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In case you missed this earlier, Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees, has written an op-ed in the Guardian in which he warns that" “hell is settling in” in Gaza.
“Gazan civilians did not choose this war,” he writes, and, “we must make sure that the rules of international humanitarian law are respected, and civilians spared and protected.”
The UN charter and our commitments are a commitment to our shared humanity. Civilians – wherever they are – must be protected equally. Gaza’s civilians did not choose this war. Atrocities should not be followed by more atrocities. The response to war crimes is not more war crimes. The framework of international law is very clear on this and well established.
It will take genuine and courageous efforts to go back to the roots of this deadly deadlock and offer political options that are viable and can enable an environment of peace, stability and security. Until then, we must make sure that the rules of international humanitarian law are respected, and civilians spared and protected. An immediate humanitarian ceasefire must be enacted to allow safe, continuous and unrestricted access to fuel, medicine, water and food in the Gaza Strip.
Dag Hammarskjöld, the second UN secretary-general, once said: “The UN was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell.” The reality today in Gaza is that there is not much humanity left and hell is settling in.
The generations to come will know that we watched this human tragedy unfold over social media and news channels. We will not be able to say we did not know. History will ask why the world did not have the courage to act decisively and stop this hell on Earth.
US strikes on Syria targeted weapons and munitions storage facilities
More now on what the strikes targeted, via Reuters. US air strikes in Syria overnight hit a weapons storage facility and an ammunition storage facility used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Cops and militia it backs, senior US officials said, saying it was unclear if Iranian nationals were killed.
The strikes took place at roughly 4.30 am on Friday in Syria (1.30am GMT) near Abu Kamal, a Syrian town on the border with Iraq, and were carried out by two F-16 fighter jets using precision munitions, one of the officials said.
“Iran-backed attacks against US forces are unacceptable and must cease. We are prepared to take further measures to protect our people if necessary,” a second official official said.
Here is the full statement by US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on the targeted strikes in Syria:
Today, at President Biden’s direction, US military forces conducted self-defence strikes on two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups. These precision self-defense strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against US personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17. As a result of these attacks, one US citizen contractor died from a cardiac incident while sheltering in place; 21 US personnel suffered from minor injuries, but all have since returned to duty. The President has no higher priority than the safety of US personnel, and he directed today’s action to make clear that the United States will not tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests.
The United States does not seek conflict and has no intention nor desire to engage in further hostilities, but these Iranian-backed attacks against US forces are unacceptable and must stop. Iran wants to hide its hand and deny its role in these attacks against our forces. We will not let them. If attacks by Iran’s proxies against US forces continue, we will not hesitate to take further necessary measures to protect our people.
These narrowly tailored strikes in self-defence were intended solely to protect and defend US personnel in Iraq and Syria. They are separate and distinct from the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, and do not constitute a shift in our approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict. We continue to urge all state and non-state entities not to take action that would escalate into a broader regional conflict.
The below image shows al-Tanf Garrison in Syria, one of the two locations where drones were used to target US personnel. The Pentagon has said that strikes carried out in Syria were in response to the recent spate of attacks against US forces in both Syria and Iraq.
Austin said in his statement that the strikes “are separate and distinct from the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, and do not constitute a shift in our approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict”, Agence France-Presse reports.
The US did not co-ordinate its retaliatory strikes on Syrian targets with Israel, an unnamed official told Reuters.
The Syrian targets struck by the US were included weapons and munitions storage facilities, Reuters reports, citing an official source. The strikes were carried out by pilots in F-16 planes.
Reuters reported this week the US military was taking new measures to protect its Middle East forces during the ramp-up in attacks by suspected Iran-backed groups, and was leaving open the possibility of evacuating military families if needed.
The measures include increasing US military patrols, restricting access to base facilities and boosting intelligence collection, including through drone and other surveillance operations, officials say.
AP: US officials have not publicly tied the recent string of attacks in Syria and Iraq to the violence in Gaza, but Iranian officials have openly criticised the US for providing weapons to Israel that have been used to strike Gaza, resulting in civilian death.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, has beefed up air defences in the region to protect US forces. The US has said it is sending several batteries of Patriot missile systems, a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence battery and additional fighter jets.
Ryder said Thursday that about 900 troops have deployed or are in the process of going to the Middle East, including those associated with the air defence systems.
In his statement, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said the US does not seek a broader conflict, but if Iranian proxy groups continue, the US won’t hesitate to take additional action to protect its forces.
According to the Pentagon, all the US personnel hurt in the militant attacks received minor injuries and all returned to duty. In addition, a contractor suffered a cardiac arrest and died while seeking shelter from a possible drone attack.
But officials at the Pentagon and the White House have made it clear for the past week that the US would respond to the attacks, with Ryder saying again Thursday that it would be “at the time and place of our choosing.”
“I think we’ve been crystal clear that we maintain the inherent right of defending our troops and we will take all necessary measures to protect our forces and our interests overseas,” he told reporters during a Pentagon briefing earlier in the day.
Updated
More now on those strikes on Syria by the US.
According to the Pentagon, there have been at least 12 attacks on US bases and personnel in Iraq and four in Syria since 17 October, AP reports.
Air Force. Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said 21 U.S. personnel were injured in two of those assaults that used drones to target al-Asad Airbase in Iraq and al-Tanf Garrison in Syria.
The US carries out airstrikes on Iranian facilities in eastern Syria
The US military carried out strikes against two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and groups it backs, the Pentagon has said, adding that they came in response to a spate of attacks against US forces in both Iraq and Syria.
“These precision self-defence strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against US personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17,” defense secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
The Pentagon has said it will take additional measures if attacks by Iran’s proxies continue.
The strikes were ordered by president Joe Biden according to Reuters.
The Guardian’s international security correspondent, Jason Bourke, has reported that militia linked to Iran have hit US bases in Syria and Iraq, raising fears of a regional conflagration.
The attacks have been claimed by groups either directly controlled by Tehran or sharing the ideology of other groups currently fighting Israel. On Thursday, a US base at Kharab al-Jir in Syria was attacked for the second time in two days, and a base in western Iraq was also hit.
Thursday’s attacks came after more than a dozen other small-scale strikes on US bases in the region which have wounded 24 US soldiers and caused the death of one civilian contractor.
You can read Jason’s full report on the attacks here:
Updated
Here is the full story on satellite images showing the damage done to Gaza by Israeli strikes:
EU calls for 'humanitarian pauses'
Leaders of the 27 EU member states have unanimously called for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” of the shelling in Gaza to allow food, water and medical supplies to reach Palestinians.
An official declaration will be issued after a two-day summit of leaders in Brussels.
The agreement was reached late on Thursday after further concessions to Spain, which sought mention of a “ceasefire” – considering this to be a stronger message from the EU. But the demand for a ceasefire from the Spanish president was also a strategic move designed to extract other concessions in the text.
Pedro Sánchez persuaded other EU leaders to agree to support a peace conference on a two-state solution – a call that is now in the formal declaration.
The member states also agreed specific language on the killing of civilians in Gaza and Israel.
“The European Council reiterates the importance of ensuring the protection of all civilians at all times in line with international humanitarian law. It deplores all loss of civilian life,” read the additional paragraph.
Biden meets with Johnson to request aid
President Joe Biden met with new House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries at the White House on Thursday to discuss his request for nearly $106bn for Israel, Ukraine and other national security needs.
Johnson, a staunch conservative allied with Donald Trump, has shown shown little interest in providing additional money from Congress to support Ukraine. Biden met briefly with Johnson and also with Jeffries before the House leaders joined a classified briefing with other congressional lawmakers on the assistance package, according to a White House official.
“It was a productive meeting,” Johnson told reporters back at the Capitol. “I enjoyed my visit with the president.”
After Johnson’s election, lawmakers approved a resolution Wednesday saying the House “stands with Israel” and “condemns Hamas’ brutal war.” They next turned to a stalled government funding bill.
By 17 November, the Congress must fund the government again or risk a federal shutdown. Biden wants nearly $106bn in military and humanitarian aid for Israel and Ukraine.
Moving on from that while we await further details, the Associated Press has published satellite images of the damage to buildings in Gaza.
In images shot Saturday by Maxar Technologies, four- and five-story buildings in the Izbat Beit Hanoun neighbourhood are in various states of collapse. Huge chunks are missing from some, others are broken in half and two large complexes lie in piles of rubble.
The pattern of destruction in the Al Karameh neighbourhood can be traced by a widespread pattern the colour of ash.
Tightly packed streets in Beit Hanoun look obliterated, with a rare white structure standing out in the grey wasteland.
With the airstrikes continuing around the clock, the full extent of the damage remains unknown. The satellite photos provide a glimpse of the devastation, particularly in the hard-hit northern Gaza Strip.
Here is a map showing where Taba, Egypt is in relation to Gaza city:
An explosion was heard and heavy smoke and dust were seen rising early on Friday in an Egyptian Red Sea resort town near the Israeli border, a witness told Reuters.
Egypt’s Al Qahera News TV broadcast images of the blast on live television.
It was not immediately clear what caused the blast.
Taba is a resort town on the Red Sea that is popular with tourists. It sits just opposite Israel’s Red Sea port city of Eilat, over 350 kilometres (220 miles) from Gaza.
Taba is a town at the northernmost point of Egypt’s Red Sea, on the border with the Israeli town of Eilat.
Updated
There have been reports of a blast in the Egyptian town of Taba, Reuters reports. The Guardian has not verified this.
“We are aware of a security incident but it’s on the outside of our border,” the Israeli military said when asked about the reports.
