Closing summary
We’ll wrap up this blog now and continue our live coverage on a fresh blog here for all the latest developments in the Israel-Hamas war. Thanks for reading.
As it turns 7.45am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv, here’s a snapshot of where things stand.
The White House has stepped back from Joe Biden’s comment apparently agreeing that Israel should delay a potential ground invasion of Gaza until more hostages can get out, saying the US president did not fully hear the question. Reuters reported that late on Friday reporters shouted questions at Biden as he was climbing the stairs to board Air Force One. One of the questions was whether Israel should delay an invasion of Gaza until more hostages can get out, to which Biden replied: “Yes.” But White House communications director Ben LaBolt said later: “The question sounded like: ‘Would you like to see more hostages released?’ He wasn’t commenting on anything else.”
Two newly freed American hostages have been reunited with family inside Israel as relatives celebrated back home in Illinois, nearly two weeks after Hamas gunmen abducted them and dozens of others near Gaza. Judith Tai Raanan, 59, and her daughter Natalie, 17, were handed over to Israeli forces at the Gaza Strip border on Friday, becoming the first captives whose release by Hamas has been confirmed by both sides. Their release was “a first step and discussions are ongoing for more releases”, Reuters cited a source familiar with the negotiations as saying. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country “will not relent in our effort to return all of the kidnapped and the missing”.
Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida said the hostages were released in response to Qatari mediation efforts, “for humanitarian reasons and to prove to the American people and the world that the claims made by [President Joe] Biden and his fascist administration are false and baseless”.
Israeli aircraft struck six homes in northern Gaza early on Saturday, killing at least eight Palestinians and injuring 45, Palestinian media reported. The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the main Palestinian Christian denomination, said Israeli forces had struck the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, where hundreds of Christians and Muslims had sought refuge, Reuters reported.
Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October aimed to disrupt a potential normalisation of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Joe Biden said on Friday. “One of the reasons Hamas moved on Israel ... they knew that I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” the US president said.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has described reports that a hospital in Gaza has been ordered to evacuate as “disturbing”. The Palestinian Red Crescent said earlier on Friday that its operations at Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City faced an “imminent threat” after the Israeli military ordered the hospital’s evacuation. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X/Twitter it was “impossible” for overcrowded hospitals to safely evacuate patients. Hospitals in Gaza “must be allowed to perform their lifesaving functions” and “must be protected”, he said.
Tensions flared in the West Bank as angry and sometimes armed confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli forces took place across the occupied territory after a deadly raid by Israeli troops. The Palestinian health ministry said 13 people, including five children, were killed after an Israeli assault on the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank.
The US and the EU said they were “concerned by the deteriorating humanitarian crisis” in Gaza. “It is crucial to prevent regional escalation. We call for the immediate release of all hostages and emphasise our shared view that a two-state solution remains the viable path to lasting peace,” a joint statement said after talks between European Council president Charles Michel, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and US president Joe Biden.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said its operations at Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City face an “imminent threat” after the Israeli military ordered the hospital’s evacuation. The PRCS posted in an “urgent appeal” on Friday saying that the hospital was “a sanctuary for over 400 patients and around 12,000 displaced civilians”.
An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said “there’s going to be no break” in his country’s effort to destroy Hamas, amid reports that the US and European governments have been putting pressure on Israel to delay its ground invasion of Gaza to buy time for secret talks under way to win the release of hostages held by Hamas.
Israel security officials have signalled their readiness to embark on a ground offensive into Gaza that they say will be far more comprehensive and ferocious than any previous conflict with Hamas.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, flew to the Sinai peninsula in an effort to open a humanitarian route into Gaza, with the first aid delivery expected “in the next day or two”. The border crossing on the Egypt-Gaza border had been due to open on Friday. When the crossing opens, the Israelis will allow 20 aid lorries to enter Gaza in an initial convoy under the Biden deal.
Joe Biden said on Friday that he believed trucks carrying much-needed humanitarian aid should enter Gaza “within the next 24-48 hours”. Separately, Rishi Sunak said the Rafah border crossing should reopen “imminently”.
Rishi Sunak and Abdel Fatah al-Sisi agreed world leaders needed to “do everything possible to avoid a contagion of conflict” in the Middle East during their talks in Cairo on Friday, Downing Street said. The UK prime minister praised Cairo’s efforts to allow movement through Rafah as he spoke about the need to ensure aid can get to Palestinians “as quickly as possible”.
Israel has evacuated its own communities near Gaza and Lebanon and announced plans to evacuate Kiryat Shmona, a town of more than 20,000 residents near the Lebanese border.
A candlelit vigil for Issam Abdallah, the Reuters visuals journalist killed last week while filming Israeli missile attacks at the Israeli-Lebanon border, was held in Beirut on Friday.
A-list Hollywood celebrities including Cate Blanchett, Joaquin Phoenix, Ramy Youssef and Andrew Garfield have penned a letter to US president Joe Biden urging him to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
Updated
Where do the countries around the Israel-Hamas war stand on the conflict? Peter Beaumont looks into the complicated web of relationships that are strained as Israel bombards Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’s attack.
