This blog is now closing. You can read Julian Borger’s full report on the latest developments in Gaza here and Emma Graham-Harrison’s report on a UN meeting to hear accounts of sexual violence committed by Hamas on 7 October here.
It’s not good for the US to be “identified with so much killing, former Irish president Mary Robinson has told CNN in the wake of a statement by the Elders group calling on the US and other countries to reconsider their military aid to Israel.
Robinson, who is the chair of the Elders group of global leaders and a former UN human rights commissioner, told the US broadcaster:
We as Elders are asking that countries that provide military aid, notably the United States to Israel, now have to urgently review military assistance and put in place conditions for any future provision.
I think it’s really necessary. I’ll tell you why – if this doesn’t happen, then the United States owns the problem. And that is not good for the United States, that the United States would be identified with so much killing.
In their statement on Monday, the Elders – a group founded by Nelson Mandela – called for government to set conditions for any future provision of arms to Israel. They warned that the military campaign in Gaza risked “fuelling an escalating cycle of mass atrocities”.
It continued:
Israel’s disproportionate response to the horrendous terror attacks by Hamas on 7 October – which the Elders unequivocally condemned - has reached a level of inhumanity towards Palestinians in Gaza that is intolerable.
Israel says it regrets death of Lebanese soldier in cross-border fire
Agence France-Presse has filed a full report on the death of a Lebanese soldier in cross-border fire with Israel and the Israeli military’ subsequent apology. The news agency writes:
A Lebanese soldier was killed by Israeli fire on a military post near the country’s southern border Tuesday, the army said, the first such death since cross-border hostilities began in October.
The Lebanon-Israel border has seen intensifying exchanges of fire since the war broke out between Hamas and Israel, mainly involving Iran-backed Hezbollah, raising fears of a broader conflagration.
“An army military position in the... Adaysseh area was bombarded by the Israeli enemy, leaving one soldier martyred and three others injured,” the Lebanese army said in a statement.
Israel’s army acknowledged the incident, saying in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that it had targeted a Hezbollah position in an effort “to eliminate an imminent threat”.
“The Lebanese Armed Forces were not the target of the strike,” the Israel Defense Forces said, adding it regretted the incident.
Later Tuesday, Israeli shelling killed a Syrian labourer when it hit the chicken farm where he worked, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) and a local official.
Israel shelled and carried out air strikes on southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah claimed attacks on Israeli positions, NNA said.
More than 110 people have been killed on the Lebanese side since October, mostly Hezbollah fighters and more than a dozen civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says six of its soldiers and three Israeli civilians have been killed.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission (UNIFIL) says its headquarters in southern Lebanon has been hit by shelling several times.
Commenting on the Lebanese soldier’s death, UNIFIL said in a statement: “The Lebanese Armed Forces have not engaged in conflict with Israel.
“During the last days, we have seen a rapid and alarming increase in violence,” UNIFIL added, urging an end to “the cycle of violence, which could lead to devastating consequences for people on both sides.”
Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shiite Muslim group, has not had a visible military presence on Lebanon’s southern border since the end of a 2006 conflict with Israel, but says it resumed activities in support of Hamas after its October 7 attack on Israel.
Israel revokes visa for top UN aid official
Israel has revoked the visa of the top UN humanitarian aid official for the Palestinian Gaza Strip and West Bank, foreign minister Eli Cohen has said.
In a post on X, Cohen accused Lynn Hastings of failing to condemn Hamas for the 7 October massacre and kidnapping of civilians and instead condemning Israel. He said she “cannot serve in the UN and cannot enter Israel!”
We will no longer be silent in the face of the bias of the UN!
— אלי כהן | Eli Cohen (@elicoh1) December 5, 2023
I decided to revoke the residence visa to Israel of the UN "humanitarian" coordinator Lynn Hastings.
Someone who did not condemn Hamas for the brutal massacre of 1,200 Israelis, for the kidnapping of babies and the…
Israel had already said last week it would not renew Hastings’ visa.
The veteran UN official has served as the deputy special coordinator for the Middle East peace process and UN humanitarian coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory for nearly three years.
Speaking on Friday, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters that UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has full confidence in Hastings. Dujarric did not say whether Hastings would be replaced.
Updated
US officials expect the current phase of Israeli ground operations in southern Gaza to last several weeks before the military transitions, possibly by January, to “a lower-intensity, hyper-localized strategy that narrowly targets specific Hamas militants and leaders,” CNN has reported citing multiple senior officials in the Biden administration.
However, the administration is deeply concerned about how the next few weeks will unfold, one official told the broadcaster.
They said that the US had warned Israel in “hard” and “direct” conversations that the military cannot use the same devastating tactics it used in the north and that it must do more to limit civilian casualties.
However US warnings appear to have had little effect on Israel. The UN’s top aid official told the Guardian on Tuesday that the Israeli military campaign in southern Gaza has been just as devastating as in the north, creating “apocalyptic” conditions and ending any possibility of meaningful humanitarian operations.
“What we’re saying today is: that’s enough now. It has to stop,” Martin Griffiths said, adding that the small amount of aid being allowed into Gaza could no longer be distributed.
The Israeli military (IDF) has issued a rare apology after an IDF strike killed a Lebanese soldier and injured three others on Tuesday, saying it had been targeting Hezbollah militants on its northern border with Lebanon.
In a post on X, the military said, “Earlier today, IDF fighters acted to neutralise a tangible threat detected from Lebanese territory.
“The threat was detected from a launch and observation complex of the terrorist organization Hezbollah near Al Awadi on the Lebanese border.
“A report was received in the IDF that a number of soldiers from the Lebanese army were injured during the attack. Lebanese army forces were not the target of the attack. The IDF regrets the incident, which is being investigated.”
מוקדם יותר היום, לוחמי צה"ל פעלו לניטרול איום ממשי שזוהה משטח לבנון. האיום זוהה ממתחם שיגור ותצפית של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה סמוך לאל עוואדי שבגבול לבנון>>
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) December 5, 2023
This is Helen Livingstone, taking over from my colleague Léonie Chao-Fong.
As the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they were pushing ahead with the second phase of the ground offensive against Hamas, towards the southern city of Khan Younis, it became clear they were still involved in intense combat to control substantial areas of northern Gaza.
Gen Yaron Finkelman, the head of the IDF’s southern command, said on Tuesday: “We are in the most intense day [of fighting] since the beginning of the ground operation in terms of Hamas terrorists killed, the number of encounters with the enemy and the volume of fire our forces use, both from the ground and the air. We intend to continue attacking.”
Despite pushing into the centre of Gaza City, including to the main hospital, Dar al-Shifa, the IDF is still engaged in heavy fighting for key urban areas in the north, which it says Hamas and other factions use as strongholds, including Jabalia refugee camp and Shuja’iya on the east of Gaza City. Other officials said the IDF was now operating inside Shuja’iya and Jabalia, which have been described as the last Hamas strongholds in the north.
Since the collapse of a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas during which militant-held hostages were swapped for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, the Israeli military has launched an intense campaign of airstrikes and ground fighting in the southern Gaza Strip as well.
Underlining the sense that worse fighting may be ahead as Israel tries to advance into some of the most dense urban areas, an Israeli government spokesperson said on Tuesday that the next phase would be challenging.
Summary of the day so far
It’s 1am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
The UN’s top aid official has said the Israeli military campaign in southern Gaza has been just as devastating as in the north, creating “apocalyptic” conditions and ending any possibility of meaningful humanitarian operations. “What we’re saying today is: that’s enough now. It has to stop,” Martin Griffiths said in an interview with the Guardian, adding that the small amount of aid being allowed into Gaza could no longer be distributed.