Reports of 'blast' in Egyptian town on Israeli border
The Israeli military has been asked about “reports of a blast in the Egyptian town of Taba, near the Israeli border,” Reuters reports. The military said it was “aware of a security incident in the area,” according to the agency.
The Guardian has not verified claims of a security incident. This is a developing story. We’ll bring you more shortly.
Updated
Israel authorities detain 86 Palestinians overnight
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli authorities detained 86 Palestinians, including five women, in multiple raids overnight, the Associated Press reports, bringing the total detained there to more than 1,400, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, which represents former and current prisoners.
At least 104 Palestinians have been killed in violence in the West Bank.
Israel carries out 250 strikes in 24 hours
The Israeli Defence Forces said it also carried out around 250 airstrikes across Gaza in the 24 hours to Thursday, in what it said were strikes targeting tunnel shafts, rocket launchers and other militant infrastructure.
The Gaza health ministry said on Thursday that the Israeli bombing of Gaza had killed 7,028 Palestinians, including 2,913 children, in just under three weeks.
Updated
Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, has told the Guardian he has seen no evidence that the casualty numbers published by Gaza’s health ministry were being manipulated:
“We have been monitoring human rights abuses in the Gaza Strip for three decades, including several rounds of hostilities. We’ve generally found the data that comes out of the ministry of health to be reliable,” he said.
“When we have done our own independent investigations around particular strikes, and we’ve compared those figures against those from the health ministry, there haven’t been major deviations.
“Their numbers generally are consistent with what we’re seeing on the ground in recent days. There have been hundreds of airstrikes per day in one of the most densely populated areas of the world.
“We’ve looked at satellite imagery. We’ve seen the number of buildings, and the numbers that are coming out are in line with what we would expect with what we’re seeing on the ground. So you put all those things together and we’re quite confident in the overall casualty numbers.”
Shakir said a grey area was differentiating combatants from civilians among the dead, but the large proportion of women and children killed was indicative of high civilian casualties. He also said there was a need to draw a distinction between the immediate casualty numbers that came out quickly on any given day and those compiled over time, when there was more clarity.
A senior Australian cabinet minister has Industrial relations minister has condemned Israel’s blockade of Palestine, citing the pain felt by his Sydney constituents.
“The people who are going to be most affected by that - the people who will die first as a result - are not Hamas, they are families who live in Gaza,” he told ABC Radio National on Friday.
“People on the ground are already much sicker as a result, and while it hasn’t had the same attention as the direct bombing in terms of the humanitarian impact of the siege, we are moments away from horrific impacts.
“If I go from Belmore, Lakemba, where I live in Punchbowl, through to Bankstown, pretty much everybody knows somebody who has lost someone.”
Australians also need to distinguish between Hamas and Palestinians and allow those with connections to either side of the violence to grieve, Mr Burke said.
“There have been too many occasions where the two have been conflated when the military conflict is meant to be against Hamas,” he said.
“People have a right to be able to grieve when innocent life is lost and the concept of competitive grief... is something that I don’t want to see in Australia.”
Summary
It is just after 2 am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here is a summary of recent developments:
The Gaza health ministry has issued a 212-page document with lists of names and identification numbers for 7,028 Palestinians that the Hamas authorities, which control Gaza, state have been killed by Israel’s bombardments there since 7 October.
Joe Biden has questioned the reliability of its reporting of the number of people killed and wounded during the Israeli assault on Gaza – because the health ministry is run by Hamas. In the past, the US state department’s annual human rights report indirectly relied on the same ministry’s casualty figures in quoting UN statistics drawn from Palestinian data. The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on Biden to apologise for his “shocking and dehumanising” remarks.
Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said he saw no evidence that the numbers were being manipulated. “We have been monitoring human rights abuses in the Gaza Strip for three decades, including several rounds of hostilities. We’ve generally found the data that comes out of the ministry of health to be reliable,” he said.
Aid is ‘barely trickling’ into Gaza, says UN humanitarian chief. The UN’s humanitarian chief said aid is “barely trickling” into Gaza despite the agency’s “best efforts”. In a statement posted to social media, Martin Griffiths said bombardments on Gaza “are getting worse, even in areas supposed to be safer”.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it has killed the deputy head of Hamas’s intelligence directorate, Shadi Barud, in a strike in the Gaza Strip.
EU leaders meeting at the European Council summit in Brussels have reached agreement on the Middle East. In a compromise text, agreed after hours of discussions, heads of state and government from the EU’s 27 members declared that the EU “reiterates the importance of ensuring the protection of all civilians at all times in line with international humanitarian law” and “deplores all loss of civilian life”.
Arab nations have linked hands with the Global South to challenge Israel and its western backers to end the bombing in a Gaza at the start of a rare two-day emergency debate at the UN general assembly. In a fierce warning on Thursday the Iranian foreign minister said that if what he described as the genocide did not stop the US would “not be spared from this fire”.
Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, has said “almost 50” hostages held in the Gaza Strip have been killed due to Israeli strikes.
Fifty-four Thai nationals are among the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, according to new figures released by the Israeli government.
A joint statement signed by the foreign ministers of nine Arab countries has condemned what it described as the targeting of civilians and violations of international law in Gaza.
Hamas delegation travels to Moscow for talks on foreign hostages in Gaza. A senior Hamas delegation has travelled to Moscow to meet Russian foreign ministry officials in the organisation’s first high-profile international visit since it launched a raid in southern Israel on 7 October. The delegation was led by Mousa Abu Marzook, a founder and political leader of Hamas, who met the Russian deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov.
Israeli infantry backed by tanks and armoured bulldozers have attacked Hamas targets in an hours-long overnight ground raid into the northern Gaza Strip. The military said the operation was “preparation for the next stages of combat” and that “the soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory”. A report by local radio described the raid as a “relatively large” ground incursion, suggesting it was the biggest foray since Israel started massing forces outside the territory in advance of a planned full-scale invasion.
An Israeli diplomat in Miami on Thursday pushed back against an assertion by the administration of Ron DeSantis that the Florida governor had coordinated with his office to facilitate the shipment of ammunition and weapons to Israel.
Earlier on Thursday, a DeSantis spokesperson said the governor’s office had contracted cargo planes to send drones, body armor and helmets to Israel and worked to “get weapons and ammunition to Israel through private parties.”The confirmed number of people held hostage in the Gaza Strip since the 7 October cross-border raids by Hamas has risen by two to 224, according to the Israeli military. So far, four hostages have been released.
Rishi Sunak has said that UK border force teams are “pre-positioned” in Egypt to assist British citizens trying to leave Gaza.
The EU is set to call for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” of the shelling in Gaza to allow food, water and medical supplies to reach Palestinians, according to its latest draft text.
The UN relief and works agency for Palestinian people has said that it expects its fuel supply to run out today. The agency has been sharing its supplies in order to allow trucks to distribute aid, bakeries to feed people in shelters, water to be desalinated, and so that hospitals can keep incubators, life support machines and other vital equipment running.
This is Helen Sullivan taking over the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
Updated
Israeli officials have suggested that they are prepared to give something in exchange for the release of a significant number of hostages in Gaza, according to a report.
Israel informed Qatari mediators its red lines for negotiations, the Times of Israel said the Kan public broadcaster reported, citing an unnamed political source. The report did not specify what Israel would be willing to offer.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has demanded the unconditional release of all hostages held in Gaza as Israel continues the bombardment that has so far killed more than 7,000 people, according to Gaza’s health authorities.
Updated
Aid 'dribbling' into Gaza due to 'insane' bureaucracy, says World Food Programme
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) director has criticised the “insane” bureaucracy at the Rafah crossing into Gaza, saying that it was slowing the flow of humanitarian aid to a “dribble” as Palestinians face the risk of starving to death.
“We’ve gotten a few – a dribble, just a dribble – of trucks in,” the WFP executive director, Cindy McCain, told Reuters.
We need to get a large amount in. We need safe, unfettered access into Gaza so that we can feed and make sure that people don’t starve to death, because that’s what’s happening.
Three WFP trucks carrying about 60 tonnes of food – enough to feed 200,000 people for a day – entered Gaza on Saturday. The agency said one additional truck has crossed since then. On Thursday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said it had received 74 aid trucks.
McCain, who visited Egypt and met with officials, said each aid truck has to offload its cargo at a checkpoint for inspection, then reload it when the check is complete.
Updated
How does Gaza’s health ministry calculate casualty figures?
Joe Biden has questioned the reliability of the Gaza health ministry’s reporting of the number of people killed and wounded during the Israeli assault on Gaza, because the health ministry is run by Hamas.
“I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war,” the US president said. “But I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”
On Thursday, the ministry said the Israeli bombing of Gaza had killed 7,028 Palestinians, including 2,913 children, in the nearly three weeks since Hamas killed about 1,400 Israelis and abducted more than 200 others in its cross-border attack.
In a move to head off allegations of fabrication, the ministry also issued a 212-page list of the names and identity numbers of every Palestinian killed in the Israeli bombardment.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on Biden to apologise for his “shocking and dehumanising” remarks. The council’s director, Nihad Awad, said:
Journalists have confirmed the high number of casualties, and countless videos coming out of Gaza every day show mangled bodies of Palestinian women and children and entire city blocks levelled to the ground.
President Biden should watch some of these videos and ask himself if the crushed children being dragged out of the ruins of their family homes are a fabrication or an acceptable price of war. They are neither.
Updated
King Charles met with charity leaders from Medical Aid for Palestinians, the British Red Cross, Unicef UK and Christian Aid at Buckingham Palace on Thursday to discuss the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Charles, who is president of the British Red Cross, spoke about the “acute humanitarian situation” in the region, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said.
The British Red Cross said the King had made a “generous donation” to its fundraising appeal.
