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.
Fighting is continuing overnight, as Palestinian media reports Israeli air and artillery strikes in Gaza. Israeli media is also reporting rocket warning sirens in the coastal cities of Ashkelon, Sderot and other towns near the border with the Gaza Strip.
#فيديو| مشهد من القصف العنيف وغير المسبوق في خانيونس جنوب القطاع pic.twitter.com/5LXpGPlsYo
— وكالة شهاب للأنباء (@ShehabAgency) December 2, 2023
A few hours ago the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, held a press conference vowing to continue the ground assault “with increasing force”, saying it was the only way to achieve Israel’s goal of “eliminating Hamas and releasing our hostages”.
He said the IDF and security forces were continuing the ground incursion while upholding international law – a claim which has been repeatedly called into question by some human rights observers and world leaders including the Spanish prime minister just last week.
Netanyahu said soldiers had prepared for ongoing fighting “with full force” during the pause in fighting.
“The day before yesterday I directed the IDF, together with the War Cabinet, to resume fighting, with increasing force. In the last 24 hours, we have destroyed over 400 Hamas terrorist targets. We carried out extensive aerial attacks in Khan Yunis. We eliminated terrorists and infrastructure in Beit Lahiya. We are continuing to act in the northern Gaza Strip.”
He said Israel was “returning fire many times over”, and issued a warning to Hezbollah, the Lebanese group allied with Hamas and which has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces.
“Let it be clear: We are committed to restoring security both in the south and the north. If Hezbollah makes a mistake and enters into a broad war, it will be destroying Lebanon with its own hands.”
Israel plan to eliminate Hamas risks a decade of war: Macron
French President Emmanuel Macron warned Saturday that Israel’s aim of eliminating 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,” Macron said at a press conference on the sidelines of the UN’s COP28 climate talks in Dubai.
Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas in response to the 7 October attack, and has unleashed an air and ground campaign that has killed more than 15,000 people, also mostly civilians, the Hamas authorities who run Gaza say.
“What is the total destruction of Hamas, and does anyone think it’s possible? If it is, the war will last 10 years,” Macron said on Saturday.
After the Israeli army resumed shelling the Gaza Strip on Friday following the collapse of a week-long truce, Macron spoke of the need for “stepped-up efforts to reach a lasting ceasefire” in the conflict.
Macron travelled to Doha on Saturday to meet with Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, whose government has been central to diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.
But his five-hour stopover in Doha came just after the departure of the Israeli negotiators, with Israel citing a “stalemate” in the talks.
Israel and Hamas blamed each other for the breakdown of the truce, which before it expired had enabled the release of 80 Israeli hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
The Israeli army said it had carried out more than 400 strikes in Gaza since the collapse of the ceasefire, while Hamas announced “rocket barrages” against multiple Israeli cities and towns including Tel Aviv.
Macron had planned to make an extensive tour of the Middle East but instead held meetings about the conflict on the sidelines of UN climate talks.
Neither Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas attended the Dubai summit.
In October, Macron met with Netanyahu in Israel.
Analysts say Macron’s visits to Dubai and Doha illustrate the difficulty his government faces in finding a way to influence the conflict.
“France and Macron are not really finding their place in this crisis,” said Agnes Levallois, vice-president of the Institute for Mediterranean Middle East Research and Studies.
Israeli hostages released from Gaza have addressed addressed a rally in central Tel Aviv, urging their government to secure the freedom of those still held captive in Palestinian territory.
The hostages, who were taken during the 7 October attacks, spoke in a video broadcast to a crowd of thousands about the fear, hunger, and sleeplessness of their captivity.
“Our daughters saw things that children at that age - or of any age - don’t need to see,” said Danielle Aloni, 45, who was released last week along with her five-year-old daughter.
“The food wasn’t plentiful to start with, and as time passed, the food dwindled,” said 84-year-old Ditza Heiman, who was released Tuesday.
The freed hostages urged the government to take all action necessary to secure the remaining captives’ release.
Yocheved Lifschitz, 85, who was released by Hamas in October, outside the parameters of the truce deal, said “the moral obligation of this government is to bring them home immediately, without hesitation”.
Their comments came a day after the collapse of the US-Qatari mediate truce that saw the release of 80 Israeli hostages, mostly women and children, in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners over the course of a week.
Israeli troops renewed fighting in the Gaza Strip Friday morning.
Speaking at the rally Yelena Trupanov, who was released Wednesday, told the crowd assembled outside the Tel Aviv Art Museum that “we must return my Sasha and the rest,” referring to her son, still held in Gaza.
Trupanov, 50, had appeared in a hostage video disseminated by Hamas in the weeks after the attacks.
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said Saturday that 137 Israelis and foreign nationals remained captive in the Gaza Strip.
Summary
Here is where things stand:
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.
Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American serving in the US Congress, said that the “constant dehumanization of Palestinians have real consequences”.
In a House address, Tlaib, a Democratic representative of Michigan, cited the recent shooting of three Palestinian college students in Vermont, as well as the fatal stabbing of six-year old Palestinian American Wadea Al Fayoume in Chicago in October.
Tlaib said that the dehumanization of Palestinians is “fueling anti-Palestinian racism and violence”.
She added: “The dehumanization and the rhetoric repeated by many elected officials, many in this chamber, is inciting violence against Palestinians.”
Hisham, Kinnan, and Tahseen, all Palestinian students, were shot while speaking Arabic and wearing the same keffiyehs that I wear. The dehumanizing rhetoric repeated by our elected officials is inciting violence against Palestinians and it must stop. pic.twitter.com/HwAm8hZIsT
— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) December 2, 2023
Updated
Here are some images coming through the newswires from Gaza where more than 15,200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in the last two months while survivors grapple with a scarcity in food, fuel, medical supplies and water across the strip:
Updated
UK to conduct "surveillance flights" in air space over Israel and Gaza
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.