Israeli forces have reported the most intense day of fighting in Gaza since the ground attack began nearly six weeks ago. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Tuesday they had mounted an attack into the “heart” of Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, and that paratroopers and navy commandos had raided the Hamas general security headquarters there. Heavy fighting was also reported in Shujai’iya, another Hamas stronghold in the north.
Israel’s bombing of Gaza’s second city, Khan Younis, in the south of the coastal strip, intensified before an expected ground incursion. Israel’s top military commander, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, has said his forces are encircling the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza as he announced the “third phase” of Israel’s ground offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces have killed at least 16,248 people, including 7,112 children and 4,885 women, in Gaza since 7 October, a statement from the Hamas media office has said. At least 43,616 people have been injured and at least 7,600 people are missing, according to the statement on Tuesday. Health officials in Gaza have said at least 45 people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on houses in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on Tuesday.
A “catastrophic hunger crisis” is intensifying in Gaza, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Tuesday. “Only a lasting peace can end the suffering and avert the looming humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” it said in a statement calling for a humanitarian ceasefire.
The United Nations has heard accounts of sexual violence during the 7 October attacks by Hamas, in a meeting where speakers also attacked women’s rights activists and UN officials for not doing more to investigate or condemn these crimes. Joe Biden also spoke about “horrific” reports of sexual violence by Hamas on 7 October, urging: “The world can’t just look away at what’s going on.”
Recently released hostages and relatives of Israelis still held by Hamas in Gaza have confronted Benjamin Netanyahu at an angry meeting in which some of those present reportedly called on the Israeli prime minister to resign. By the latest count, 138 Israelis and other nationals are still being held by Hamas in Gaza. During a week-long ceasefire that expired on Friday, 105 civilians were freed from Hamas captivity in Gaza – including 81 Israelis, 23 Thai nationals and one Filipino – in return for the release of 240 Palestinian women and minors held in Israeli jails.
The US state department has announced it will impose visa bans on Israeli extremist settlers engaged in violence against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank. The restrictions will target those who have committed acts of violence or taken other actions that restrict civilians’ access to essential services and basic necessities and may also apply to those individuals’ family members, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said. The move comes just a month after Israel was granted entry into the US’s visa waiver programme. Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said only Israeli military and security forces and the police have the right to use violence.
The US aid chief has announced new support for the Palestinian people during a visit to Egypt’s Sinai peninsula on Tuesday. Samantha Power, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAid), announced $21m (£16.7m) in new US assistance that will include hygiene and shelter supplies and food for people in Gaza, as she travelled to the Egyptian town of El-Arish, the gateway to the Rafah crossing into Gaza.
A Lebanese soldier has been killed in the south of the country by Israeli shelling, according to a statement from the country’s army. Three others were wounded in the incident.
A Hamas official has said there will be no negotiations or exchange of detainees until the Israeli assault against the Gaza Strip stops. Speaking to reporters in Beirut on Tuesday, Osama Hamdan also said that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was “responsible” for the lives of Israeli hostages in Gaza, adding that his true objective is to “eliminate the Palestinian people”.
Qatar’s prime minister has said mediation talks were still ongoing with an objective to end the war. “Qatar continues to make efforts to restore the truce, release hostages, and exchange prisoners,” Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said on Tuesday.
Rishi Sunak expressed his “disappointment” about the breakdown of the pause in fighting in Gaza during a call with Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, Downing Street said. The two leaders also discussed “urgent efforts to ensure all remaining hostages are safely freed and to allow any remaining British nationals in Gaza to leave”, a No 10 spokesperson said.
Updated
Israel is considering flooding tunnels used by Hamas under the Gaza Strip in a bid to destroy the group’s underground network, Israel’s army chief has confirmed.
A Wall Street Journal report on Monday said Israel’s army has assembled a large system of pumps that could flood the approximately 300 miles of Hamas tunnels in Gaza.
The report said that Israel’s army had completed the set-up of at least five pumps about a mile north of the al-Shati refugee camp that could flood the tunnels within weeks.
Asked about the report on Tuesday, Israel’s top military commander, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, said flooding the tunnels could be a “good idea” and that it was “one of a number of options we are considering”.
Updated
Recently released hostages and relatives of Israelis still held by Hamas in Gaza have confronted Benjamin Netanyahu at an angry meeting in which some of those present reportedly called on the Israeli prime minister to resign.
The meeting on Tuesday was addressed by relatives of those still in captivity and by recently returned hostages, some of whom reportedly described mental and physical abuse at the hands of their captors.
Reuven Yablonka, whose son Hanan Yablonka is still being held by Hamas, told the Hebrew daily Maariv that “there was chaos and yelling” at the meeting in which some representatives of the hostage families reportedly walked out as Netanyahu read from pre-prepared remarks. Yablonka said:
They shouted that they want all the hostages to come home. The female captives talked about unpleasant things that happened to them.
What was described as leaked audio from Tuesday’s meeting appeared to record Netanyahu saying that it had not been possible to free all the hostages in a single deal. By the latest count, 138 Israelis and other nationals are still being held by Hamas in Gaza.
“I’m telling you the facts, I respect you too much. We couldn’t bring them all at once. If we could have done it, we would have,” Netanyahu reportedly said.
If there was a chance to bring them all in one fell swoop, do you think anyone here would object?
Excerpts from audio – which the Guardian has not been able to verify – were broadcast by Kan, the Israeli public broadcaster.
Updated
Biden urges global condemnation of sexual violence by Hamas during 7 October attacks
Joe Biden has spoken about “horrific” reports of sexual violence by Hamas during its 7 October attacks on Israel as he blamed the militant group’s refusal to release female hostages for the end of the recent ceasefire.
Speaking at a political fundraiser in Boston on Tuesday, the US president said survivors and witnesses of the attacks and shared accounts of “unimaginable cruelty” over the past few weeks.
“The world can’t just look away at what’s going on,” he said, adding:
Reports of women raped – repeatedly raped – and their bodies being mutilated while still alive, of women’s corpses being desecrated, Hamas terrorists inflicting as much pain and suffering on women and girls as possible and then murdering them.
He said it was “on all of us – government, international organizations, civil society and businesses – to forcefully condemn the sexual violence of Hamas terrorists without equivocation”.
Biden also called on Hamas to release the female hostages it is still holding in Gaza, saying the group’s refusal to free them had led to the breakdown of a truce with Israel.
He said Hamas had “refused to let go” a number of women aged between 20 and 39 under the deal, adding:
These women and everyone still being held hostage by Hamas need to be returned to their families immediately. We’re not going to stop until we bring every one of them home and it’s going to be a long process.
Updated
Limited humanitarian aid is being delivered to the Rafah region in southern Gaza because of intense hostilities, a United Nations spokesperson has said.
Only 100 aid trucks with humanitarian supplies and 69,000 litres of fuel entered Gaza from Egypt on Monday, Stéphane Dujarric said. About the same amount was delivered on Sunday, he said.
In comparison, about 170 trucks and 110,000 litres of fuel entered Gaza on a daily basis during the humanitarian pause from 24 November to 30 November, he said.
Citing Lynn Hastings, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in the Palestinian territories, Dujarric said: “Shelters have no capacity, the health system is on its knees, and there is a lack of clean drinking water, no proper sanitation and poor nutrition.”
There are no safe places in Gaza and “those places that fly the UN flag are not safe either,” he added.
