Summary
We are pausing our coverage temporarily, and will move to a new blog soon. Here is where things stand:
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed the IDF will continue its assault on Gaza with intensified force until they have achieved the total elimination of Hamas. Strikes on Palestinian territory continued overnight, according to Palestinian media.
In Dubai, French leader Emmanuel Macron has warned that seeking the elimination of Hamas risked unleashing a decade of war. “I think we’re at a point where the Israeli authorities are going to have to define their objective and desired end state more precisely,” he said on the sidelines of the COP28 forum.
The UK has announced that it will conduct surveillance flights over the eastern Mediterranean, including operating in air space over Israel and Gaza “in support of hostage rescue activity.” In a statement released on Saturday, the UK government said, “Surveillance aircraft will be unarmed, do not have a combat role, and will be tasked solely to locate hostages. Only information relating to hostage rescue will be passed to the relevant authorities responsible for hostage rescue.”
Two Qatar Armed Forces aircraft carried aid for Palestinians in Gaza on Saturday, the Qatari foreign ministry announced. The two aircraft carried 62 tons of aid consisting of food supplies and shelter equipment. Saturday’s delivery from Qatar brings the total amount of aid planes sent to Gaza from Qatar to 35.
The US defense secretary Lloyd Austin urged Israel to protect civilians on Saturday as Israel increases its attacks across Gaza, which have killed more than 15,200 Palestinians in the last two months. Speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California, Austin said, “In this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the civilian population. And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.”
There are around 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza with more than 180 giving birth daily, according to UNRWA, the main UN agency for Palestinian refugees. “Post-natal care continues in shelters, but conditions are not at all suitable for newborns,” the agency said.
The deputy Hamas chief Saleh al-Arouri told Al Jazeera on Saturday that no more hostages would be exchanged with Israel until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, Reuters reports. According to Arouri, the hostages still held by Hamas were Israeli soldiers and civilian men who had previously served in the Israeli army. The remaining hostages will not be released unless there is a ceasefire and all Palestinians held in Israeli prisons are also released.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society received 100 aid trucks through the Rafah border crossing on Saturday, the humanitarian organization announced. The trucks contained food, water, relief assistance, medical supplies and medicines, the PRCS said.
An Israeli military spokesman has defended the IDF’s use of artificial intelligence following reports by the Guardian and the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and partner Hebrew-language outlet Local Call about how it is using an AI-driven tool to select bombing targets in Gaza. Responding to a question from an X user in a Spaces conversation, IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus said, “In anything that is generated by a machine, there’s always a human in the loop that has definitive and executive say over whatever is generated by a machine … and they are accountable for their decisions.”
Unicef has condemned the “ongoing war on children” as Israel resumed strikes on Gaza swiftly after the truce between Israel and Hamas expired on Friday. Speaking to journalists at the UN office in Geneva via video link from Khan Younis, Unicef spokesperson James Elder said: “The bombs started just a few seconds after the ceasefire [ended],” before decrying the “ongoing war on children.”
The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, said on Saturday that “under no circumstance will the United States permit the forced relocation of Palestinians”, according to a statement released by the White House. It stated, “The vice president reiterated that under no circumstances will the United States permit the forced relocation of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank, the besiegement of Gaza, or the redrawing of the borders of Gaza.”
Palestinian human rights groups refused to meet the international criminal court prosecutor Karim Khan on Saturday, accusing him of favouring Israeli accusations of rights abuses over longstanding Palestinian charges. Khan has been visiting Israel and the occupied West Bank following a request by a group representing families of victims of the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen, but he was also due to meet Palestinian officials in Ramallah. However, Palestinian activists said they would refuse to see him because they objected to what they saw as unequal treatment of Israeli and Palestinian cases, according to Reuters.
The IDF says the rocket warning sirens activated in Ashkelon and other towns near the Gaza border were a false alarm, according to the Times of Israel.