Updated
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.
Two Qatar Armed Forces Aircraft Carrying Aid for Palestinians in Gaza Heads to Egypt's Al Arish#MOFAQatar pic.twitter.com/EL30DMI0O0
— Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Qatar (@MofaQatar_EN) December 2, 2023
Updated
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 that he had “learned a thing or two about urban warfare” while fighting in Iraq and leading the campaign against the Islamic State, Agence France-Presse reports.
Austin said:
Like Hamas, Isis was deeply embedded in urban areas. And the international coalition against Isis worked hard to protect civilians and create humanitarian corridors, even during the toughest battles.
He went on to add:
The lesson is not that you can win in urban warfare by protecting civilians. The lesson is that you can only win in urban warfare by protecting civilians …
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.
Updated
An Israeli srike has destoyed a Qatar-funded complex in Gaza following the end of the truce between Israel and Hamas.
Agence France-Presse reports:
At almost exactly the same time Israeli negotiators pulled out of deadlocked truce talks in Qatar on Saturday, Israeli jets sent a prestige Doha-funded housing development in the Gaza Strip up in smoke.
Hamad City is named for the former emir of the Gulf petro-state, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who laid the foundation stone on a visit 11 years ago.
Inaugurated in 2016, it was still among the newest projects in the Gaza Strip, [with] the housing complex in the city of Khan Younis boasting an impressive mosque, shops and gardens.
The first flats – more than 1,000 of them – were provided to Palestinians whose homes were destroyed in the war between Israel and Hamas two years earlier.
On Saturday it happened again, a day after a Qatar-brokered pause in the current war between Israel and Hamas expired.
First their phones pinged around noon with an “immediate” evacuation-order SMS sent by the Israeli army, which says the system is aimed at minimising civilian casualties.
Around an hour later, five Israeli air strikes rained down on the neighbourhood in the space of just two minutes.
Bombs slammed into the pale apartment blocks one by one, reducing them largely to rubble and sending a huge pall of black smoke into the sky, as people fled and cries of ‘help!’ and ‘ambulance!’ rang out.
“At least we got through it,” 26-year-old Nader Abu Warda told AFP, amazed he was still alive.
Aid workers are warning that Israel’s new grid system for targeted evacuation warnings in southern Gaza risks turning life for Palestinians into a “macabre game of Battleships”.
The Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison and Jason Burke report:
Israel has started using its new grid system for evacuation warnings, which breaks Gaza down into more than 600 blocks, and can be accessed through a QR code on leaflets and social media posts.
It appears designed to allow the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to try to shuffle civilians around in a shrinking battle space as they target Hamas fighters, by ordering them to leave areas that in some cases cover just a few blocks.
But on the ground, people said it had just added to their fear and confusion. After weeks of bombardment and blockades, most people have little access to electricity to charge phones and other devices, and even for those who can get online, the telecommunications system regularly collapses.
That means residents have no reliable way of accessing the map, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said.
For the full story, click here:
Here are some images coming through the newswires of pro-Palestine protests around the world over the weekend in which demonstrators called for a ceasefire in Gaza where Israeli strikes have killed more than 15,200 Palestinians:
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.
There's around 50,000 pregnant women in📍#Gaza, with over 180 giving birth daily@UNRWA Midwives provide care for post-natal & high-risk pregnant women at our 9 operational health centres
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) December 2, 2023
Post-natal care continues in shelters, but conditions are not at all suitable for newborns pic.twitter.com/LqkpuThOjI
Last month, a handful of UN agencies including UNRWA, Unicef and the World Health Organization warned that women and newborns are bearing the brunt of the conflict in Gaza.
The agencies cited risks of malnutrition, disease and death as access to food and water worsens, as does the scarcity of medical supplies.
Updated
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.
Let the war take its course. This decision is final. We will not compromise on it.
Updated
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.
The Palestine Red Crescent teams received 100 aid trucks 🚚through the #Rafah crossing today. The trucks contain food, water, relief assistance, medical supplies, and medicines.#Gaza#HumantarianAid pic.twitter.com/yanuiI2BBr
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) December 2, 2023
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.
As we reported on Friday, a secretive IDF intelligence unit is using an AI target-creation platform called “the Gospel”, which has accelerated a lethal production line of targets and is now playing a significant role in Israel’s response to the Hamas massacre in southern Israel on 7 October.
Responding to a question from an X user in a Spaces conversation on the platform formerly known as Twitter, 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.”
He added:
“To indicate that we use AI in order to maximise civilian casualties is categorically false. We use AI to be more effective, to be more efficient and to strike the enemy faster and better, and also to strike the targets that need to be struck and not those that do not need to be struck.”
Over the past 24 hours, prominent human rights lawyers and experts have commented on the reports about The Gospel system and the IDF’s targeting practices.
The UN’s Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, who has been monitoring the destruction of civilian housing and infrastructure in Gaza, said: “I deeply regret that Israel … is running its ‘mass assassination factory’,” referring to a description of the AI-based tool by one of +972/Local Call’s sources.
On Saturday, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, wrote on X:
“If the devastation of entire Gaza neighborhoods is the measure, Israel’s reliance on artificial intelligence to generate targets has been a disaster. It shows an indifference to Palestinian civilian life that is a virtual invitation to war-crime charges.”
For the Guardian’s full report, click here:
Unicef condemns 'ongoing war on children' as Israel resumes attacks on Gaza
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”.