He also said that the main telecommunication provider in Gaza had announced the shutdown of all telecom services Monday night.
Updated
A Hamas official has said there will be no negotiations or exchange of detainees until the Israeli assault against the Gaza Strip stops.
Speaking to reporters in Beirut on Tuesday, Osama Hamdan also said that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was “responsible” for the lives of Israeli hostages in Gaza, adding that his true objective is to “eliminate the Palestinian people”. He said:
We hold Netanyahu fully responsible for the lives of the Israeli hostages and for obstructing the completion of the exchange deal.
Updated
Two first responders from Israel addressed the UN meeting in person.
Simcha Greinman, who collected victims’ remains from the sites of attacks, described finding a woman’s body, naked from the waist down, leaning over a bed. The corpse had been booby trapped with a live grenade, hidden in the woman’s hand, he added.
Among the bodies he recovered were two people who had suffered genital mutilation, one a woman who had “nails and different objects” in her genitals, the other so badly damaged “we couldn’t even identify if its a man or a woman”.
Shari Mendes, an architect who prepares bodies for burial, said her team leader “saw several female soldiers who were shot in the crotch, intimate parts, vagina, or shot in the breast. This seemed to be systematic genital mutilation of a group of victims.”
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand described video of a fresh bloodstain on the crotch of a teenage hostage, visible when she was dragged out of a Jeep in Gaza soon after her abduction, as evidence of sexual assault, and joined other speakers calling for activists to condemn Hamas. She told the meeting:
When I saw the list of women’s rights organisations who have said nothing, I nearly choked. Where is the solidarity?
A UN commission of inquiry investigating war crimes on both sides of the Israel-Hamas conflict has said it would focus on sexual violence by Hamas in the 7 October attacks on Israel and was about to launch an appeal for evidence, Reuters reported last week.
However its work is likely to be hampered by the fact that Israel has not cooperated with the commission, which it accuses of having an anti-Israel bias.
Updated
The United Nations has heard accounts of sexual violence during the 7 October attacks by Hamas, in a meeting where speakers also attacked women’s rights activists and UN officials for not doing more to investigate or condemn these crimes.
Israeli officials and frontline workers, senior US politicians and activists from both countries spoke at the meeting on Monday, organised in part by former Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg. She told those gathered that “silence is complicity”.
Hamas denies that its fighters carried out sexual violence; Sandberg asked if the world should believe them, or “the women whose bodies tell us how they spent the last minutes of their lives” and called for a “full and fair investigation” from the UN.
Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, in a recorded message, said:
It is outrageous that some who claim to stand for justice are closing their minds and their hearts to the victims of Hamas.
The meeting, attended by about 800 people including diplomats from dozens of countries, watched videos from police interviews with first responders who described genital mutilation and shooting at breasts. A survivor of the attack on the Supernova rave described witnessing a gang-rape.
‘Apocalyptic’ conditions in southern Gaza blocking aid, top UN official says
The UN’s top aid official has said the Israeli military campaign in southern Gaza has been just as devastating as in the north, creating “apocalyptic” conditions and ending any possibility of meaningful humanitarian operations.
Martin Griffiths, the UN emergency relief coordinator, said he was speaking on behalf of the entire international aid community in saying the continuing offensive had robbed aid workers of any significant means of helping the 2.3 million people of Gaza, other than to call for an immediate end to the fighting.
“What we’re saying today is: that’s enough now. It has to stop,” Griffiths said in an interview with the Guardian, adding that the small amount of aid being allowed into Gaza could no longer be distributed, since the Israeli ground offensive had spread to southern Gaza and the city of Khan Younis, bringing the humanitarian operation effectively to an end.
“It isn’t really a statistically significant operation any more,” said Griffiths, who is also UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs.
It’s a bit of a patch on a wound and it doesn’t do the job, and it would be an illusion for the world to think that the people in Gaza can be helped by the humanitarian operation under these conditions.
This is an apocalyptic situation now, because these are the remnants of a nation being driven into a pocket in the south.
Updated
World Food Programme says 'catastrophic hunger crisis' is intensifying
A “catastrophic hunger crisis” is intensifying in Gaza, the Nobel Peace prize-winning World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Tuesday as Israeli military operations escalate.
In a statement, the Rome-based United Nations group called for a resumption of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that broke down last week.
The pause in fighting had allowed aid to reach places previously out of reach:
The resumption of hostilities in Gaza will only intensify the catastrophic hunger crisis that already threatens to overwhelm the civilian population.
The seven-day pause in fighting allowed WFP and our partners some safety to scale up relief operations. In that time, we were able to double the number of distribution points outside shelters and deliver food in places that had been impossible to reach, including in some northern areas. WFP reached approximately 250,000 people in just one week.
Tragically, this desperately needed progress is now being lost. The renewed fighting makes the distribution of aid almost impossible and endangers the lives of humanitarian workers. Above all, it is a disaster for the civilian population of Gaza, more than 2m people, whose only lifeline is food assistance.
Humanitarians must have safe, unimpeded, and sustained access, so we are able to distribute life-saving assistance throughout the territory. All parties must uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law.
But only a lasting peace can end the suffering and avert the looming humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. WFP calls for a humanitarian ceasefire and urges all leaders to work with the utmost urgency to find political solutions that can end the suffering of families on all sides of this harrowing conflict.
Renewed fighting in #Gaza is a disaster for civilians - more than 2 million people whose only lifeline is food assistance.
— World Food Programme (@WFP) December 5, 2023
WFP calls for a humanitarian ceasefire and urges all leaders to work with the utmost urgency to end the suffering.
🔗Read our full statement:… pic.twitter.com/RVPC0d5vhX
Updated
The US is repeating calls for Israel to allow more fuel and humanitarian aid into Gaza as conditions in the south of the war-torn territory continue to worsen, Reuters reports.
His comments on Tuesday marked the second day in a row that US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller told a press briefing that the the government was concerned at Israel’s handling of the situation:
There is not enough being done right now. The level of assistance that’s getting in is not sufficient. It needs to go up, and we’ve made that clear to the government of Israel.
Miller said on Monday that Israel originally refused to let any fuel in on Friday as the week-long truce with Hamas expired. Aid had resumed, he said, but only a trickle of trucks was being allowed into Gaza.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken, on his third trip to the Middle East since the Hamas attack on 7 October, pressed the Israeli government last week to increase the flow of aid to Gaza and to minimize civilian harm.
USAID chief Power: Palestinian civilians 'must be protected'
Samantha Power, administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), has been speaking about the civilian death toll in Gaza.
Power, an expert on the international response to genocide and mass atrocities before she joined government, has consistently been the most outspoken of Biden administration officials in describing the impact on civilians of Israel’s military campaign.
Talking to reporters in el-Arish, near Egypt’s border with Gaza, Power said:
First, as Israel’s military operations continue, Palestinian civilians must be protected. Far too many innocent civilians have been killed. Some parents in Gaza are writing names on their children’s legs so that they can be identified if they or their families are killed.
Other parents are having their children split up, sheltering at different locations, putting them with different relatives, so as to increase the chances that at least some of them will survive.
No parent should ever have to make choices like that. Military operations need to be conducted in a way that distinguishes fighters from civilians.
Power is in Egypt overseeing the delivery of 36,000lb (16,330kg) of US humanitarian relief supplies.
The airlift was “delivered via a US Air Force C-17 to Egypt to subsequently be transported via ground into Gaza and then distributed by UN agencies”, Brig Gen Pat Ryder told a Pentagon press briefing on Tuesday.