The division over the language of an official declaration following an EU summit in Brussels reflects one of the most damaging episodes for the bloc in many years, with an early clash between the European Council president, Charles Michel, and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, over the lack of emphasis on humanitarian concerns in her early statements on the conflict.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, played down the row, saying everyone would coalesce around the important issue, which was the urgent need to get aid into Gaza.
We will get there. I don’t think that we are far away from each other if we talk about words, because the basic meaning is the same.
However, some feel the lack of unity has already damaged support for the EU in the global south. One source said:
We were heavily criticised in Cairo [peace summit]. It was as if all the outreach we have done over the last two years [to Arab nations] has been pissed up against the wall.
One diplomat said they didn’t care whether “pause” or “pauses” or “windows” was in the official communique for the summit, but they were concerned about handing Hamas an opportunity. “If the pause is too long, it will help Hamas to recover and attack again,” they said.
One senior source said that contrary to impressions given by some, there were “a range of views on the crisis” and there had been so much “heavy lifting” in the last few days to agree the text, they had avoided turning the summit into a “drafting session”.
Here are some of the latest images we have received over the newswires from Israel and Palestine.
The EU is to call for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” of the shelling in Gaza to allow food, water and medical supplies to reach Palestinians, according to its latest draft text.
An official declaration will be issued after a summit of leaders of the bloc’s 27 members in Brussels on Thursday.
It follows days of bickering over the language in what one diplomat said was a week of “difficult discussions” over a situation everyone agreed was “horrific”.
It is understood three member states, including Israel’s close ally Germany, that favoured the phrase “windows” felt an earlier text involving the phrase “humanitarian pause” suggested a permanent ceasefire and would undermine Israel’s right to defend itself.
The text that leaders will be asked to sign off on on Thursday evening reads:
The European Council expresses its gravest concern for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and calls for continued, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need through all necessary measures including humanitarian corridors and pauses.
Israeli media has reported that the Netanyahu government plans to approve new rules that will authorise police to use live fire on protesters blocking roads or entrances to cities inside Israel during the war.
According to the report, the rules have been championed by Itamar Ben Gvir, the ultra-nationalist settler and member of Netanyahu’s cabinet who oversees the police. They have received the rubber stamp of Israel’s attorney general, and will be brought before the government for authorisation on Sunday.
Before the war began on 7 October, Israeli demonstrators had been turning out weekly by the hundreds of thousands against the Netanyahu government’s plan to weaken the judiciary, with protesters regularly blocking major Israeli thoroughfares. Much smaller demonstrations have been taking places since the war started, calling for the government to work to release the Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
The war has sparked a crackdown by the Israeli government against perceived dissent, with hundreds of people arrested or disciplined for speech sympathetic to Gazans. Police have been given wide new powers to determine what applies as “support for terrorism”, and have declared they will not allow solidarity demonstrations in support of Gaza.
The US national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said a “humanitarian pause” should be considered in Gaza in light of a rapidly escalating humanitarian emergency in the blockaded enclave which Israel has been striking for 19 days.
Outlining what such a pause could look like during a press briefing to reporters, Kirby said it would be a “a temporary and local agreement to stop the fighting long enough to do some discrete task.”
He added that such agreements are “localised, temporary, specific pauses on the battlefield so that humanitarian assistance can get in to the people that need it or they, the people, can get out of that area in relative safety and humanitarian pause.”
Updated
The Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, showed the general assembly a brief video that he said showed a Hamas fighter trying to decapitate a man with a garden tool during the attack on 7 October this year.
Erdan, who has called for the resignation of the UN secretary general, António Guterres, insisted:
This is not a war with the Palestinians. Israel is at war with the genocidal Hamas terrorist organisation … Hamas do not care about the Palestinian people. Hamas has only one goal – to annihilate Israel.
In a joint statement the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt and Morocco, on Thursday condemned the targeting of civilians and violations of international law in Gaza.
Their statement said the right to self defence did not justify breaking the law and neglecting Palestinians’ rights. The Arab ministers also condemned forced displacement and collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza.
They criticised Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian areas and called for more efforts to implement a two-state solution to the decades-long conflict, an idea that has been the foundation of a long-moribund peace process.
The absence of a political solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has led to repeated acts of violence and suffering for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples and the peoples of the region.
Support for Israel came from European governments. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Friday would send a clear signal of backing for Israel in what he called its self-defence efforts.
Arab nations condemn Israel’s Gaza assault during UN debate
Arab nations have linked hands with the Global South to challenge Israel and its western backers to end the bombing in a Gaza at the start of a rare two-day emergency debate at the UN general assembly.
In a fierce warning on Thursday the Iranian foreign minister said that if what he described as the genocide did not stop the US would “not be spared from this fire”.
The debate was occasionally unsettling for the US, as diplomats from across the globe challenged what they frequently described as Washington’s unqualified support for Israel since the Hamas attack that killed 1,400 people. Since then, according to the Palestinian authorities, more than 7,000 people have been killed in Gaza, with Israel pounding the territory with airstrikes.
The tone of the debate was set by its title – Illegal Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. A large majority of nations in the assembly will probably condemn Israel if a non-binding vote is called on Friday.
The smaller 15-strong UN security council, including its five permanent veto wielding members, has been unable to reach agreement on the terms of a humanitarian pause to the hostilities.
On Wednesday Russia and the US vetoed each other’s resolutions. The US last week also vetoed a Brazilian resolution calling for humanitarian corridors into Gaza, on the grounds that it did not assert Israel’s right to self defence.
A resolution passed by the security council carries more weight than one passed by the larger 193-country general assembly.
About 900 additional US troops are being deployed to the Middle East, or have already arrived there, to bolster air defences to protect US personnel, the Pentagon said.
US troops have been attacked at least 12 times in Iraq and four times in Syria in the past week, the Pentagon spokesperson Brig Gen Patrick Ryder said during a briefing on Thursday.
He added that US forces were targeted earlier today in Iraq but the attack failed.
Updated
EU leaders agree to call for 'humanitarian corridors and pauses' in Gaza
EU leaders meeting at the European Council summit in Brussels have reached agreement on the Middle East.
In a compromise text, agreed after hours of discussions, heads of state and government from the EU’s 27 members declared that the EU “reiterates the importance of ensuring the protection of all civilians at all times in line with international humanitarian law” and “deplores all loss of civilian life”.
The leaders also said that they are concerned about deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Gaza and called for aid “including humanitarian corridors and pauses for humanitarian needs”.
In a concession to Spain, new wording was added to the final text that the European Council “supports the holding of an international peace conference soon”.
Here is the compromise text:
Unity, agreement at #EUCO on Middle East conclusions. pic.twitter.com/sC8zUuiZlI
— Ecaterina Casinge (@ecasinge) October 26, 2023
Updated
The death toll of French citizens from the attacks by Hamas in Israel on 7 October has risen to 35.
Nine people remain unaccounted for, the French foreign ministry said on Thursday. Some of those missing are being held hostage by Hamas, it said.
We are doing everything we can to obtain their release.
Hamas delegation travels to Moscow for talks on foreign hostages in Gaza
A senior Hamas delegation has travelled to Moscow to meet Russian foreign ministry officials in the organisation’s first high-profile international visit since it launched a raid in southern Israel on 7 October, killing an estimated 1,400 people and taking another 220 hostage.
The delegation was led by Mousa Abu Marzook, a founder and political leader of Hamas, who met the Russian deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov. Marzook, who lives in exile in Qatar, travelled to Moscow after an earlier meeting in Doha, the capital of Qatar, with Bogdanov and the Iranian deputy foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani.
The delegation was confirmed by representatives of Hamas and by Russia, and a photo showed the three men meeting at the Russian foreign ministry in Moscow.
“Abu Marzook, a member of the political bureau of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, is in Moscow,” said the Russian foreign ministry in a statement.
Contact with him took place in pursuit for the immediate release of foreign hostages held in the Gaza Strip, and issues related to ensuring the evacuation of Russian and other foreign citizens from the territory of the Palestinian enclave were discussed.
Earlier this month, Bogdanov had said he wanted to meet Hamas representatives in Qatar to discuss the release of Israeli hostages. At least six of the 220 hostages held by Hamas have Russian citizenship, according to the Israeli government.
Updated
The Palestinian representative to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, addressed an emergency special session at the UN’s general assembly on the Israel-Palestine crisis.
“We are meeting here while Palestinians in Gaza are under the bombs,” he said. He told of families being killed, hospitals coming to a halt, neighbourhoods being destroyed and civilians “fleeing from one place to another with no safe place to go”.
“There is no time to mourn,” he told the assembly, pointing to the rising death toll in Gaza.
If you do not stop it for all those who have been killed, stop it for all those who can be saved.
Mansour, recalling Israel’s recent comments in the UN’s security council about how its people are suffering, said Palestinians are suffering too.
How can representatives of states explain how horrible it is that 1,000 Israelis were killed, and not feel the same outrage when 1,000 Palestinians are now killed every single day? Why not feel a sense of urgency to end their killing?
Updated
Aid 'barely trickling' into Gaza, says UN humanitarian chief
The UN’s humanitarian chief said aid is “barely trickling” into Gaza despite the agency’s “best efforts”.
In a statement posted to social media, Martin Griffiths said bombardments on Gaza “are getting worse, even in areas supposed to be safer”.
The world itself is failing to meet the bare entitlements of a part of humanity.
The rules of war are clear: civilians must be protected and have the essentials to survive, wherever they are and whether they choose to move or stay.
The world is failing to meet the bare entitlements of a part of humanity. pic.twitter.com/hqZFKqppIH
— Martin Griffiths (@UNReliefChief) October 26, 2023
Updated
Palestinian families in Gaza are running out of food as bakeries run out of fuel amid Israel’s blockade of the territory, ActionAid has warned.