Following a week-long truce between Israel and Hamas that expired on Friday, Israel resumed its attacks across Gaza, including on Khan Younis, a city in south Gaza that Israel had told Palestinians in the north to evacuate to at the beginning of the war.
At least 193 Palestinians have been killed while 650 have been wounded since the truce collapsed on Friday, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Since 7 October, more than 15,200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes. According to Gaza’s health ministry, 70% of those killed are children and women. Half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people are below the age of 18.
Updated
Here is video of Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza where it is being engulfed in plumes of smoke amid Israeli airstrikes that resumed swiftly after the truce between Israel and Hamas ended on Friday:
Israel’s strikes across Khan Younis come despite its warnings to Palestinians in Gaza at the beginning of the war to flee to the southern part of the strip.
Multiple UN bodies, as well as UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, have repeatedly warned that “nowhere is safe” in Gaza.
On Friday, Unicef spokesperson James Elder condemned what he called an “ongoing war on children” in Gaza where half of the strip’s 2.3 million population is under 18-years old.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said the current conditions in Gaza “do not allow for a meaningful humanitarian response”.
In a statement released on Sunday, Pascal Hundt, the head of the ICRC’s Gaza operations, said:
A very high number of civilians have been killed and maimed, including thousands of children. Homes, hospitals, and other infrastructure critical to the survival of the civilian population have suffered colossal destruction … Current conditions do not allow for a meaningful humanitarian response, I fear will spell disaster for the civilian population.
The ICRC’s statement comes amid a deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where more than 15,200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes in the last two months.
Updated
An Israeli airstrike targeting the town of al-Faluja, 30km (18 miles) north-east of Gaza City, has killed the prominent Palestinian scientist Sufyan Tayeh and his family, the Palestinian higher education ministry announced on Saturday, Reuters reports.
Tayeh, who was president of the Islamic University of Gaza, was a leading researcher in physics and applied mathematics.
Updated
US vice-president: ‘Under no circumstances will the US permit forced relocation of Palestinians’
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.
The statement comes amid Harris’s meeting with Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in Dubai on the sidelines of Cop28.
It went on to add:
The vice president discussed US ideas for post-conflict planning in Gaza including efforts on reconstruction, security, and governance. She emphasized that these efforts can only succeed if they are pursued in the context of a clear political horizon for the Palestinian people towards a state of their own led by a revitalized Palestinian Authority and have significant support from the international community and the countries of the region.
The vice president made clear that Hamas cannot control Gaza, which is untenable for Israel’s security, the well-being of the Palestinian people, and regional security.
Updated
Here is a staff member of Médecins Sans Frontières recounting the moment Israeli forces opened fire on an MSF vehicle, killing two people, according to the humanitarian organization:
🔊 One of our staff recounts the moment Israeli forces opened fire on a clearly-marked MSF convoy in #Gaza, killing two people.
— MSF International (@MSF) December 2, 2023
We have asked the Israeli authorities for a formal explanation and we call for an independent investigation into this attack. pic.twitter.com/mOV9wbBWZs
MSF has asked Israeli authorities “for a formal explanation”, adding that it calls for an “independent investigation into this attack”.
Updated
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.
“As Palestinian human rights organisations, we decided not to meet him,” said Ammar Al-Dwaik, director general of the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR).
“I think the way this visit has been handled shows that Mr Khan is not handling his work in an independent and professional manner,” he said.
Accusations of war crimes and human rights abuses have been made on both sides since 7 October, when Hamas gunmen overran several Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip, killing more than 1,200 people and seizing around 240 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
In response, Israel has launched weeks of airstrikes against Gaza as well as an invasion by tanks and ground troops, killing more than 15,000 Gazans, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Khan was in Israel following an invitation from the families of the Israeli hostages. He was scheduled to meet lawyers for the families’ group as well as members of the families themselves.
On Saturday, he also met the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah. The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said Abbas had urged Khan to investigate Israeli operations in Gaza as well as the occupied West Bank.
Updated
Summary
Hello and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
A team from Israel’s Mossad intelligence services has been ordered home after talks in Qatar for another pause in fighting in Gaza reaching a “dead end”, according to the Times of Israel.
The team was in Doha on Saturday for talks with Qatari mediators for another pause in fighting in Gaza, focused on the potential release of new categories of Israeli hostages other than women and children and the parameters of a truce.
“Due to the dead end in negotiations, and following instructions from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mossad head David Barnea ordered the negotiating team in Doha to return home,” said a statement from Netanyahu’s office issued on behalf of the intelligence agency.
The order came as eastern areas of Khan Younis in southern Gaza came under intense bombardment as the truce deadline lapsed shortly after dawn on Friday. Israel said its ground, air and naval forces struck more than 200 “terror targets” in Gaza. On Saturday, a spokesperson for the Gaza health ministry said at least 193 Palestinians had been killed and 650 wounded.
It’s approaching 6pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a summary of the day so far:
Israel has informed several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of Gaza’s border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the enclave after war ends, a Reuters report quotes Egyptian and regional sources as saying.
Israel’s military has set out its plan for the “next stage of the war”: dividing Gaza into dozens of numbered “evacuation areas”, a core part of the military’s plan to gradually take control of the southern part of the strip. Under the plan, people in certain numbered districts of Gaza will be told to evacuate before bombing begins, although how much time they will get is not clear. Leaflets were dropped in parts of Khan Younis, where Israel believes Hamas’s leadership is based, warning citizens to evacuate further south to Rafah.