Updated
Only Israeli military and security forces and the police have the right to use violence, the country’s defense minister Yoav Gallant said Tuesday, speaking against attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank.
Gallant was speaking at a press conference hours after the US announced it would impose visa bans against individuals involved in undermining peace, security or stability in the occupied territory, Reuters reported.
Gallant said:
There is, sadly, violence from extremists that we must condemn. In a state of law, and Israel is a state of law, the right to use violence belongs only to those who are certified to do so by the government, in our case that’s the IDF (military), the Israeli police, the Shin Bet (security service) and such.
Updated
The US House of Representatives passed a Republican-led resolution on Tuesday condemning antisemitism globally, CNN reported.
But the measure was not unanimous. Senior Democratic congressmen Jerry Nadler and Daniel Goldman of New York, and Jamie Raskin of Maryland, urged colleagues to vote “present” on the Republican resolution, arguing a bipartisan approach was needed.
The language within, they said, was too broad and “would effectively define any criticism of the Israeli government or its policies as antisemitism”, the network said.
Political rancor has hampered a unified approach to the Israel conflict in Congress. Joe Biden has urged lawmakers to come together to pass his $106bn (£840m) supplemental budget request, including assistance for Israel and humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza, but many Republicans oppose the amount of money included to help Ukraine defend itself against the Russian invasion.
Rishi Sunak 'disappointed' in truce breakdown during call with Netanyahu
Rishi Sunak expressed his “disappointment” about the breakdown of the pause in fighting in Gaza during a call with Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, Downing Street said.
A No 10 spokesperson said the UK prime minister “expressed disappointment about the breakdown of the pause in fighting in Gaza, which had allowed hostages to be released”.
The two leaders also discussed “urgent efforts to ensure all remaining hostages are safely freed and to allow any remaining British nationals in Gaza to leave”, they said. The statement continues:
The prime minister offered an update on his engagement with leaders in the Middle East and reiterated his public remarks in the region last week, stressing the need for Israel to take greater care to protect civilians in Gaza and focus narrowly on military targets.
The prime minister said more humanitarian aid had to be allowed to enter Gaza, where civilians were in desperate need. He reiterated offers of practical UK support to facilitate deliveries of life-saving aid. He noted the pressure on the Rafah crossing point and pressed the need to explore other routes into Gaza, including via Kerem Shalom.
Updated
The situation in Gaza is a “total failure of our shared humanity”, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has said, warning that the “pulverising” of the besieged territory now “ranks amongst the worst assaults on any civilian population in our time and age”.
In a statement on Tuesday, the NRC’s secretary general Jan Egeland said Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza will be a “permanent stain” on the reputation of those countries that have supported Israel with arms. He said:
The pulverising of Gaza now ranks amongst the worst assaults on any civilian population in our time and age. Each day we see more dead children and new depths of suffering for the innocent people enduring this hell.
Nearly the entire population of the Gaza Strip – 1.9 million people – have been displaced, he said, while tens of thousands live on the streets of Gaza, including “many of my own NRC staff members … one of them does so with her two-month-old baby”.
He called for accountability for “the killing of thousands of innocent children and women, and the trapping of bombarded civilians behind closed borders in Gaza”, as well as for those responsible for “the torture, and the atrocities” committed in Israel on 7 October. He added:
The situation in Gaza is a total failure of our shared humanity. The killing must stop.
Updated
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has revised the number of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza to 138.
The new figure, up from 137, comes after the IDF confirmed that a person previously considered missing was abducted on 7 October.
Israeli officials have said about 240 people – both Israelis and foreigners – were taken hostage by Palestinian militants who stormed southern Israel during the 7 October attacks.
Summary of the day so far
It’s nearly 9.30pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
Israeli forces have reported the most intense day of fighting in Gaza since the ground attack began nearly six weeks ago. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Tuesday they had mounted an attack into the “heart” of Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, and that paratroopers and navy commandos had raided the Hamas general security headquarters there. Heavy fighting was also reported in Shujai’iya, another Hamas stronghold in the north.
Israel’s bombing of Gaza’s second city, Khan Younis, in the south of the coastal strip, intensified before an expected ground incursion. Israel’s top military commander, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, has said his forces are encircling the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza as he announced the “third phase” of Israel’s ground offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces have killed at least 16,248 people, including 7,112 children and 4,885 women, in Gaza since 7 October, a statement from the Hamas media office has said. At least 43,616 people have been injured and at least 7,600 people are missing, according to the statement on Tuesday. Health officials in Gaza have said at least 45 people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on houses in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on Tuesday.
A World Health Organization official in Gaza described the situation on Tuesday as deteriorating by the hour. “The situation is getting worse by the hour,” Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative on the occupied Palestinian territory, told the media via a video link from Gaza.
The US state department has announced it will impose visa bans on Israeli extremist settlers engaged in violence against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank. The restrictions will target those who have committed acts of violence or taken other actions that restrict civilians’ access to essential services and basic necessities and may also apply to those individuals’ family members, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said. The move comes just a month after Israel was granted entry into the US’s visa waiver programme.
The US aid chief has announced new support for the Palestinian people during a visit to Egypt’s Sinai peninsula on Tuesday. Samantha Power, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), announced $21m (£16.7m) in new US assistance that will include hygiene and shelter supplies and food for people in Gaza, as she travelled to the Egyptian town of El-Arish, the gateway to the Rafah crossing into Gaza.
A Lebanese soldier has been killed in the south of the country by Israeli shelling, according to a statement from the country’s army. Three other were wounded in the incident.
Qatar’s prime minister has said mediation talks were still ongoing with an objective to end the war. “Qatar continues to make efforts to restore the truce, release hostages, and exchange prisoners,” Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said on Tuesday.
Vladimir Putin will travel to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday on a rare overseas trip to discuss the Israel-Hamas war as Moscow seeks to reassert Russia’s role in the Middle East.
Rina has already lost her husband, Omar, to an Israeli airstrike. Now she fears their baby son, Ahmed, could die from disease or cold, in the freezing tent by the Egyptian border that has become her fifth shelter in as many weeks.
After Omar died in October, Rina’s breast milk dried up. In the weeks since, the only constant in her life has been the ever more challenging search for formula and clean water to keep her only child alive as they flee across Gaza.
Rina, originally from north Gaza, was among those who have decided to take to the road again as tanks have been moving into position around Khan Younis city and days of intense airstrikes have followed leaflets warning civilians to leave. She said:
When we reached Khan Younis, I hoped to find a semblance of safety, or at least an end to the incessant sound of Israeli bombing that terrorised my infant son. Unfortunately, the bombing continued relentlessly.
We sought refuge in a house with more than 60 other displaced people. Water, electricity, and communication services were completely cut off.
Each move has brought worse conditions and more overcrowding in the shrinking corners of Gaza that Israel says are safe for civilians.
“In Rafah, we found only tents that are unsuitable for human habitation,” Rina said of their latest stop in a two-month odyssey of displacement.
Read the full story by Aseel Mousa: ‘I could no longer breastfeed’: Gaza woman on two-month odyssey of displacement
Updated
Here are some of the latest images from the newswires from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where dozens have reportedly been killed in multiple strikes.
Health officials in Gaza have said at least 45 people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on houses in the city on Tuesday.
Dr Eyad Al-Jabri, head of the Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, told Reuters:
We have received 45 martyrs from the Israeli bombing on the houses of three families in Deir al-Balah in the past hour.
Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has said that the ongoing Israeli bombardment of Gaza will prove counterproductive and is likely to make Israel less secure in the future.