The international charity accused Israel of using starvation as “a weapon of war” with bakeries “a target of indiscriminate bombing”. It said it was particularly concerned about the impact of food and water shortages on women and newborns.
ActionAid quoted a Gaza resident currently at a UN shelter saying:
The situation in the Gaza Strip is very, very bad. People have been killed, may God have mercy on them, but the rest will die because of hunger. There is no food in the supermarket, no tinned food, no food. Regarding bread, we have to wait in line. We go at six in the morning and wait until the afternoon to get it. This is if you even manage to get some bread, of course.
The situation in Gaza “is nothing short of a complete catastrophe”, ActionAid Palestine’s coordinator of advocacy and communication, Riham Jafari, said.
With over 2 million people in urgent need of food, it is completely barbaric to see bakeries under bombardment as civilians line up every day to get food for their families. Those who survive the bombings may die from starvation instead.
She added:
Food is a basic human right, not a weapon of war. We should be clear: indiscriminate attacks on bakeries, hospitals and schools amount to a gross violation of international humanitarian law.
Updated
An Al Jazeera correspondent has held a funeral for his wife, son, daughter and grandson whom the Qatar-based network said were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Wael al-Dahdouh, Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza, had fled with his family to the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza after Israel warned those in the northern half of the territory to leave immediately.
Twenty-one other people were killed in the same airstrike, according to Palestinian health officials. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strike, according to Reuters.
Updated
It was an extraordinary moment when an 85-year-old hostage shook the hand of her Hamas captor and said one word: “Shalom”.
Yocheved Lifshitz, who was released by Hamas after 16 days in captivity, is now focused on trying to secure the release of other hostages. Her daughter, Sharone Lifschitz, has revealed that the captor was reportedly a paramedic with whom her mother had discussed peace.
Sharone said her mother had been comforting the relatives of other captives while she received medical treatment in Tel Aviv.
She said she was “immensely proud” of Yocheved, a retired teacher who has emerged from her ordeal several kilos lighter but with a determination to bring some hope to the families of the remaining hostages.
Sharone, a London-based artist and academic, said:
It’s really hard to explain that we are still in this. As my mum says, her body is here but her heart is back there with the rest of the hostages.
Yocheved and her husband, Oded, 83, who have been married for 63 years and are peace and human rights activists, were kidnapped by Hamas from the Nir Oz kibbutz in southern Israel on 7 October.
Yocheved had told her daughter that she became separated from Oded after witnessing him being shot in the hand. Yocheved was tied to a motorcycle and driven to Gaza, while Oded, a veteran journalist, remains missing.
Updated
The US government has reiterated its lack of trust in figures released by Hamas of the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza by Israeli bombardment.
This follows Joe Biden voicing skepticism of death toll figures issued by the ministry of health in Gaza, the blockaded Palestinian territory.
The US president’s assertion at the White House yesterday prompted a row.
Now the US State Department has said Washington knows that a significant number of people have died in Gaza but does not have independent confirmation of numbers, adding that it does not trust the figures released from Hamas, Reuters reports.
The state department spokesperson Matthew Miller added that the US had seen Russia play no productive role at all in the Middle East crisis.
A delegation from Hamas visited Moscow on Thursday for talks on the release of foreign hostages including Russian citizens that the militant group is currently holding in Gaza.
Here’s one US journalist’s take on that last point:
How will Putin apologists in the U.S. respond? https://t.co/c1kqnkfrQQ
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) October 26, 2023
Updated
Summary
It’s around 9pm in Tel Aviv and Gaza City. We’ll continue to bring you the news from the Israel-Hamas war as it develops.
Here’s where the day stands:
The Gaza health ministry has issued a 212-page document with lists of names and identification numbers for 7,028 Palestinians that the Hamas authorities, which control Gaza, state have been killed by Israel’s bombardments there since 7 October.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it has killed the deputy head of Hamas’s intelligence directorate, Shadi Barud, in a strike in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, has said “almost 50” hostages held in the Gaza Strip have been killed due to Israeli strikes.
Fifty-four Thai nationals are among the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, according to new figures released by the Israeli government.
A joint statement signed by the foreign ministers of nine Arab countries has condemned what it described as the targeting of civilians and violations of international law in Gaza.
Israeli infantry backed by tanks and armoured bulldozers have attacked Hamas targets in an hours-long overnight ground raid into the northern Gaza Strip. The military said the operation was “preparation for the next stages of combat” and that “the soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory”.
A report by local radio described the raid as a “relatively large” ground incursion, suggesting it was the biggest foray since Israel started massing forces outside the territory in advance of a planned full-scale invasion.
The confirmed number of people held hostage in the Gaza Strip since the 7 October cross-border raids by Hamas has risen by two to 224, according to the Israeli military. So far, four hostages have been released.
At least 7,028 Palestinians have been killed, including 2,913 children, in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said on Thursday.
Rishi Sunak has said that UK border force teams are “pre-positioned” in Egypt to assist British citizens trying to leave Gaza.
The EU is set to call for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” of the shelling in Gaza to allow food, water and medical supplies to reach Palestinians, according to its latest draft text.
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The UN relief and works agency for Palestinian people has said that it expects its fuel supply to run out today. The agency has been sharing its supplies in order to allow trucks to distribute aid, bakeries to feed people in shelters, water to be desalinated, and so that hospitals can keep incubators, life support machines and other vital equipment running.
Stay tuned for further updates.
Updated
The US and Qatar have agreed to revisit the Gulf country’s ties to Hamas – after the hostage crisis in Gaza is resolved, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing four diplomats familiar with the discussions, Reuters writes.
The Post reports:
The agreement, which has not been reported previously, was forged during a recent meeting in Doha between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. Still undecided is whether the reevaluation will entail an exodus of Hamas leaders from Qatar, where they have long maintained a political office in the capital, or steps that come short of that, these officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.
The agreement is an attempt to balance the Biden administration’s short-term goal of rescuing as many hostages as possible with its long-term objective of trying to isolate Hamas following its Oct. 7 rampage in Israel.
Qatar, a tiny gas-rich peninsula in the Persian Gulf, has been instrumental in helping the United States and Israel secure the release of hostages and communicating with Hamas on other pressing issues, including the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza and the safe passage of Palestinian-Americans out of the besieged enclave.
But its decision to provide harbor to Hamas’s political leaders and host an office for their operations, dating back more than a decade, has come under scrutiny by Republicans in Congress and other pro-Israel hard-liners.
The whole Post report is here.
Updated
In this time of war, the health ministry in Gaza has been given its own health warning.
Joe Biden has questioned the reliability of its reporting of the number of people killed and wounded during the Israeli assault on Gaza – because the health ministry is run by Hamas.
“I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war.” the US president said. “But I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”
On Thursday, the ministry said the Israeli bombing of Gaza had killed 7,028 Palestinians, including 2,913 children, in the nearly three weeks since Hamas killed about 1,400 Israelis and abducted more than 200 others in its cross-border attack.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on Biden to apologise for his “shocking and dehumanising” remarks.
[But] Luke Baker, a former Reuters bureau chief in Jerusalem, is among those calling on news organisations to show scepticism….
…Others say the ministry has a track record of reliable casualty figures and that it has fallen victim to the propaganda war as Israel seeks to minimise the consequences of its hundreds of bombing raids on Gaza.
In the past, the US state department’s annual human rights report indirectly relied on the same ministry’s casualty figures in quoting UN statistics drawn from Palestinian data.
Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said he saw no evidence that the numbers were being manipulated.
Full report here.
Gaza authorities give new statement on death toll
The Gaza health ministry has issued a 212-page document with the names and identification numbers of 7,028 Palestinians killed by Israel’s bombardments there since 7 October.
The news comes in a swift report from the Reuters agency, and we’ll bring you more detail as soon as they emerge.
Joe Biden triggered a row yesterday when, during an unrelated press conference at the White House, he called into question the Palestinian civilian death toll in Gaza being reported by the authorities there. The US president said he had “no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed”.
That sparked fierce debate but, as the Guardian’s Chris McGreal writes in a piece today, some important bodies say the Gaza ministry has a track record of reliable casualty figures, which the US state department itself has indirectly drawn from in the past.
Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said he saw no evidence that the current numbers were being manipulated.
You can read McGreal’s article here.
Updated
Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, warned at the United Nations this morning that if Israel’s retaliation against Hamas in Gaza did not end, then the US would “not be spared from this fire”, Reuters reports from New York.
The minister also indicated that Iran was prepared to become involved in any negotiations over hostages held by Hamas since they attacked southern Israel on 7 October, and that it demands Hamas release Palestinians being held in Israel.
While Israel seeks to destroy Hamas, Israeli airstrikes are killing many thousands of Palestinian civilians and its blockade of Gaza has led to an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis inside the besieged territory with shortages of water, food, medical supplies and fuel at dire levels.
Reuters writes from the UN headquarters in Manhattan about Iran’s words to Israel’s close ally, the US:
I say frankly to the American statesmen, who are now managing the genocide in Palestine, that we do not welcome [an] expansion of the war in the region. But if the genocide in Gaza continues, they will not be spared from this fire,” Amirabdollahian told an emergency meeting of the 193-member General Assembly on the Middle East.
Israel is preparing a ground invasion, and Palestinian authorities say more than 7,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas has told Iran – one of its international backers – that it is ready to release civilian hostages, adding that the world should push for the release of 6,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, Amirabdollahian said.
The Islamic Republic of Iran stands ready to play its part in this very important humanitarian endeavor, along with Qatar and Turkey. Naturally, the release of the 6,000 Palestinian prisoners is another necessity and responsibility of the global community.