Humanitarian groups said the Israeli warnings would be insufficient because civilians in Gaza were running out of places to evacuate to. Palestinians risked being forced completely out of the territory, they said. Homes in Khan Younis were among the targets struck on Friday hours after the truce expired, and residents were given little, if any, time to flee.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appeared to brush aside US calls to pursue a more restrained military campaign as the resumption of hostilities began. Netanyahu said his country’s forces were now “charging forward” and that the plan was for a total military victory.
The first aid trucks since the collapse of the Gaza truce have entered through the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing on Saturday, on their way to Awja crossing for inspection before continuing the journey to the Gaza Strip, Egyptian security, and Red Crescent sources told Reuters.
The families of hostages being held in Gaza have said they are terrified about the safety of their loved ones after the end of the ceasefire. The relatives of some of the remaining 126 Israeli hostages have said they are grappling with feeling joy for those who have been released while being worried sick for loved ones left behind.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said that the chance for peace in Gaza after the humanitarian pause was lost for now due to Israel’s uncompromising approach, broadcaster NTV reported on Saturday.
Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday that France was “very concerned” by the resumption of violence in Gaza and that he was heading to Qatar to help “engage a new truce ahead of a ceasefire”.
Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants exchanged fire across the Israel-Lebanon border on Saturday. Iran-backed Hezbollah said in a statement that one of its fighters was killed but did not specify when.
Two members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp who served as military advisers in Syria have been killed in an Israeli attack, Iranian state media reported on Saturday.
The head of the UN children’s agency has warned of a “humanitarian catastrophe” if Israeli bombings in Gaza return to the intensity of before the truce. Catherine Russell urged “all parties to ensure that children are protected and assisted” and called for a “lasting humanitarian ceasefire”.
London police said protests were expected “in around 13 boroughs” around the capital on Saturday following the resumption of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Updated
Here are the latest images coming through from Gaza and elsewhere:
Updated
The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Saturday it had targeted a group of Israeli foot soldiers stationed north-west of Gaza City in the area of Al Tawam, “resulting in deaths and injuries”, according to Reuters.
Updated
Several trucks carrying humanitarian supplies entered the Gaza Strip on Saturday, as Israeli troops in northern Gaza continue to encounter Hamas fighters, an Israeli military spokesperson said.
“Throughout the day several trucks – tens of trucks – have come into Gaza after being security cleared on the Israeli side,” Lt Col Peter Lerner told a briefing with journalists, according to Reuters.
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Truce talks reach 'dead end' as Mossad team ordered to leave Qatar — Times of Israel
A team from Israel’s Mossad intelligence services has been ordered home after talks in Qatar for another pause in fighting in Gaza reaching a “dead end”, the Times of Israel reports.
“Due to the dead end in negotiations, and following instructions from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mossad head David Barnea ordered the negotiating team in Doha to return home,” said a statement from Netanyahu’s office issued on behalf of the intelligence agency.
“The Hamas terror group did not fulfil its obligations under the agreement that included releasing all the women and children that were on the list provided to Hamas that had authorized it,” the statement said, according to the Times of Israel.
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Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday that France was “very concerned” by the resumption of violence in Gaza and that he was heading to Qatar to help “engage a new truce ahead of a ceasefire”.
The French president also told a press conference at the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai that the situation required the doubling down on efforts to obtain a “lasting ceasefire” and the freeing of all hostages, Reuters reports.
A week-old temporary truce between Israel and Hamas collapsed on Friday after mediators were unable to extend the pause. Israel and Hamas have traded blame over the collapse.
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Under aerial bombardment from Israel, people sheltering in the south of the Gaza Strip after fleeing their homes earlier in the war said on Saturday they had nowhere safe to go now.
The city of Khan Younis is the focus of Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire after fighting resumed on Friday following the collapse of a week-long truce. Its population has swelled in recent weeks as several hundred thousand people from the northern Gaza Strip have fled south.
Some are camping in tents, others in schools. Some are sleeping in stairwells or outside the few hospitals operating in the city. A World Health Organization official said on Friday that one of the hospitals was “like a horror movie” as hundreds of wounded children and adults waited for treatment.
Abu Wael Nasrallah, 80, scoffed at the Israeli army’s latest order to move further south to Rafah, bordering Egypt. Children were injured in Israeli strikes in the town on Friday.
The message was delivered via leaflets dropped from the sky over several districts Khan Younis.
“This is nonsense,” Nasrallah told Reuters. He had heeded Israeli evacuation orders and moved from the northern Gaza Strip earlier in the war that broke out on 7 October when Hamas militants crossed into Israel and killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
Some 193 Palestinians had been killed since the truce expired, the Gaza health ministry said on Saturday, adding to the death toll of more than 15,000 Palestinians announced by Palestinian health authorities.
He and his family would stay put because they had already lost everything. “There is nothing left to fear. Our homes are gone, our property is gone, our money is gone, our sons have been killed, and some are handicapped. What is left to cry for?”
A mother of four, who gave her name as Samira, said she had fled south from Gaza City with her children after Israel began bombing there last month. They now shelter with friends in a home west of Khan Younis.
She said Friday night had been one of the most terrifying since she arrived: “A night of horror.”
She and other residents said they feared the intensity of the bombing in Khan Younis and the nearby city of Deir al-Balah meant Israel’s ground invasion of the south was imminent.
Another man, who gave his name as Yamen, said he and his wife and six children had fled the north weeks ago and were sleeping in a school.
“Where to after Deir al-Abalah, after Khan Younis?” he said. “I don’t know where to take my family.”
The UN estimates that up to 1.8 million people in the Gaza Strip – or nearly 80% of the population – have been forced to flee during Israel’s devastating bombing campaign.