Varadkar was asked about the renewed violence in the Middle East as he took questions in the Dail parliament on Tuesday, PA news agency reported. He said:
I don’t think anyone can find the current situation to be anything more than unbearable, quite frankly, to see thousands of people being killed and thousands of children losing their lives.
And while Israel has the right to defend itself, the actions that they’ve taken in my view, and that of the government, are disproportionate and will ultimately be counterproductive because we know from history that when people are treated in that way it strengthens their resolve.
He added that Israel “might achieve a military victory, but it’s very likely to be a strategic defeat in terms of their own long-term security.”
But he rejected calls for Ireland to impose sanctions on Israel, insisting such unilateral action would have no influence on Israeli thinking and would likely result in retaliatory steps against Irish exports from Israel and supportive allies.
“Sanctions are only effective when they’re done on a multilateral basis,” Varadkar said, adding:
If we go out on a limb and take unilateral actions, we’ll be listened to less. It might make us feel better, but it won’t do any good for the Palestinian people.
At least 16,248 people killed since 7 October, says Gaza media office
Israeli forces have killed at least 16,248 people, including 7,112 children and 4,885 women, in Gaza since 7 October, a statement from the Hamas media office has said.
At least 43,616 people have been injured and at least 7,600 people are missing, according to the statement. It continues:
During the aggression on Gaza, Israeli forces dropped more than 50,000 tonnes of explosives on civilian homes, hospitals, schools and other institutions, resulting in the complete destruction of 52,000 housing units, 69 schools, 121 government buildings and 100 mosques.
Israeli forces have reported the most intense day of fighting in Gaza since the ground attack began nearly six weeks ago, with offensives stepped up in northern and southern Gaza and reports of a rise in civilian deaths.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Tuesday they had mounted an attack into the heart of Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, and that paratroopers and navy commandos had raided the Hamas general security headquarters there. Heavy fighting was also reported in Shujai’iya, another Hamas stronghold in the north. The IDF spokesperson Lt Col Richard Hecht said the fighting in the north had been “close-quarter and face-to-face”.
At the same time, the bombing of Gaza’s second city, Khan Younis, in the south of the coastal strip, intensified before an expected ground incursion. Israeli tanks were reported to be at the entrance to the city. Armoured vehicles were reported to have taken up positions on the southern section of the main north-south highway running through Gaza and to be firing on Palestinians trying to move through the area in cars or on foot.
US announces visa bans on Israeli extremist settlers for violence against Palestinians
The US state department has announced it will impose visa bans on Israeli extremist settlers engaged in violence against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank.
In a statement on Tuesday, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, described violent attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank as “unacceptable”. He said:
Today, the state department is implementing a new visa restriction policy targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security, or stability in the West Bank, including through committing acts of violence or taking other actions that unduly restrict civilians’ access to essential services and basic necessities. Immediate family members of such persons also may be subject to these restrictions.
He said the US would continue “to seek accountability for all acts of violence against civilians in the West Bank, regardless of the perpetrator or the victim”, adding:
Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have the responsibility to uphold stability in the West Bank. Instability in the West Bank both harms the Israeli and Palestinian people and threatens Israel’s national security interests.
Today, I announced a new visa restrictions policy targeting individuals and their family members involved in or meaningfully contributing to actions that undermine peace, security, and stability in the West Bank. Violence against civilians will have consequences.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) December 5, 2023
Updated
Judges hearing the criminal cases against Benjamin Netanyahu have acceded to a request to limit hearings to two days a week after the Israeli prime minister’s defence team said he was too busy conducting the Gaza war.
Amit Hadad, Netanyahu’s lawyer said in a written statement to the court:
Under the current circumstances, in the midst of the Swords of Iron war, we are unable to maintain the contact we need to have with the prime minister in order to prepare for the planned testimonies.
Netanyahu’s corruption trial was suspended along with all other non-urgent cases due to the Hamas terror attacks on 7 October, the Times of Israel reported. The trial resumed on Monday.
Netanyahu has been on trial since 2020, accused of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in separate scandals involving powerful media moguls and wealthy associates. He has denied the charges and has rejected calls to resign.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said that more than a million displaced Palestinians are expected to arrive in Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah.
Adnan Abu Hasna, speaking to Al Jazeera today, said Israeli forces were pushing people “not only to the south, but pushing people to the south of the south”.
Speaking about the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Rafah, he said:
We have tens of thousands of families in the streets. They are already [sheltering] under random things – pieces of nylon and wood. It’s raining now. We will see the disaster.
Updated
Israeli forces have been telling people to leave eastern Khan Younis, describing the core of the southern Gaza city as a “dangerous fighting zone”, according to the Gaza director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Posting to social media, Thomas White said people have been told to move to Rafah to receive assistance, but that “we are not able to provide for [hundreds of thousands] of new [internally displaced people]”.
The army is telling people to leave Eastern Khan Younis and instructing people in the core of the city that this area is now a “dangerous fighting zone”
— Thomas White (@TomWhiteGaza) December 5, 2023
They tell people to move to Rafah to receive assistance – but we are not able to provide for 100Ks of new IDP #Gaza @UNRWA
Updated
IDF chief announces 'third phase' of Gaza ground invasion
Israel’s top military commander has said his forces are encircling the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza as he announced the “third phase” of Israel’s ground offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
At a press conference today, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, chief of Israel’s general staff, said Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had eliminated “many operatives, including senior commanders”, over the last few days, the Times of Israel reported. He said:
After 60 days since the beginning of the war, our forces are surrounding the Khan Younis area in southern Gaza. At the same time, we are working to deepen the achievement in the northern part of the strip. Anyone who thought that the IDF would not know how to resume the fighting after the truce was mistaken. Hamas is feeling this strongly.
He said the IDF had “captured many Hamas strongholds in northern Gaza” and that it was now operating “against its centres of gravity in the south”.
Israel’s military knew in advance that Hezbollah would resume its attacks on Israel’s north after the weeklong truce with Hamas, he added.
Updated
Zakaria Shada, a displaced Palestinian boy with brittle bones who fled his house with his family, plays with his niece Shorok outside their shelter in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. Photograph: Saleh Salem/Reuters
Updated
Jordan’s King Abdullah has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, warning that the Israel’s relentless bombing was leading to a “dangerous deterioration” in the situation.
He called on the world to condemn any attempt by Israel to create the conditions that would forcibly displace Palestinians within Gaza or outside its borders, in remarks carried by state media after a meeting with the Cypriot president in Amman, Reuters reported.
Since the collapse of a temporary ceasefire on 1 December, widespread bombardment has resumed in Gaza, putting hundreds of thousands of lives at risk, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has warned.
In a statement on Tuesday, the IRC said Israeli orders to evacuate southern areas of Gaza has left Palestinian civilians who have already been displaced with “fear and uncertainty”. It added:
Civilians’ decisions to move must be voluntary. For those who do decide to move their right to return must be guaranteed. While those who are unable, or unwilling, to leave once again must remain protected.
The resumption of hostilities has also made it increasingly difficult for humanitarian organisations to stay safe and to provide assistance to the people of Gaza, it said.
“Once again nowhere in Gaza is safe,” it said, adding that it would be possible “to respond to the humanitarian tragedy unfolding across Gaza” without a sustained ceasefire.
Updated
When Greta Thunberg posted a photo of herself holding a “stand with Gaza” sign on Instagram in October, the backlash in Israel and Germany came hard and fast.