Updated
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said three of its schools had sustained “collateral damage” due to nearby strikes in Gaza in the past 24 hours.
One person was killed in one of the schools, and a further 15 suffered minor injuries in another, the agency said in its latest update.
Fuel continues to be “urgently needed” in order to maintain the agency’s key humanitarian operations, it said.
Current stocks are almost completely exhausted, forcing life-saving services to come to a halt.
Another UNRWA staff member has been killed, bringing the total to 39 staff members killed since 7 October, it said.
Updated
IDF says it killed deputy head of Hamas intelligence
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they have killed the deputy head of Hamas’s intelligence directorate, Shadi Barud, in a strike in the Gaza Strip on Thursday.
The IDF accused Barud of planning the 7 October Hamas attacks in southern Israel with its current leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar.
🔴Shadi Barud, Deputy Head of Hamas’ Intelligence Directorate has been eliminated by an IDF aerial strike.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 26, 2023
He took part in the planning of the October 7 massacre and countless other deadly attacks carried out against Israelis.
We will continue to strike and eliminate Hamas…
Updated
Relatives of British or dual nationals trapped in Gaza have expressed their outrage at the UK government for the delays in getting help to their family members, as No 10 said about 200 had registered with UK authorities to say they were in the Palestinian territory.
A team of Border Force officials has been sent to Egypt to try to help them leave Gaza while their families in the UK have called for faster action from the prime minister.
The 200 figure represented only those who had made their presence known, Rishi Sunak’s official spokesperson said, adding that the government did not have an estimate for the total number of UK nationals who may be in Gaza. The spokesperson said:
We obviously want to ensure that those British nationals that do want to leave can get out of Gaza. That’s something that we’ve been working on intensely over the past few days.
In terms of whether all of the numbers that are registered want to leave, I can’t be definitive. But clearly, we are working to enable crossings to be able to open so that people can leave should they wish.
That assistance involved speaking to the Israeli and Egyptian governments, as well as “to regional leaders who have influence in Gaza”, they added.
Answering media questions after a speech in London, Sunak said the Border Force officials had been sent to Egypt in the hope that a pause in fighting would allow the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza to be opened, enabling people to leave.
Israel has allowed a small amount of aid to get through the crossing in recent days, but has not opened it to people leaving Gaza into north-east Egypt.
Updated
Hamas says 'almost 50' hostages killed in Israeli bombardment
Abu Obeida, a spokesperson for Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, has said “almost 50” hostages held in the Gaza Strip have been killed due to Israeli strikes.
The Guardian was not able to independently verify this figure.
Updated
Maxar Technologies has released some satellite imagery which shows the scale of the damage done to infrastructure across the Gaza Strip by Israel’s aerial bombardment of the territory.
These before an after images show the al-Karama district in Gaza City:
These before and after images show Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza, which is one of the worst impacted areas by Israel’s airstrikes.
This is another part of Beit Hanoun:
In al-Zahra, which is slightly south of Gaza City, buildings and other structures can be see flattened, with piles of debris remaining:
Celtic fans ignored calls from their club not to fly banners or flags relating to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict before the Champions League match against Atlético Madrid.
Supporters known as The Green Brigade, who typically sit in the north curve of Celtic Park, handed out thousands of Palestine flags before the match.
Celtic have been fined twice in the past for similar messages by their fans, and the club could now face further disciplinary action.
Israel says 54 Thai nationals being held hostage by Hamas
Fifty-four Thai nationals are among the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, according to new figures released by the Israeli government. Almost all are believed to have been farm workers employed on the agricultural communities that bore the brunt of the terrorist attacks launched on southern Israel by the extremist organisation on 7 October.
Thais also made up the largest single group of foreign dead and missing, with 24 confirmed killed and 21 unaccounted for, the updated statistics revealed. In all 1,400 people were killed in the attacks, mostly civilians.
Authorities in Bangkok have said that at least 33 of its nationals were killed and 18 wounded but that only 18 were among those taken hostage.
The Thai ministry of foreign affairs said on Thursday it was still in the process of verifying the 54 figure with Israeli authorities. The Thai prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, said it was possible the Israeli figure included a combination of confirmed deaths, abductions, and missing people.
Updated
A spokesperson for Russia’s foreign minister has said that representatives of Hamas are currently visiting Moscow, the Associated Press reports.
Maria Zakharova did not elaborate further, saying instead that the ministry would provide additional information later.
The state RIA Novosti news agency said that the Hamas delegation was led by a member of the group’s political wing, Mousa Abu Marzouk.
Updated
About 200 UK or dual nationals say they are in Gaza - No 10
About 200 British nationals or dual nationals have registered with UK authorities to say that they are in Gaza, Downing Street has said, and a team of Border Force officials has been sent to Egypt to try to help them leave.
The figure of 200 individuals was only those who had made their presence known, Rishi Sunak’s official spokesperson told reporters, saying that the government did not have an estimate for the total number of UK nationals who may be in Gaza.
“We obviously want to ensure that those British nationals that do want to leave can get out of Gaza. That’s something that we’ve been working on intensely over the past few days,” he said. “In terms of whether all of the numbers that are registered do want to leave, I can’t be definitive. But clearly, we are working to enable crossings to be able to open so that people can leave should they wish.”
This involved speaking to the Israeli and Egyptian governments, as well as “to regional leaders who have influence in Gaza”, he added.
Updated
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has accused the West of indifference toward the suffering of Muslims.
“How many more children must die before the EU Commission can call for a ceasefire?” he said in a televised speech that was later quoted on social media. “How many more tons of bombs must fall on Gaza for the United Nations Security Council to take action?”
Erdogan also said Turkey has so far dispatched 10 planeloads to Egypt carrying humanitarian aid, including generators, destined for Gaza. Twenty-five Turkish medical personnel had also left for Egypt, he said.
President Erdoğan:
— Republic of Türkiye Directorate of Communications (@Communications) October 26, 2023
"How many more children must die before the EU Commission can call for a ceasefire? How many more tons of bombs must fall on Gaza for the UNSC to take action?"
Updated
Pro-Palestinian Instagram accounts have been locked by Meta after what the Facebook owner said were suspected signs of security being compromised.
A popular Instagram account among Palestine supporters with more than 6 million followers, @eye.on.palestine, has been unavailable to view since Wednesday night. The backup account was also unavailable to view. Both accounts were still unavailable at lunchtime on Thursday.
The account regularly posts images and videos from Gaza, and is one of the leading Instagram accounts sharing experiences of Palestinian people living under Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
This is not the first time the account has been banned. Last year the account was temporarily suspended for “not following” community guidelines though the account was later reinstated.
Updated
The number of French citizens who died in the Hamas attacks on Israel has risen to 35, France’s foreign ministry has said, up from 31 previously.
Nine French nationals are still missing, some of whom are being held hostage by Hamas, it said in a statement published on social media.
#Israël | La France déplore le décès tragique de nouveaux ressortissants français, ce qui porte à trente-cinq le bilan des victimes françaises dans les attaques terroristes menées par le Hamas contre Israël. Nous adressons nos condoléances à leurs proches.https://t.co/qLaYmJC13X pic.twitter.com/Z9f84ONrjR
— France Diplomatie🇫🇷🇪🇺 (@francediplo) October 26, 2023
Updated
Heading into the EU summit to discuss the situation in the Middle East and support for Ukraine, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has stopped to speak to reporters.
“We need to do everything we can to avoid spillover of conflict,” he said, according to my colleagues at the Europe Live blog. “We will also work towards humanitarian support for Gaza populations which are also victims of Hamas,” he added.
Two children with dual Israeli-Hungarian citizenship are among the more than 200 hostages held by the militant Hamas group in the Gaza Strip, the Associated Press reports, citing Hungary’s foreign ministry.
The children, aged 8 and 15, were taken from the home of their father in a kibbutz near the border with Gaza during Hamas’ deadly 7 October rampage, the children’s mother told the Hungarian weekly magazine Hetek.
A spokesperson for the ministry confirmed to the magazine that the children were being held in Gaza, and said that the ministry was in contact with their mother.
On Thursday, the Israeli military said that the confirmed number of people held hostage in the Gaza Strip since the cross-border raids by Hamas has risen by two to 224. So far, four hostages have been released.
Updated
Arab countries condemn targeting of civilians in Gaza
A joint statement signed by the foreign ministers of nine Arab countries has condemned what it described as the targeting of civilians and violations of international law in Gaza, Reuters reports.
It also condemned the forced displacement and what it considered to be collective punishment in Gaza. The right to self-defence does not justify breaking the law and neglecting Palestinian rights, the statement noted.
The statement was signed by the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt and Morocco.
Updated
EU leaders are arriving at a summit in Brussels aimed at discussing the situation in the Middle East and support for Ukraine.
Prior to the summit, several of them spoke to reporters:
The Belgian prime minister, Alexander De Croo, said that Israel had the right to defend itself and act to prevent any future attacks by Hamas, but that this could not justify any full blockade of Gaza or the barring of humanitarian convoys.
“Today, Hamas has two types of hostages: 222 hostages from Israel, but they are also taking the population of Gaza as a hostage,” De Croo said, according to Reuters.
He added: “Israel has a right to take action and to prevent future attacks. But that is never an excuse for blocking a whole region, for blocking humanitarian aid. It cannot be an excuse to starve a population.”
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, stressed that he would like to see a ceasefire for humanitarian purposes. “But if we don’t have that conditions, at least a humanitarian pause in order to channel all the humanitarian aid that the Palestinian population needs, urgently,” he said according to my colleagues at the Europe Live blog.
Sánchez also called for a peace summit to address the situation.