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Here are some of the latest images coming through from Israel and Gaza:
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‘People are being penalised’: Hollywood divided over Israel-Hamas conflict
Stars like Susan Sarandon and Cynthia Nixon are raising their voices in support of Palestine, but many others are paying a steep price for speaking up.
On a chilly day outside the White House, tourists milled about, Secret Service agents stood guard and a group of protesters held aloft a banner that demanded: “Over 14,850 Palestinians killed, how many more before a ceasefire?”
Among activists embarking on a five-day hunger strike is a face instantly recognisable to fans of TV series such as Sex and the City and The Gilded Age. Cynthia Nixon is following in a long tradition of actors using their platform to further a Washington cause. But she is also stepping into a Hollywood rift.
While the entertainment industry has shown remarkable unity in recent years over Donald Trump’s presidency, Black Lives Matter and abortion rights, the Israel-Hamas war is proving uniquely divisive. The air is thick with terms such as antisemitism and genocide. One-time allies are trading accusations of censorship, hypocrisy and betrayal. High-profile figures who take a stand are facing abuse, ostracism or, in some cases, dismissal.
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Two members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp who served as military advisers in Syria have been killed in an Israeli attack, Iranian state media reported on Saturday, in the first reported Iranian casualties during the ongoing war in Gaza.
A IRGC statement did not give details of the attack, Reuters reports. Syria earlier said its air defences repelled an Israeli rocket attack against targets in the vicinity of Damascus early on Saturday.
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The resumption of fighting in the Gaza Strip has been intense, the director general of the Red Cross said on Saturday, as Israel airstrikes and artillery bombarded the enclave a day after a week-long pause in hostilities there with Hamas collapsed.
Israel’s military has said it struck 400 militant targets and killed an unspecified number of Hamas fighters in the past 24 hours. Palestinian health officials said hundreds of Palestinians had been killed since the end of the truce.
“We don’t have precise reports but what I can say is the resumption of fighting was intense again,” ICRC director, Gen Robert Mardini, told Reuters at the Cop28 UN summit in Dubai.
“It’s a new layer of destruction coming on top of massive, unparalleled destruction of critical infrastructure, of civilian houses and neighbourhoods,” he said, warning that the violence would make it difficult to get humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Mardini described Gaza as being in “shambles and rubble”. The ICRC had 130 staff working there, he said.
Israel and Hamas have traded blame over the collapse of the truce, during which the Palestinian militant group had released hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
Mardini said that people in Gaza were “living in constant fear of violent death” and struggling to survive amid shortages of food and water caused by the fighting, while hospitals were working with limited resources.
“Everything in Gaza is at the breaking point,” he said.
The truce, which started on 24 November and was extended twice, involved Israeli women and children and foreign hostages being freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. But after seven days, mediators failed to agree on a third extension.
The Red Cross, a neutral, Swiss-based organisation, had helped facilitate those exchanges, including transporting hostages that were held in Gaza by the Hamas militant group.
“We stand ready to facilitate further release operations of hostages in Gaza, Palestinian detainees to be reunited with their families,” Mardini said.
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At least 193 Palestinians have been killed and 650 wounded in Gaza since a Hamas-Israel truce ended on Friday morning, a spokesperson for the Gaza health ministry said on Saturday.
This comes as the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll had surpassed 15,200 and that 70% of those killed were women and children, according to AP.
The figure was announced Saturday by ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra, who did provide further details.
The previous toll given by the ministry was more than 13,300 dead. Qidra did not explain the sharp jump. However, the ministry had only been able to provide sporadic updates since 11 November, amid problems with connectivity and major war-related disruptions in hospital operations.
The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
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Qatar-mediated talks for another pause in fighting resume in Doha - Reuters
A team from Israel’s Mossad intelligence services was in Doha on Saturday for talks with Qatari mediators for another pause in fighting in Gaza, a source briefed on the visit told Reuters.
The Qatar-mediated talks focused on the potential release of new categories of Israeli hostages other than women and children and the parameters of a truce, which the source said differed to the truce agreement that collapsed on Friday.
Israel and Hamas have been considering new parameters for the release of hostages and the truce since before it collapsed.
The truce which began on 24 November involved Hamas releasing Israeli women and children taken hostage on 7 October in exchange for the release of Palestinians, including women, held in Israeli prisons.
Israel and Hamas have traded blame over the collapse of the truce, which lasted a week and was extended twice before mediators were unable to find a way for a third extension.
Israel accused Hamas of refusing to release all the women it held. A Palestinian official said the breakdown occurred over female Israeli soldiers.
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The first aid trucks since the collapse of the Gaza truce have entered through the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing on Saturday, on their way to Awja crossing for inspection before continuing the journey to the Gaza Strip, Egyptian security, and Red Crescent sources told Reuters.
Two fuel trucks and 50 aid trucks went through the Egyptian side heading to Awja for inspection, the sources added.
Here are the latest images coming across the wires:
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Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said that the chance for peace in Gaza after the humanitarian pause was lost for now due to Israel’s uncompromising approach, broadcaster NTV reported on Saturday.
“We have always emphasized that we are in favour of a permanent ceasefire rather than a humanitarian break … There was an opportunity for peace here, and unfortunately, we have lost this opportunity for now due to Israel’s uncompromising approach,” Erdoğan was quoted as saying by NTV and other Turkish media, according to Reuters.
The truce that started on 24 November had been extended twice. But after seven days during which women, children and foreign hostages were freed as well as a number of Palestinian prisoners, mediators failed to find a formula to release more.
Since then Israeli airstrikes and artillery bombardments have hit southern Gaza, extending the nearly two-month-old war in which thousands of people have died.