The violence in Israel and Gaza since 7 October has become an unexpected flashpoint for climate activists in rich countries. As world leaders meet for the Cop28 summit in Dubai, the loose collection of movements, many of which have built their support around inclusivity and global justice, are divided on whether or how to take a stand on the conflict.
Positions taken have led to splits within groups and between them. “The national debates are less about the conflict itself,” said Stefan Aykut, director of the Center for Sustainable Society Research (CSS) at the University of Hamburg. “Instead, they are immediately captured by the dominant cultural prism within each society.”
The legacy of the Holocaust carried out by the Nazis is central to Germany’s postwar identity, and in recent years has been used to argue that Israel’s security is fundamentally tied to the German state today. Environmental groups in Germany have expressed solidarity with Israel during the current conflict, as well as sympathy for Palestinian suffering, whereas in the UK and US activists have criticised Israel with stronger language – describing its bombing of Gaza as a “genocide”, which Israel rejects – and pushed their governments to call for a permanent ceasefire.
For environmental groups far from the fighting, the pressure to take a position has grown even stronger as racism against Jews and Muslims has soared across the US and Europe. It has also raised the stakes of striking the wrong tone.
Updated
The US aid chief has announced new support for the Palestinian people during a visit to Egypt’s Sinai peninsula on Tuesday.
Samantha Power, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), travelled to the Egyptian town of El-Arish, the gateway to the Rafah crossing into Gaza.
She arrived with a delivery of 36,000lbs of food assistance and medical supplies intended for Gaza, a USAID spokesperson said.
Power announced $21m (£16.7m) in new US assistance that will include hygiene and shelter supplies and food for people in Gaza, where water and other basics have been in short supply.
The funds will also support psychosocial care and critical health services along with the establishment of a NGO-operated field hospital in Gaza that will provide inpatient care, USAID said. A statement said:
The United States continues to work around the clock to overcome diplomatic and operational hurdles for humanitarian access, present solutions to emerging humanitarian assistance challenges and significantly scale up this response to where it needs to be.
Just arrived in El-Arish, Egypt, the hub for intl humanitarian assistance crossing into Gaza.
— Samantha Power (@PowerUSAID) December 5, 2023
More must be done to protect civilians and accelerate the pace of life-saving assistance reaching the people of Gaza. pic.twitter.com/Y5Vz9GH4J9
Updated
The Biden administration is expected to announce as soon as today that it has imposed sanctions on Israeli extremist settlers engaged in violence against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, according to a report.
The West Bank has experienced a surge of violence in recent months amid expanding Jewish settlements and a nearly decade-old impasse in US-sponsored peacemaking. The violence, at a more-than-15-year high this year, surged further after Israel hurtled into a new war in Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks on 7 October.
The US has repeatedly expressed its concern over the rising violence in the West Bank, saying it must stop. Joe Biden, in an 18 November Washington Post opinion piece threatened to take action against the perpetrators.
The US state department is also expected to announce that it has imposed a travel ban on several dozen Palestinians who were involved in attacks against Israelis, Axios reported, citing sources.
It would be the first time the US has sanctioned extremist settlers since the Clinton administration, the report says.
Updated
IDF in the heart of Khan Younis on most intense day of fighting, it says
An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commander has said that its forces have been engaged in “the most intense day” of fighting since the start of their invasion of Gaza.
Yaron Finkelman described it as “the most intense day since the beginning of the ground operation – in terms of terrorists killed, the number of firefights, and the use of firepower from the land and air.”
A statement said Israeli forces are now fighting “in the heart of Jabaliya, in the heart of Shejaiya, and now also in the heart of Khan Younis.”
Updated
The Israel-Hamas war represents an opportunity for Russia to re-enter global politics, offering itself as an unlikely champion of multilateral solutions in the Middle East.
It has positioned itself as a potential mediator, having maintained ties with Israel and Hamas.
Moscow has accused the US of going it alone in mediation that has ignored the traditional role of the quartet consisting of the EU, the US, Russia and the UN. It also claims western double standards have been revealed by the West’s refusal to condemn alleged Israeli war crimes while accusing Russia of committing crimes in Ukraine – a message Moscow believes resonates in the global south, and at the UN.
On 26 October a Hamas delegation in Moscow was led by Mousa Abu Marzook, a founder and political leader of the group, 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 with Bogdanov and the Iranian deputy foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani.
Russia has strong economic ties with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, Vladimir Putin will discuss trade, international politics and humanitarian aid with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Kremlin announced. He will meet his Emirati counterpart, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in the UAE for talks on trade, energy, tourism and education, it added. The conflict between Israel and Hamas is on the agenda of both meetings, the Kremlin said.
Updated
Vladimir Putin will travel to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday on a rare overseas trip to discuss the Israel-Hamas war as Moscow seeks to reassert Russia’s role in the Middle East.
Hamas, which most western countries consider to be a terrorist group, is on good terms with Russia, frequently sending delegations to Moscow.
Qatar, the west’s preferred interlocutor with Hamas, has been unable to find the basis for a further hostage swap between Israel and the Palestinian group, the precondition for a second humanitarian pause, so Putin has relatively little to lose by intervening now.
On Thursday he will host the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi. The two leaders last spoke by phone on 16 October. Raisi has been unable to persuade leaders of the Gulf states to do more to support Hamas, such as impose an oil boycott on Israel.
Iran has been accused by Israel and the UK of being behind the attacks on the Red Sea undertaken by Houthi rebels on western-lined international shipping. Western countries have accused Tehran of supporting Russia’s offensive in Ukraine by providing it with large quantities of drones and other weaponry.
Summary of the day so far …
It is 5pm in Gaza City and in Tel Aviv. Here are the latest headlines …
Israeli forces have stepped up offensives in northern and southern Gaza, claiming to have raided a Hamas military headquarters, amid reports of a rise in civilian deaths. Reports from southern Gaza on Tuesday said the heavy bombardment of the city of Khan Younis had continued.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had mounted an attack into the heart of Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, and that paratroopers and navy commandos had raided the Hamas general security headquarters there. The IDF spokesperson Lt Col Richard Hecht said the fighting in the north had been “close-quarter and face-to-face”.
The bombing of Gaza’s second city, Khan Younis, in the south of the coastal strip, intensified before an expected ground incursion. Israeli armoured vehicles were reported to have taken up positions on the southern section of the main north-south highway running through Gaza and were reported to be firing on Palestinians trying to move through the area in cars or on foot. The IDF has ordered the evacuation of a fifth of Khan Younis, an area that was home to 117,000 people before an influx of displaced people from northern Gaza since the current conflict began in October.
A World Health Organization official in Gaza described the situation on Tuesday as deteriorating by the hour. “The situation is getting worse by the hour,” Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative on the occupied Palestinian territory, told the media via a video link from Gaza.
To date, during Israeli military strikes on the Gaza Strip, the Hamas-led health ministry has said almost 16,000 people have been killed, 70% of which are women and children. The Israeli campaign in Gaza followed the surprise 7 October Hamas attack inside Israel that killed at least 1,200 people, and during which more than 200 people were seized and taken to be held hostage. Israel believes that Hamas retains more than 130 hostages within the Gaza Strip.
Qatar’s prime minister said on Tuesday that mediation talks were still ongoing with an objective to end the war. “Qatar continues to make efforts to restore the truce, release hostages, and exchange prisoners,” Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said.
A Lebanese soldier has been killed in the south of the country by Israeli shelling, according to a statement from the country’s army. Three other were wounded in the incident.
France has announced it has frozen all assets belonging to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar for six months.