Updated
The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, has said that the military operation to eliminate Hamas is necessary, but that it needs to be carried out within the boundaries of international law.
“Unfortunately, a military operation needs to take place to eliminate Hamas, there is no other way, otherwise Israel cannot survive in the long run,” Reuters reported Rutte saying as he arrived in Brussels for an EU summit. “But this should be done with a minimum of damage to the civilian population.”
Updated
Two hundred chairs, each bearing the portrait of a hostage kidnapped by Hamas during its attacks on 7 October, have been set up outside the UN European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Behind them, a large banner reads: “Bring them home.”
On Thursday the Israeli military said that the confirmed number of people held hostage in the Gaza Strip since the cross-border raids by Hamas had risen by two to 224.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s just before 4pm in Gaza. Here is a summary of the latest developments:
Israeli infantry backed by tanks and armoured bulldozers have attacked Hamas targets in an hours-long overnight ground raid into the northern Gaza Strip. The military said the operation was “preparation for the next stages of combat” and that “the soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory”.
A report by local radio described the raid as a “relatively large” ground incursion, suggesting it was the biggest foray since Israel started massing forces outside the territory in advance of a planned full-scale invasion.
The confirmed number of people held hostage in the Gaza Strip since the 7 October cross-border raids by Hamas has risen by two to 224, according to the Israeli military. So far, four hostages have been released.
At least 7,028 Palestinians have been killed, including 2,913 children, in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said on Thursday. The claims have not been independently verified. Biden said on Wednesday he had “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using” for the death toll, but he did not offer further details. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said it was “deeply disturbed” by Biden’s comments on the Gaza figures, and called on the president to apologise.
Rishi Sunak has said that UK border force teams are “pre-positioned” in Egypt to assist British citizens trying to leave Gaza. “So that if there is a possibility for our nationals to cross the Rafah crossing, we’re ready to get them in and bring them back,” he told reporters.
The EU is set to call for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” of the shelling in Gaza to allow food, water and medical supplies to reach Palestinians, according to its latest draft text. An official declaration will be issued after a summit of leaders of the bloc’s 27 members in Brussels on Thursday.
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The UN relief and works agency for Palestinian people has said that it expects its fuel supply to run out today. The agency has been sharing its supplies in order to allow trucks to distribute aid, bakeries to feed people in shelters, water to be desalinated, and so that hospitals can keep incubators, life support machines and other vital equipment running.
Stay tuned for further updates.
Here are some of the most recent images sent to us over the news wires from Gaza, the West Bank and Israel.
Updated
Overnight raid set scene for the 'next stages of the war', says Israel military
Israeli infantry backed by tanks and armoured bulldozers have attacked Hamas targets in an hours-long overnight ground raid into the northern Gaza Strip, my colleague Peter Beaumont writes from Jerusalem.
Grainy video footage released by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) showed a column of at least a dozen main battle tanks and other armoured vehicles crossing through an opening in the Gaza border wall and firing on a nearby built-up area of damaged buildings.
Although Israeli troops have been raiding frequently into Gaza in the recent fighting, this incursion was described as far more significant in scale and aimed at shaping the conditions for fighting in immediate border areas for the “next stages of the war”.
The troops – who, according to Israeli media reports, came from the Givati brigade and 162nd Armoured Division – returned from the raid without casualties.
“Through the raid, we eliminated terrorists, neutralised threats, dismantled explosives, neutralised ambushes, in order to enable the next stages of the war for the ground forces,” said the Israeli military spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari.
Updated
More than 7,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, the territory's health ministry reports
At least 7,028 Palestinians have been killed, including 2,913 children, in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said on Thursday, according to Reuters. The claims have not been independently verified.
Biden said on Wednesday he had “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using” for the death toll, but he did not offer further details. The UN relies on the Gaza ministry for death toll figures.
In the US, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said it was “deeply disturbed” by Biden’s comments on the Gaza figures, and called on the president to apologise.
The Hamas attack on southern Israel on 7 October left more than 1,400 Israelis dead – chiefly civilians – and Hamas fighters took at least 224 hostages back into Gaza with them. Targets of the rampage, described as a pogrom by the UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, included a music festival, and led to scenes described by first responders as a massacre.
Four of the hostages have been released.
Updated
UK ready in Egypt to assist British citizens trying to leave Gaza
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Rishi Sunak said that UK border force teams were in Egypt.
“We’re very keen to be able to bring them out and bring them home. What I can tell you is we’ve pre-positioned border force teams to Egypt,” the prime minister said, according to Sky News.
“So that if there is a possibility for our nationals to cross the Rafah crossing, we’re ready to get them in and bring them back.”
The complexity of the situation, however, meant that this wouldn’t happen right away, he added. “So it’s not something we can do immediately but when the moment arises, we’ll be ready to take it quickly.”
Earlier this week No 10 said that at least five British nationals were suspected to be among the hostages being held by Hamas.
Updated
Philippe Lazzarini, who runs the UN agency for Palestine refugees, has written an opinion piece for the Guardian, warning that Gaza is “becoming the graveyard of a population trapped between war, siege and deprivation”.
Lazzarini writes:
Nearly 600,000 people are sheltering in 150 schools and other UNRWA buildings, living in unsanitary conditions with limited clean water, little food and medicines. Mothers do not know how they can clean their children. Pregnant women pray that they will not face complications during delivery because hospitals have no capacity to receive them. Entire families now live in our buildings because they have nowhere else to go.
“But our facilities are not safe – 40 UNRWA buildings, including schools and warehouses, have been damaged by the strikes. Many civilians sheltering inside them were, tragically, killed.”
Updated
Years needed to restore security following Hamas attacks - Israel’s Gantz
Israeli efforts to rehabilitate the southern communities ravaged by the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks will take years and go beyond a planned ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, a member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet has said, according to Reuters.
“The battle against Gazan terror will continue within the strip’s territory - going deep, anywhere and at any time required to ensure security for the communities that will be restored and will rebuild the region,” Benny Gantz, an ex-general who joined Netanyahu from the opposition in an emergency government, said Thursday.
“The (ground) manoeuvre will be but one stage of a long process that will include defensive, diplomatic and social aspects that will take years,” he added.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society has said that 12 trucks from the Egyptian Red Crescent have made it through the Rafah crossing point between Egypt and Gaza, carrying water, food, medicines and medical supplies.
So far 74 trucks have been received, it noted in a social media post. Fuel had not been allowed to enter, it added.
Israel has voiced concerns regarding the possible diversion of fuel deliveries by Hamas – concerns that have been described by the White House as legitimate, Reuters reported earlier this week.
@PalestineRCS received 12 trucks from their Egyptian Red Crescent counterparts at the #Rafah border crossing, containing water, food, medicines and medical supplies. So far, a total of 74 trucks have been received, but fuel has not been allowed to enter the Strip till this moment pic.twitter.com/RVoCOWSyOI
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) October 26, 2023
Updated
Al Jazeera says Israeli airstrike killed the family of its Gaza correspondent – video
An Al Jazeera correspondent is mourning the loss of his entire immediate family after they were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, the Qatar-based network said in a statement.
Wael al-Dahdouh, Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza, had fled with his family to the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza after Israel warned those in the northern half of the territory to leave immediately.
“The Israeli army said this area is safe so my family came to this house,” al-Dahdouh told reporters. “But death followed them … the airstrikes followed them.”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strike, according to Reuters.
Warning: some viewers may find the following footage distressing.
Updated
Gaza needs a full ceasefire for aid to enter – Palestinian minister
Israel needs to agree to a full ceasefire in Gaza in order to allow urgently needed humanitarian aid to be brought in, the Palestinian foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, has said in The Hague, according to Reuters.
His remarks come as EU leaders ready a call for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” of the shelling in Gaza to allow food, water and medical supplies to reach Palestinians.
On Thursday, al-Maliki described the EU proposal as unacceptable, saying it would not ensure aid could come in and water and electricity supplies be reinstated.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s just before 1pm in Gaza. Here is a summary of the latest developments:
Israeli troops backed by tanks have attacked Hamas targets in a brief ground raid in the Gaza Strip, the country’s military has said. It said the operation was “preparation for the next stages of combat” and that “the soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory”.
A report by local radio described the raid as a “relatively large” ground incursion, suggesting it was the biggest foray since Israel started massing forces outside the territory in advance of a planned full-scale invasion.
UK government ministers are to hold an emergency committee meeting as work intensifies to secure “pauses” in the conflict between Israel and Hamas after a tank raid of Gaza.
The EU is set to call for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” of the shelling in Gaza to allow food, water and medical supplies to reach Palestinians, according to its latest draft text. An official declaration will be issued after a summit of leaders of the bloc’s 27 members in Brussels on Thursday.
The UN relief and works agency for Palestinian people has said that it expects its fuel supply to run out today. The agency has been sharing its supplies in order to allow trucks to distribute aid, bakeries to feed people in shelters, water to be desalinated, and so that hospitals can keep incubators, life support machines and other vital equipment running.
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The confirmed number of people held hostage in the Gaza Strip since the 7 October cross-border raids by Hamas has risen by two to 224, Reuters reports, citing the Israeli military. So far, four hostages have been released.
Stay tuned for further updates.
Updated
UK ministers to hold emergency meeting over Israel-Hamas war
UK government ministers are to hold an emergency committee meeting as work intensifies to secure “pauses” in the conflict between Israel and Hamas after Israel conducted a tank raid in Gaza.
Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, said he would chair a Cobra meeting with figures from the Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence and Cabinet Office on Thursday morning.
He said there had been “some success” in delivering aid to civilians in Gaza who were lacking food, water or medicines, but that international negotiations were continuing, to try to reach those still in need.