Speaking to reporters on his way back from the United Arab Emirates, Erdoğan also said that he is not losing hope for a lasting peace in the conflict adding that Hamas could not be excluded from its potential solution, according to NTV.
“We need to focus on the two-state solution … The exclusion of Hamas or destruction of Hamas is not a realistic scenario,” Erdoğan said during the interview, adding that he would not define Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
Separately, sources told Reuters that Israel has informed several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of Gaza’s border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the enclave after the war ends.
Erdogan also said a contact group formed by the OIC and Arab League would visit the United States to discuss possible resolution of conflict in Gaza after meeting with authorities in London, Paris, Barcelona and the United Nations.
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Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants exchanged fire across the Israel-Lebanon border on Saturday, in a second day of hostilities after the collapse of a truce in Gaza between Palestinian group Hamas and Israel.
Iran-backed Hezbollah said in a statement that one of its fighters was killed but did not specify when. Three people in south Lebanon were killed by Israeli shelling on Friday, according to Lebanon’s state news agency. Hezbollah said two of the dead were its fighters, Reuters reports.
Hezbollah also said it fired rockets at an Israeli position. Israel’s military said two mortar bombs launched from Lebanon fell in open areas in Shomera, across the border from the south Lebanon village of Marwahin. The military said it responded by attacking the launch site and elsewhere in south Lebanon.
Earlier on Saturday, shelling from Israel hit close to the United Nations interim force in Lebanon (Unifil) headquarters near the coastal town of Naqoura and around the border village of Rmaych, a Unifil spokesperson said.
The Israeli military said it carried out shelling near Naqoura after spotting “unusual activity” in the area.
Unifil also detected fire around 11am. (0900 GMT) from the area of Tayr Harfa, about a mile from the Israeli frontier, toward Israel, the spokesperson said.
Following the eruption of the Hamas-Israel war on 7 October, Hezbollah mounted near-daily rocket attacks on Israeli positions at the frontier while Israel waged air and artillery strikes in south Lebanon. But the border was largely calm during the week-long truce in the Gaza war.
It has been the worst fighting since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.
Just over 100 people in Lebanon have been killed during the hostilities, 83 of them Hezbollah fighters. Tens of thousands of people have fled both sides of the border.
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A protester with a Palestinian flag self-immolated on Friday outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, injuring a security guard who attempted to intervene, authorities said.
The person, whom officials did not identify, is in critical condition, the Atlanta police chief, Darin Schierbaum, said at a news conference. The guard’s condition was not immediately clear.
“We believe this building remains safe, and we do not see any threat here,” the chief said. “We believe that was an act of extreme political protest.“
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Lebanon’s heavily armed Hezbollah said in a statement that one of its fighters was killed in south Lebanon on Saturday, Reuters reports the day after the collapse of a truce between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas led hostilities to flare at the frontier.
Renewed fighting in Gaza stretched into a second day on Saturday after talks to extend a week-old truce with Hamas collapsed and mediators said Israeli bombardments were complicating attempts to again pause hostilities.
Eastern areas of Khan Younis in southern Gaza came under intense bombardment as the truce deadline lapsed shortly after dawn on Friday, with columns of smoke rising into the sky, Reuters reports.
Residents took to the road with belongings heaped up in carts, searching for shelter further west.
Israel said its ground, air and naval forces struck more than 200 “terror targets” in Gaza. By Friday evening, health officials in the coastal strip said Israeli strikes had killed 184 people, wounded at least 589 others and hit more than 20 houses.
Early on Saturday, rocket sirens sounded in Israeli communities outside Gaza, but there were no reports of serious damage or casualties. Footage of Gaza, taken from southern Israel, included the sounds of explosions and showed smoke rising into the sky.
The warring sides blamed each other for the collapse of the truce, during which Hamas militants had released hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
The United Nations said the fighting would worsen an extreme humanitarian emergency. “Hell on Earth has returned to Gaza,” said Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office in Geneva.
A pause that started on 24 November had been extended twice, and Israel had said it could continue as long as Hamas released 10 hostages a day. But after seven days during which women, children and foreign hostages were freed, mediators failed to find a formula to release more.
Israel accused Hamas of refusing to release all the women it held. A Palestinian official said the breakdown occurred over female Israeli soldiers.
Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas after an 7 October rampage in which it says the militant group killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostage. Israeli assaults since have laid waste much of Gaza, ruled by Hamas since 2007. Palestinian health authorities deemed reliable by the United Nations say more than 15,000 Palestinians have been killed and thousands are missing.
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Here are the latest images coming across the wires:
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Israeli airstrikes killed two Syrian pro-Hezbollah fighters when they hit sites belonging to the Iran-backed group near Damascus early on Saturday, a war monitor told AFP.
The strikes near Damascus came less than 24 hours after the end of a Gaza truce between Hezbollah ally Hamas and Israel.
“Two Syrian fighters working for Hezbollah were killed and seven other fighters working for the group were wounded in Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah sites near Sayyida Zeinab,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes on its northern neighbour since Syria’s civil war began in 2011, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, as well as Syrian army positions.
But it has intensified attacks since its war with Hamas began in October. Hamas last year said it had restored relations with Syria’s government.
The chief of the British-based monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria, had earlier told AFP that Israel struck “Hezbollah targets” in the Sayyida Zeinab area south of Damascus.
Syria’s defence ministry had also said Israel hit near the Syrian capital, with an AFP journalist in Damascus reporting the loud sound of bombings.
“At approximately 1:35 am (2235 GMT) today, the Israeli enemy carried out an air assault from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting some points near the city of Damascus,” the defence ministry said in a statement, reporting no casualties.
Syria state television had reported an “Israeli aggression near the capital”.