The Kremlin says that Vladimir Putin will make a one-day trip to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia focused on the Israeli-Hamas war as well as also host the Iranian president in Moscow this week.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images sent to us from Gaza and Israel over the news wires.
Photograph: Tomer Appelbaum/Reuters
Updated
Since the beginning of the latest conflict in Gaza an unprecedented number of journalists have been killed. According to press freedom campaigners, the last month has been the most deadly for almost three decades. Israeli and Lebanese reporters have been killed but the majority of those who have died have been inside the Gaza Strip.
In this podcast today, Jonathan Dagher, from Reporters Without Borders, discusses what it means for public understanding of the region, and Hazem Balousha, a Gaza-based journalist who has been speaking to Today in Focus throughout the conflict, tells Nosheen Iqbal about the difficulties of reporting when your family is in danger, and about the journalists who have been killed.
You can listen here: Full Story podcast – Why is the Israel-Hamas conflict so deadly for journalists?
Updated
Idit Ohel, whose son is believed to be held hostage in Gaza, has called for the Israeli government to act quickly to resume negotiations.
AFP said Ohel was speaking during an online panel organised by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, and said “sixty days is too much”, referring to the length of time her son is believed to have been held.
Saying that she believed the government and military were “doing all their best to bring our sons home”, she added that “I don’t want 61 days, I don’t want 65 days. I want them back now. What the government and the IDF are doing, they are doing because they have to, but we need other governments to help.”
Alon Ohel, 22, is believed to have been kidnapped from the Tribe of Nova desert rave.
Israel believes that Hamas is still holding nearly 140 people that it seized from inside Israel on 7 October.
Earlier today Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, said “Qatar continues to make efforts to restore the truce, release hostages, and exchange prisoners”, and that mediation talks were continuing.
Updated
Reuters has a quick snap that a Lebanese soldier has been killed in the south of the country by Israeli shelling, according to a statement from the country’s army.
Three others were wounded in the incident which occurred near Odaisseh village.
Since the Hamas attack inside Israel on 7 October Israel has frequently exchanged fire over the UN-drawn blue line that separates Israel and Lebanon.
Updated
The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says Israel should not be allowed to “get away” with alleged crimes committed in Gaza.
In an address Tuesday to a Gulf cooperation council summit in Doha, Erdogan also accused Benjamin Netanyahu of putting the entire region at danger for his alleged political survival.
“The Netanyahu administration is endangering the security and future of our entire region in order to extend its political life,” Erdoğan said in televised comments.
“The loss of life of 17,000 Palestinians, mostly children and women, is a crime against humanity and a war crime. Israel should not get away with these crimes,” Associated Press reports he said.
A vocal critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza, Erdoğan has repeatedly called for Netanyahu to be put on trial for alleged war crimes.
The UN has previously said that Israel may be committing the war crime of collective punishment through its siege of the Gaza territory, and the International Committee of the Red Cross has agreed.
Amnesty International has said it has “documented unlawful Israeli attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, which caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes”.
Human Rights Watch said that “multiple war crimes have been and continue to be committed in Israel and Palestine, with grave concerns that Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups are carrying out unlawful indiscriminate attacks harming civilians”.
Updated
The number of people killed in Gaza since the Israeli military operation began includes 250 health workers, the Palestinian health minister says.
The number of dead is steadily rising despite international calls for Israeli forces to limit civilian harm since the resumption of hostilities, Mai al-Kaila has told a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah. She has said airstrikes have hit health facilities and hospitals, and Israeli forces have detained 30 health workers during the offensive.
Health services in Gaza are in a “disastrous” state, she said, in remarks similar to those by a World Health Organization official in the small Palestinian territory earlier.
The Palestinian health ministry in the occupied West Bank is separate from the health ministry in Gaza. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
Updated
Haaretz reports that a rocket hit a building in the Israeli city of Ashkelon, which is on the coast north of the Gaza Strip. There are no reports of any casualties.
Israel’s military has reported that within the last hour warning sirens for the approach of rocket attacks have sounded in communities near the Gaza Strip, including kibbutz Nahal Oz, one of the locations targeted by Hamas during the 7 October attack.
Here are more images from the southern Gaza Strip, where many Palestinians are on the move after instructions to evacuate by the Israeli military.
Aerial bombardment and the ground offensive have already believed to have driven three-quarters of the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes – and new Israeli orders to evacuate areas around Khan Younis are having the effect of squeezing people into ever-smaller areas.
Updated
Qatar’s prime minister said on Tuesday that mediation talks on Gaza were still ongoing with an objective to end the war.
“Qatar continues to make efforts to restore the truce, release hostages, and exchange prisoners,” Reuters reports sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said at a press conference after a summit for the Gulf cooperation council.
Earlier we reported that satellite imagery from Sunday appeared to show Israeli tanks in position north of Khan Younis. Here are the images with an illustration of what is in them.
A journalist inside Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza sent CNN a video on Tuesday of about 30 bodies covered in white sheets in a courtyard.
Several more bodies were piled on a cart because, Mahmoud Al-Sabbah said, it was not safe for ambulances to operate in the area. Earlier the CNN reported that Gaza’s health ministry said there were 108 bodies at the hospital.
Munir al-Bursh, director general of the health ministry, told Al Jazeera: “The Israeli occupation forces have laid siege to the facility from all sides. Patients and those who took shelter here are gripped with fear and overwhelmed by horror. We, the medical staff, are holding our ground. We are standing by our patients. We will continue to serve our people by all means left here at Kamal Adwan hospital.”
Al Jazeera has also carried quotes from people outside the hospital, who said: “As you can see here, the dust is covering Kamal Adwan hospital because of the continuous shelling around the hospital. We are displaced people inside the hospital.”
Updated
About 43 dead bodies were brought to Nasser hospital in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Tuesday morning, the spokesperson for the health ministry in Gaza told Reuters from the hospital.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
The Palestine Red Crescent Society has reported on social media that one of its paramedics has been injured and ambulances damaged after, it said, Israeli tank artillery targeted the vicinity they were operating in south of Deir al-Balah.
🚨Israeli tank artillery targets the vicinity area of two PRCS ambulances, while injured persons and martyrs were being transported. The attack happened in Im Al-Thuheir area, south of Deir Al-Balah. One paramedic was lightly injured and the ambulances were damaged.#Gaza… pic.twitter.com/QpqppV1UIN
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) December 5, 2023
WHO official: situation in southern Gaza 'getting worse by the hour'
A World Health Organization official in Gaza described the situation on Tuesday as deteriorating by the hour as Israeli bombing has intensified in the south of the territory around the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah.
“The situation is getting worse by the hour,” Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative on the occupied Palestinian territory, told the media via a video link from Gaza, Reuters reports.
“There’s intensified bombing going on all around, including here in the southern areas, Khan Younis and even in Rafah.”
Peeperkorn said the humanitarian aid reaching Gaza was “way too little” and said the WHO was deeply concerned about the vulnerability of the health system in the densely populated territory as more people move further south to escape the bombing.
“I want to make this point very clear that we are looking at an increasing humanitarian disaster,” he said.
Updated
Qatar’s emir on Gaza attacks: ‘This is a genocide committed by Israel’
The emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, has described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a “genocide” and said it was a disgrace that the international community had not stopped “this heinous crime”.
Al Jazeera reports that In comments made at the opening of the Gulf cooperation council summit in Doha, al-Thani said:
Israel’s occupation forces have violated all political, ethical and humanitarian values. It is a disgrace upon the international community to allow this heinous crime to continue.
He accused Israel of the “systemic and purposeful killing of innocent unarmed civilians”, adding “this is a genocide committed by Israel.”