The UK was pushing for specific pauses in fighting, which would be time and location specific to allow aid agencies to deliver items such as water filters and medical kits, he said. Britain has resisted calls for a total ceasefire.
“The reason why we don’t support a wider ceasefire is one just has to understand the position of people in Israel,” Dowden told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “If it had been the case in the UK that a group of terrorists had entered and indiscriminately sought to murder over 1,000 people, there would be demands that we remove this threat.
Updated
WHO calls for "immediate and uninterrupted" access into and across Gaza
The World Health Organization has said that it has supplies on standby across the border from Gaza in Egypt.
The supplies could provide surgical interventions for 3,700 trauma patients, basic and essential health services for 110,000 people and medical equipment for 20,000 patients suffering from chronic diseases.
“Without fuel, medicines, and health supplies, Gaza’s hospitals are on the precipice of an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe,” the agency wrote on social media. “WHO calls for immediate and uninterrupted access into and across Gaza, so that its ailing health system can be urgently revived.”
In recent days Israel has let more than 60 trucks carrying aid enter from Egypt, according to the Associated Press. Aid workers say this is insufficient and accounts for a tiny fraction of what was being brought in before the war, the news agency notes.
Across the border in Egypt, WHO has enough supplies on standby for Gaza to provide:
— WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (@WHOEMRO) October 26, 2023
▪️surgical interventions for 3700 trauma patients
▪️basic and essential health services for 110,000 people
▪️medical equipment for 20,000 patients suffering from chronic diseases pic.twitter.com/hKwmMlO1Vk
Updated
The EU is set to call for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” of the shelling in Gaza to allow food, water and medical supplies to reach Palestinians, according to its latest draft text.
An official declaration will be issued after a summit of leaders of the bloc’s 27 members in Brussels on Thursday.
It comes after days of bickering over the exact language in what one diplomat said was a week of “difficult discussions” over a situation everyone agreed was “horrific”.
It is understood three member states, including Germany, that favoured the phrase “windows”, felt an earlier text involving the phrase “humanitarian pause” suggested a permanent ceasefire and would undermine Israel’s right to defend itself.
The text that leaders will be asked to sign off on Thursday evening reads: “The European Council expresses its gravest concern for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and calls for continued, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need through all necessary measures including humanitarian corridors and pauses.”
Updated
We’ve just published Israeli footage showing tanks carrying out their brief raid in the Gaza Strip.
The military said in a statement that Israeli ground forces entered the north of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, attacking multiple Hamas targets before withdrawing. Israel’s army radio service described the incursion as the biggest to date.
Updated
Israeli troops launch brief raid into Gaza Strip to attack Hamas targets
Israeli troops backed by tanks attacked Hamas targets in a brief ground raid in the Gaza Strip, Israeli army radio reported on Thursday.
The report described it as a “relatively large” ground incursion, suggesting it was the biggest foray since Israel started massing forces outside the territory in advance of a planned full-scale invasion.
Tanks and infantry vehicles struck “numerous Hamas terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts” throughout Wednesday night before exiting Gaza and returning to Israel, the Jerusalem Post reported, citing army radio.
Since the conflict erupted on 7 October, the Israel Defence Forces have made several incursions to probe Hamas positions and gather information about hostages.
Israel kept up its strikes on Gaza in preparation for a long-promised ground invasion.
Number of Gaza hostages rises to 224, Israeli military says
The confirmed number of people held hostage in the Gaza Strip since the 7 October cross-border raids by Hamas is now 224, Reuters reports, citing the Israeli military.
The number could rise further, according to the military.
Updated
“Nowhere is safe in Gaza” – UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Palestine
In a statement published today, Lynn Hastings calls for civilians to be protected and allowed the essentials to survive, regardless of their location. She also calls for “all hostages” to be released immediately and unconditionally.
“When the evacuation routes are bombed, when people north as well as south are caught up in hostilities, when the essentials for survival are lacking, and when there are no assurances for return, people are left with nothing but impossible choices,” says Hastings, a senior UN aid official. “Nowhere is safe in Gaza.”
Updated
Japan urges Israel to pause the shelling in Gaza to allow humanitarian assistance in
The request was made in a meeting between Japan’s state minister for foreign affairs and Israel’s ambassador to Japan late on Wednesday, Reuters reports.
As part of its effort to calm the Middle East conflict, the Japanese government is also finalising plans to send its foreign minister, Yōko Kamikawa, to Israel and Jordan in early November, the Asahi Shimbun daily reported.
Updated
Key event
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have posted about the overnight “targeted raid” on social media in an English-language post:
“In preparation for the next stages of combat, the IDF operated in northern Gaza,” it notes.
“IDF tanks and infantry struck numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts. The soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory.”
Since the conflict erupted on 7 October, the IDF has made several incursions to probe Hamas positions and gather information about hostages. On Thursday, however, Israel’s army radio service described the overnight action as the biggest incursion of the current war.
In preparation for the next stages of combat, the IDF operated in northern Gaza.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 26, 2023
IDF tanks & infantry struck numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts.
The soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory. pic.twitter.com/oMdSDR84rU
Updated
Red Cross witnesses ‘utter chaos’ at Gaza hospitals as supplies run critically low
A Red Cross mission to assess the state of Gaza’s hospitals has described scenes of chaos and exhaustion in the face of a total blockade, a critical fuel shortage and relentless Israeli bombing.
Experts from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) focused their visit on Tuesday on two of the main medical centres in Gaza: al-Quds and al-Shifa hospitals.
William Schomburg, the head of the ICRC mission in Gaza, said both hospitals “are rapidly running out of fuel and medical supplies”.
Many of those working at the hospitals had been personally affected by the conflict, even as they worked around-the-clock shifts, he added. “They have not been able to go home for several days, working really under the toughest and most unimaginable of conditions in scenes of utter chaos, frankly speaking.”
He continued: “During our visit to al-Quds hospital there were heavy airstrikes all around us and the entire hospital shook … Hospitals should be sanctuaries for the wounded and the sick, and at present these are places that do not feel protected for the people within them.”
My colleagues have more here:
Updated
UNRWA, the UN relief and works agency for Palestinian people, has said that it expects its fuel supply to run out today.
The agency has been sharing its supplies in order to allow trucks to distribute aid, bakeries to feed people in shelters, water to be desalinated, and so that hospitals can keep incubators, life support machines and other vital equipment running.
The dwindling supply of fuel has left the agency grappling with the question of how best to use what is left, UNRWA spokeswoman Tamara Alrifai told The Associated Press.
“Do we give for the incubators or the bakeries?” she said. “It is an excruciating decision.”
More on the “targeted raid” in northern Gaza: Reuters reports that video of the overnight action issued by the military showed armoured vehicles proceeding through a sandy border zone.
A bulldozer is seen levelling part of a raised bank, tanks fire shells and explosions are seen near or amid a row of damaged buildings.
The military statement posted online said the incursion was carried out “in preparation for the next stages of combat”.
The statement added: “The soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory.”
Israel’s army radio service described Thursday’s incursion as the biggest to date.
Updated
Putin warns conflict could spread beyond Middle East
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has said at a meeting with Russian religious leaders of different faiths that it was wrong that innocent women, children and elderly people in Gaza were being punished for other people’s crimes, reports Reuters.
“Our task today, our main task, is to stop the bloodshed and violence,” Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript. “Otherwise, further escalation of the crisis is fraught with grave and extremely dangerous and destructive consequences. And not only for the Middle East region. It could spill over far beyond the borders of the Middle East.”
Updated
UK will hold emergency response meeting on Israel-Gaza strategy
Britain is to convene a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency response committee on Thursday to consider its strategy and approach towards Gaza and the Israel-Hamas conflict, the deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, told Times Radio.
Britain is calling for humanitarian pauses to the conflict, and for Britons in Gaza to be able to leave safely.
Updated
Jordan’s Queen Rania has accused western leaders of a 'glaring double standard'
Rania, born to Palestinian parents in Kuwait, blasted western nations for opposing a blanket ceasefire and said their silence gave the impression they were “complicit” in Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
“When 7 October happened, the world immediately and unequivocally stood by Israel and its right to defend itself, and condemned the attack,” she told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour of the day when Hamas militants began a rampage that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped more than 220 others, Israeli officials say.
Updated
Israel conducts overnight ‘targeted raid’ with tanks in Gaza: army
Israeli tanks took part in a “targeted raid” overnight in northern Gaza, the army said in a statement Thursday, as it prepared its forces for a ground invasion.
“Overnight, the IDF conducted a targeted raid using tanks in the northern Gaza Strip, as part of preparations for the next stages of combat,” the army said.
“The soldiers exited the area at the end of the activity.”
כוחות צה"ל בפיקוד חטיבת גבעתי ביצעו הלילה פשיטה ממוקדת באמצעות טנקים בשטח צפון רצועת עזה, כחלק מהכנת המרחב לשלבי הלחימה הבאים.
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) October 26, 2023
במסגרת הפעילות הכוחות איתרו ותקפו מחבלים רבים, השמידו תשתיות טרור, עמדות נ"ט וביצעו עבודות לארגון המרחב.
הכוחות יצאו מהמרחב בסיום המשימה pic.twitter.com/pWKfMV6Fz0
Palestinians burying unidentified casualties in mass graves
As the death toll mounts in Gaza, Palestinians are burying the unidentified dead in mass graves, with a number instead of a name, residents say. Some families are using bracelets in the hope of finding their loved ones should they be killed.
Israeli retaliatory strikes have killed over 6,500 people, the health ministry in the Hamas-run strip said on Wednesday.
Biden said on Wednesday he had “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using” for the death toll, but he did not say why he was skeptical. The United Nations relies on the Gaza ministry for death toll figures.