The Israeli army did not comment when contacted by AFP.
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Strikes on Gaza resume after Israel accuses Hamas of breaking truce – video
Southern Gaza bombed as Israel renews offensive
Israel pounded targets in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, intensifying its renewed offensive after the weeklong truce and giving rise to renewed concerns about civilian casualties.
Associated Press reports that the attacks on Saturday were focused on the Khan Younis area in southern Gaza, where the military dropped leaflets the day before warning residents to leave.
As of late Friday, however, there had been no reports of large numbers of people leaving, according to the United Nations.
“There is no place to go,” lamented Emad Hajar, who fled with his wife and three children from the northern town of Beit Lahia a month ago to seek refuge in Khan Younis.
They expelled us from the north, and now they are pushing us to leave the south
Some 2 million people – almost Gaza’s entire population – are crammed into the territory’s south, where Israel urged people to relocate at the war’s start and has since vowed to extend its ground assault.
Unable to go into north Gaza or neighbouring Egypt, their only escape is to move around within the 220 sq km (85 sq mile) area.
The Hamas-run health ministry said nearly 200 people had been killed since the truce ended early on Friday.
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London police say protests are expected “in around 13 boroughs” around the capital on Saturday following the resumption of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Nadeem Badshah says in his report that Metropolitan police say there are no plans for any major central London demonstrations of the sort that have been seen over the past two months, but a number of smaller events are planned.
Police previously said 300,000 people attended the Pro-Palestine march in London on 11 November, although organisers estimated more than 800,000 took part.
The ManPalestine Action group in Manchester wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that it would also hold a demonstration on Saturday in St Peter’s Square.
In London, the Stop the War Coalition encouraged supporters to “join an action in your local area to call for a permanent ceasefire now”, with protests planned in areas including Camden, Redbridge, Newham, Enfield, Hounslow, Islington, Lewisham, Southwark and Wimbledon.
Other rallies were planned in Harrow, Kilburn and Tottenham, according to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
See the full story here:
Just recapping the latest on humanitarian aid, the US says it believes Israel will begin allowing some assistance to once again flow into the territory after blocking aid on Friday following the end of the ceasefire.
The US national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, said Israel blocked trucks from crossing into Gaza on Friday but that at the request of the US government it would now allow some aid to enter, Associated Press reports.
Kirby said the resumption would be at a significantly reduced level from the hundreds of trucks a day that entered Gaza during the seven-day pause in fighting, saying it was “probably in terms of dozens of trucks versus hundreds of trucks”.
He said the US would continue to push to increase the assistance of aid into Gaza at least up to the level of goods that entered during the pause.
Israel has a role in the inspection process that allows assistance into Gaza through the Rafah crossing from Egypt.
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US vice-president Kamala Harris will on Saturday lay out key American objectives for when the Israel-Hamas war ends and stress that the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank should ultimately be reunified under one governing entity, Reuters is reporting.
Harris will make a series of appearances at the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai after being anointed by US president Joe Biden to take his seat at the table as he focuses on the war.
The White House said Harris would carry a message about post-conflict Gaza as the region grapples with the fallout from a war that has upended the Middle East.
A White House official said of her remarks:
She will emphasise that any post-conflict plan for Gaza must include a clear political horizon for the Palestinian people and ensure that Gaza and the West Bank are reunified under one entity.
The western-backed Palestinian Authority governs parts of the occupied West Bank. Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 from Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s mainstream Fatah party and has ruled the enclave ever since.
Nearly Palestinians 200 killed, Gaza ministry says, as Israeli strikes continue for second day
Israel carried out deadly bombardments in Gaza for a second day on Saturday after a week-long truce with Hamas collapsed despite international calls for an extension.
Clouds of grey smoke from the strikes hung over Gaza, where the Hamas-run health ministry said nearly 200 people had been killed since the pause in hostilities expired early Friday, Agence France-Prese reports.
Both sides blamed each other for breaking the truce, with Israel claiming that Hamas had tried to fire a rocket before it ended and that it failed to produce a list of further hostages for release.
“What we’re doing now is striking Hamas military targets all over the Gaza Strip,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Jonathan Conricus said on Saturday.
As hostilities resumed, Hamas’s armed wing received “the order to resume combat” and to “defend the Gaza Strip”, according to a source close to the group.
International leaders and humanitarian groups condemned the return to fighting.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on X, formerly Twitter:
I deeply regret that military operations have started again in Gaza
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said:
Today, in a matter of hours, scores were reportedly killed and injured. Families were told to evacuate, again. Hopes were dashed.
Fears of a wider regional conflict grew after the Syrian defence ministry said Israeli strikes had hit Damascus on Saturday and the militant group Hezbollah said one of its members had been killed in an Israeli strike on Lebanon on Friday.
The US said it was working with regional partners to reach another ceasefire.
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Israel wants to carve out Gaza 'buffer zone', says report
Israel has informed several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of Gaza’s border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the enclave after war ends, a Reuters report quotes Egyptian and regional sources as saying.
According to three regional sources, Israel related its plans to its neighbours Egypt and Jordan, along with the United Arab Emirates, which normalised ties with Israel in 2020.
The sources also said that Saudi Arabia, which does not have ties with Israel and which halted a US-mediated normalisation process after the Gaza war flared on 7 October, had been informed.
Non-Arab Turkey was also told, the sources said.
The initiative does not indicate an imminent end to Israel’s offensive – which resumed on Friday after a seven-day truce – but it shows Israel is reaching out beyond established Arab mediators, such as Egypt or Qatar, as it seeks to shape a post-war Gaza.
