were killed in a single day, when Hamas fighters broke through the border and attacked Israeli civilians. Scores of Israeli and foreign hostages were taken back to Gaza. Israel says it has so far identified 97 of them.
Israeli bombing has destroyed eleven mosques, damaged 90 schools, according to the UN. It has also destroyed 752 residential and non-residential buildings, comprising 2,835 housing units, the UN says, citing numbers from the Gaza Ministry of Public Works and Housing. Another nearly 1,800 housing units have been damaged beyond repair and rendered uninhabitable, it said. The UN agency also voiced alarm at the significant destruction of civilian infrastructure damaged in the shelling.
More than 423,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the Gaza Strip, the United Nations said, following heavy Israeli bombardments in retaliation for Hamas’s attacks. As of late Thursday, the number of displaced in Gaza rose by 84,444 people to reach 423,378, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in a statement sent on Friday.
Hundreds of Australians are preparing to get on repatriation flights out of Israel, with two planes to depart Tel Aviv for London in the next 24 hours. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said 1600 people had registered in Israel or the West Bank, including 19 in Gaza, for repatriation in what was an “extraordinary logistical exercise”.
Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, warned that the “continuation of war crimes against Palestine and Gaza” could open a new front of war, and that Israel will be “responsible for the consequences”.
Updated