In the US, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it was “deeply disturbed” by Biden’s comments on the Gaza figures, and called on the president to apologise.
Israeli tanks and troops are massed on the border with Gaza awaiting orders, Reuters reports. Israel has called up 360,000 reservists.
International pressure is growing to delay any invasion of Gaza, not least because of hostages. More than half the estimated 220 hostages held by Hamas have foreign passports from 25 different countries, the Israeli government said. Many were believed to have had dual Israeli nationality.
Israeli troops with armoured vehicles conduct limited ground raid in Gaza strip – report
Israeli troops with armoured vehicles have attacked Hamas targets in a ground raid in the Gaza strip, Israeli army radio said on Thursday.
The report described it as a “relatively large” ground incursion, suggesting it was the biggest foray since Israel started massing forces outside the enclave in advance of a planned full-scaled invasion.
Tanks and infantry vehicles struck “numerous Hamas terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts” throughout Wednesday night before exiting Gaza and returning to Israel, the Jerusalem Post reported, citing army radio.
Since the conflict erupted on 7 October Israeli Defence Forces have made several incursions to probe Hamas positions and gather information about hostages.
AP: About 50,000 people are sheltering on the grounds of Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, in Gaza City. It is overwhelmed by a steady stream of wounded from airstrikes amid warnings that severe shortages of fuel, needed to power generators, could trigger a shutdown. No new fuel has been allowed into Gaza since the 7 October raid.
Many Palestinians are choosing to return north, tired of moving from place-to-place under Israeli fire as shelters become overcrowded and unliveable. UN monitors estimate 30,000 have returned.
Ekhlas Ahmed, 24 and eight-months pregnant, was among them.
A week ago, she fled Gaza City after repeated Israeli warnings to move south. She returned after the home she was sheltering in along with 14 other family members in the south was hit by an Israeli airstrike.
“It was a residential building and they bombed it,” she told the Associated Press.
Ahmed, who has a 4-year-old son, is hoping for a ceasefire.
“I am very frightened. All of us are frightened,” she said.
350,000 Palestinians remain in Gaza City
AP: Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have decided to stay in their homes in northern Gaza despite Israeli warnings that they face grave danger if they don’t move south.
They say evacuation doesn’t make sense considering the relentless bombardment of southern Gaza, where Israel has repeatedly urged the more than million residents of northern Gaza to seek refuge.
They face appalling conditions in overcrowded shelters and persistent shortages of food and water in the south. The presence of some 350,000 civilians in the northern area could further complicate a likely Israeli ground offensive.
Here are some of the latest images coming out of Gaza:
Australian foreign minister Penny Wong has acknowledged “widespread suffering” of civilians in Gaza but has stopped short of saying Israel’s siege amounts to collective punishment of Palestinians, during a fiery Senate committee hearing.
Wong was challenged by the Greens senator Jordon Steele-John to concede that Israel’s strikes on the Gaza Strip met the “textbook definition of collective punishment”.
The industry minister, Ed Husic, said last week that Palestinians were being “collectively punished for Hamas’s barbarism”, a view backed by fellow frontbencher Anne Aly.
But Wong said she would use her own words to describe the “extraordinarily difficult and complex and distressing crisis” in the Middle East.
“We acknowledge the terrible suffering of innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip,” she told a Senate estimates hearing on Thursday.
EU leaders to call for Gaza ‘humanitarian pause’
The EU is expected to unanimously back a call for “humanitarian pauses” of the shelling in Gaza to allow food, water and medical supplies to reach Palestinians on multiple occasions.
But the unity came after what one diplomat described as “difficult discussions” between member states who have spent days arguing over what terminology to use in relation to Israel’s right to defend itself.
Earlier drafts of an official declaration to be signed off at a summit of leaders in Brussels on Thursday proposed a call for “a humanitarian pause” to allow “rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need”.
The singular term “pause” was deemed too close to the phrase “ceasefire” for several member states – thought to include Germany, Austria and the Czech republic – who were concerned it might weaken the message around Israel’s right to defend itself.
It appeared that the compromise was “pauses” which could mean a humanitarian corridor could be opened up on multiple occasions to allow vital supplies in and possibly refugees out.
But even with agreement there are conflicting views. One diplomat said they “didn’t care” whether “pause” or “pauses” was in the official communique for the summit but were concerned about handing Hamas an opportunity.
“If the pause is too long it will help Hamas to recover and attack again,” they said.
The difficulty agreeing the language reflects one of the most damaging episodes for the EU in many years.
Biden redoubles efforts on two-state solution
Joe Biden has called for an immediate end to Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, as Israel kept up its strikes on Gaza in preparation for a long promised ground invasion.
Speaking at a joint press conference with the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, the president said US support for Israel’s defence was ironclad, but criticised the treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank by some Israelis.
“I continue to be alarmed about extremist settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank … pouring gasoline on fire is what it’s like.
“They’re attacking Palestinians in places that they [the Palestinians] are entitled to be, and … it has to stop now.”
Biden stressed that all parties need to think about the way forward in the region once the Gaza crisis is resolved.
“Israelis and Palestinians equally deserve to live side by side in safety, dignity and peace,” Biden said.
“When this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next. And in our view, it has to be a two-state solution. It means a concentrated effort from all the parties – Israelis, Palestinians, regional partners, global leaders – to put us on a path toward peace,” Biden said.
Opening summary
This is the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
Our top story this morning: the EU is expected to unanimously back a call for “humanitarian pauses” of the shelling in Gaza to allow food, water and medical supplies to reach Palestinians on multiple occasions.
But the unity came after what one diplomat described as “difficult discussions” between member states who have spent days arguing over what terminology to use in relation to Israel’s right to defend itself.
Earlier drafts of an official declaration to be signed off at a summit of leaders in Brussels on Thursday proposed a call for “a humanitarian pause” to allow “rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need”.
Meanwhile, in his remarks on Wednesday, US president Joe Biden stressed that all parties need to think about the way forward in the region once the Gaza crisis is resolved.
“When this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next. And in our view, it has to be a two-state solution. It means a concentrated effort from all the parties – Israelis, Palestinians, regional partners, global leaders – to put us on a path toward peace,” Biden said.
Elsewhere:
The Gaza health ministry, run by Hamas, said Israeli airstrikes have killed 6,546 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since 7 October, including 2,704 children. The figure includes 756 people – 344 of whom were children – killed in the last 24 hours, it said, adding that 17,439 had been wounded in total. Joe Biden, the US president, said he accepted “innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war … [But] I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”
Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s military was “getting prepared” for the ground invasion of Gaza with the goal of destroying Hamas’s military and governmental capabilities. In a televised statement, the Israeli prime minister said his war cabinet was “working around the clock” to reach victory.
Israel has agreed to a request to let the US get its air defences to the region before an expected ground invasion of Gaza, according to a report, which said the Pentagon is working to deploy systems to protect US troops in Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, met senior international criminal court (ICC) officials in The Hague on Wednesday. Maliki’s visit came a day after he deplored inaction by the UN security council. The Palestinian Authority is controlled by Fatah and partially governs the West Bank; it also claims Gaza but has no control there.
The World Health Organization on Wednesday called for Hamas to provide proof of life of the hostages it is holding and release them all on health grounds. The WHO said the International Committee of the Red Cross should be allowed immediate medical access to ascertain their health status.
Relief efforts in Gaza will be forced to stop on Wednesday night unless fuel supplies get in, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) warned. Hospitals, bakeries and water pumps may also cease to function. Oxfam accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war against Gaza civilians.
A school sheltering Palestinians in Gaza sustained “severe collateral damage” due to a “close proximity strike”, UNRWA said. One civilian was killed and 44 more were injured, including nine children, it said. The UN says about 1.4 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are now internally displaced.
An Al Jazeera correspondent’s entire immediate family were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. Wael al-Dahdouh had fled with his family to the Nuseirat camp after Israel warned those in the northern half of the territory to leave. Al-Dahdouh’s wife, son, daughter and grandson were killed in the airstrike late on Tuesday, which came amid an overnight surge of deadly Israeli attacks.
A Red Cross mission to assess the state of Gaza’s hospitals has described scenes of chaos and exhaustion in the face of a total blockade, a critical fuel shortage and relentless Israeli bombing.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said he was “shocked” by what he called the Israeli government misrepresenting his remarks to the UN to suggest he had justified the Hamas attacks of 7 October. Israel has called for his resignation and moved to withdraw travel visas for UN officials.
Israel has “wholeheartedly” rejected Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s assertion that Hamas is not a terrorist organisation. Erdoğan told MPs from his party that Hamas “is a liberation group, mujahideen, defending their lands”. Erdoğan also announced he had cancelled a planned trip to Israel.
The prime minister of Qatar has said he hopes there will soon be a breakthrough in negotiations it is leading for the release of hostages held by Hamas, although his government has warned that an Israel invasion could jeopardise those efforts.
The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has called for pauses to the fighting to let humanitarian aid reach those in need. Sunak in the Commons on Wednesday expressly avoided backing a total ceasefire.
Emmanuel Macron said he believed it would be an “error” if Israel launched a “massive” ground incursion into Gaza. The French president was holding talks in Cairo with his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who also urged efforts “to avoid a ground invasion”.
Israel’s blockade hollowed out Gaza’s economy and left 80% of its inhabitants dependent on international aid even before the current crisis erupted, the UN has said. It said a “decades-long” blockade had left two-thirds of Gaza’s population living in poverty and unemployment at 45%.
The US has expressed deep disappointment at the UN security council after Russia vetoed its latest draft resolution upholding the right of Israel to “collective self-defence” and for “humanitarian pauses” to let aid into Gaza.