The Reuters report quoted a senior regional security official, one of the three regional sources who asked not to be identified by nationality, as saying:
Israel wants this buffer zone between Gaza and Israel from the north to the south to prevent any Hamas or other militants from infiltrating or attacking Israel
The Egyptian, Saudi, Qatari and Turkish governments did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Jordanian officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
A UAE official did not respond directly when asked if Abu Dhabi had been told about the buffer zone, but said: “The UAE will support any future post-war arrangements agreed upon by all the concerned parties” to achieve stability and a Palestinian state.
Asked about plans for a buffer zone, Ophir Falk, foreign policy adviser to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said: “The plan is more detailed than that. It’s based on a three-tier process for the day after Hamas.”
The three tiers involved destroying Hamas, demilitarising Gaza and de-radicalising the territory, he said.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. This is Adam Fulton and I’ll be with you for the coming while.
Israel has informed several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of Gaza’s border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the territory after the war ends, Egyptian and regional sources say, according to a Reuters report.
Three regional sources said Israel related its plans to its neighbours Egypt and Jordan, along with the United Arab Emirates, which normalised ties with Israel in 2020, the reports says. The sources also said Saudi Arabia had been informed.
More on that story shortly. In other news as it approaches 7.15am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv:
Israel’s military pounded the Gaza Strip on Friday after the end of the truce. Israel launched more than 200 strikes across the territory over the day, including in the densely populated south, where many civilians have fled. The bombardment was most intense in the southern areas of Khan Younis and Rafah, medics and witnesses were reported as saying. Gaza health officials the strikes killed 184 people and wounded at least 589 others, with most of the dead being children and women. Israel has signalled it is preparing to launch a ground assault into southern Gaza in a significant escalation of the war.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to brush aside US calls to pursue a more restrained military campaign as the resumption of hostilities began. Netanyahu said his country’s forces were now “charging forward” and that the plan was for a total military victory.
Israeli shelling killed three people in southern Lebanon on Friday, the Lebanese state news agency reported, as the end of the Israel-Hamas truce prompted a resumption of hostilities at the frontier. The Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, later said two of those killed were its fighters. It also said it had carried out several attacks on Israeli military positions at the border in support of Palestinians in Gaza. The Israeli army said its artillery struck sources of fire from Lebanon and that air defences had intercepted two launches. The army also said it struck a “terrorist cell”.
The head of the UN children’s agency has warned of a “humanitarian catastrophe” if Israeli bombings in Gaza return to the intensity of before the truce. Catherine Russell urged “all parties to ensure that children are protected and assisted” and called for a “lasting humanitarian ceasefire”.
Syrian air defences repelled an Israeli rocket attack against targets near Damascus early on Saturday, Syrian state media reported, saying the defences shot down most of the missiles. It said there were no casualties and “only material damages”, and that the strikes came from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights.
Israel’s military has set out its plan for the “next stage of the war”: dividing Gaza into dozens of numbered “evacuation areas”, a core part of the military’s plan to gradually take control of the southern part of the strip. Under the plan, people in certain numbered districts of Gaza will be told to evacuate before bombing begins, although how much time they will get is not clear. Leaflets were dropped in parts of Khan Younis, where Israel believes Hamas’s leadership is based, warning citizens to evacuate further south to Rafah.
Humanitarian groups said the Israeli warnings would be insufficient because civilians in Gaza were running out of places to evacuate to. Palestinians risked being forced completely out of the territory, they said. Homes in Khan Younis were among the targets struck on Friday hours after the truce expired, and residents were given little, if any, time to flee.
No humanitarian aid – including fuel – had been allowed into Gaza on Friday, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Israeli forces told organisations operating at the Rafah crossing that the entry of aid trucks was prohibited “until further notice”.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby, citing reports from Israel, said Israel had agreed to resume letting truck deliveries through at the urging of the US. But he said truck deliveries would likely be reduced to dozens a day rather than the hundreds of trucks that were getting into Gaza daily during the pause in fighting.
The families of hostages being held in Gaza have said they are terrified about the safety of their loved ones after the end of the ceasefire. The relatives of some of the remaining 126 Israeli hostages have said they are grappling with feeling joy for those who have been released while being worried sick for loved ones left behind.
The UN said it deeply regretted the resumption of hostilities in the Gaza Strip, calling the situation “catastrophic”. It also said it was concerned by suggestions Israel could seek to expand its military offensive inside the Palestinian territory. The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, urged efforts to be redoubled to try to bring about a ceasefire on humanitarian and human rights grounds.
Israel has said it will not renew a visa for a top UN official who helps oversee humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank, a UN spokesperson said. Israel’s foreign ministry last month accused Lynn Hastings, the UN’s deputy special coordinator for the Middle East peace process and UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, of failing to be impartial and objective.
British prime minister Rishi Sunak described the breakdown of the truce as “deeply disappointing” and issued renewed calls for “sustained humanitarian pauses” in Gaza as he held talks with Israel’s president and the leaders of Egypt, Qatar and Jordan on the sidelines of the Cop28 summit on Friday.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has blamed the Israeli military for what it called a deliberate attack last month on a convoy that was trying to evacuate people out of Gaza City. In a report that cites several witnesses from the organisation, MSF said “all elements point to the responsibility of the Israeli army for this attack”.
The Biden administration has informed Israel that Washington will impose visa bans in the next few weeks on Israeli extremist settlers engaged in violence against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, a senior state department official said, in the first sign that the US is prepared to publicly distance itself from some of the Israeli government’s actions.
A protester with a Palestinian flag self-immolated on Friday outside the Israeli consulate in the US city of Atlanta, Georgia, injuring a security guard who attempted to intervene, authorities said. The protester was reported to be in a critical condition.
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