He called on the UN security council to force Israel to return to the negotiating table.
Qatar played a significant role in brokering the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas that paved the way for the release of more than 100 hostages being held inside Gaza since the 7 October attack. In return, Israel released a number of Palestinian detainees from its prisons.
Updated
The Palestinian health ministry in the occupied West Bank has said that Israel has killed 260 people there since 7 October.
Reuters reports that in newly released casualty figures, the ministry says that an additional 3,200 Palestinians have been injured in the occupied West Bank over the same time period. Israel has repeatedly raided the territory to make arrests during the latest Israel-Hamas war which began on 7 October.
The Palestinian health ministry in the occupied West Bank is separate from the health ministry in Gaza, which has issued figures claiming nearly 16,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip by Israel since 7 October, with the majority of them being women and children.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
Updated
France has announced it has frozen all assets belonging to Hamas leader Yehya Sinwar for six months.
Associated Press reports that a decision published in the official journal of the French Republic said that “funds and economic resources owned, held or controlled” by Yehya Sinwar were being frozen. The total value of Sinwar’s assets in France was not provided.
Sinwar is believed to have been the leader who planned the 7 October attack inside Israel.
Yocheved Lifshitz, an 85-year-old Israeli peace activist who was kidnapped by Hamas that day, said on her release that during captivity she met Sinwar and told him he should be “ashamed of himself”.
Summary of the day so far …
It has just gone noon in Gaza City and in Tel Aviv. Here are the latest headlines …
Israel’s military has expanded its ground operations deeper into southern Gaza, with dozens of Israeli tanks, armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers entering the Gaza Strip near Khan Younis. Witnesses said Israeli military vehicles were on the southern section of the main north-to-south road in Gaza, “firing bullets and tank shells at cars and people trying to move through the area”.
The areas in Khan Younis that Israel has ordered to be evacuated cover about a fifth of the city. Before the war the area was home to 117,000 people, and now it also houses more than 50,000 people displaced from the north. Reporters on the ground in the city said Palestinians experienced “a very, very tough night” with “nonstop heavy artillery shelling, relentless airstrikes, and mass bombardment.”
Israel’s military has issued its latest situational update in which it describes operating against what it claims are “Hamas strongholds” in the Jabaliya refugee camp, which it says it has encircled. It also claims in the update to have “struck buildings used by ‘Nukhba’ terrorists” and to have conducted “a targeted raid on a Hamas internal security forces command and control centre”.
To date, during Israeli military strikes on the Gaza Strip, the Hamas-led health ministry has said almost 16,000 people have been killed, 70% of which are women and children. The Israeli campaign in Gaza followed the surprise 7 October Hamas attack inside Israel that killed at least 1,200 people, and during which more than 200 people were seized and taken to be held hostage. Israel believes that Hamas retains more than 130 hostages within the Gaza Strip.
The IDF has said that it arrested 21 people in the occupied West Bank last night. Media sources have put the number higher, with Al Jazeera reporting that “at least 40 Palestinians were detained by Israeli forces in overnight raids”. One Palestinian is reported to have been wounded when Israeli forces raided Jenin with about 50 armoured vehicles and four bulldozers overnight, and a 25-year-old man was killed by Israeli forces in a raid on Qalandiya refugee camp.
It is expected that families of those still being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza will meet with Israel’s prime minister on Tuesday. On Monday a group representing the families said it would stage a permanent sit-in outside Israel’s military headquarters if Benjamin Netanyahu’s government would not meet with them.
The Kremlin says that Vladimir Putin will make a one-day trip to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia focused on the Israeli-Hamas war as well as also host the Iranian president in Moscow this week.
Turkey’s state-run news agency says Turkish intelligence officials have warned their Israeli counterparts of “serious consequences” if they attempt to target members of Hamas on Turkish soil.
Updated
The Kremlin says that Vladimir Putin will make a one-day trip to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia focused on the Israeli-Hamas war, and will also host the Iranian president in Moscow this week.
AP reports that Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Tuesday that the Russian president will visit both countries on Wednesday. Peskov told reporters that the talks will focus on bilateral relations, the war between Israel and Hamas and other international issues.
Putin’s trip was first announced on Monday by Yuri Ushakov, his foreign affairs adviser, who didn ot at that point give a date for the visits.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images sent to us from Gaza and Israel over the news wires.
Updated
It is expected that families of those still being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza will meet with Israel’s prime minister today.
Yesterday a group representing the families said it would stage a permanent sit-in outside Israel’s military headquarters if Benjamin Netanyahu’s government would not meet with them.
Hamas is thought to be holding more than 130 people in Gaza who were seized on 7 October and abducted from Israel. During the recent temporary truce period, Hamas released over a hundred hostages in return for Israel releasing Palestinian detainees from its jails.
Reuters has a quick snap that Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, is expected to travel to Russia on Thursday.
Earlier today the country’s UN envoy, Amir Saeid Iravani, said Iran had not been involved in any actions or attacks against US military forces. The US has blamed Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthi group for attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
The IDF has said that it arrested 21 people in the occupied West Bank last night. Media sources have put the number higher, with Al Jazeera reporting that “at least 40 Palestinians were detained by Israeli forces in overnight raids.”
One Palestinian is reported to have been wounded when Israeli forces raided Jenin with about 50 armoured vehicles and four bulldozers overnight, and a 25-year-old man was killed by Israeli forces in a raid on Qalandiya refugee camp.
Associated Press reports that the areas in Khan Younis that Israel has ordered to be evacuated cover about a fifth of the city.
Before the war, it says, that area was home to 117,000 people, and now it also houses more than 50,000 people displaced from the north. It was not known how many were fleeing.
Israel has issued a map of Gaza divided into small numbered areas, and it is attempting to tell residents to move from specific zones, in a move described by Rohan Talbot, the advocacy director at the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, as “akin to a macabre game of Battleships”.
At the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, ambulances brought dozens of wounded people in throughout the night. At one point, a car pulled up and man emerged carrying a young boy in a bloody shirt whose hand had been blown off.
“Where is the Red Cross? … where is the United Nations?” a woman screamed outside the emergency department. “My children, since 10pm, are still under the rubble.”
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Israel’s military has issued its latest situational update in which it describes operating against what it claims are “Hamas strongholds” in the Jabaliya refugee camp.
It writes:
IDF troops are operating in the area of Jabalya, after completing the encirclement of the Jabalya camp. Over the past day, IDF troops operated in Hamas strongholds and destroyed terrorist infrastructure in the area. During the activity, the IDF took control of key military posts from which attacks on IDF troops have been carried out. The troops struck terrorist infrastructure, located weapons and launchers in civilian compounds, and directed aerial forces to strike numerous terrorists.
It also claims in the update to have “struck buildings used by ‘Nukhba’ terrorists for military activity and eliminated other Hamas terrorists” and to have conducted “a targeted raid on a Hamas internal security forces command and control centre in Jabalya where they located observation and control materials, weapons, and maps”.
The claims have not been independently verified.
To date, during Israeli military strikes on the Gaza Strip, the Hamas-led health ministry has said more than 15,000 people have been killed, 70% of which are women and children.
The Israeli campaign in Gaza followed the surprise 7 October Hamas attack inside Israel that killed at least 1,200 people, and during which more than 200 people were seized and taken to be held hostage. Israel believes that Hamas retains more than 130 hostages within the Gaza Strip.
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Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Khan Younis for Al Jazeera, has said Palestinians there faced “a very, very tough night”.
He wrote:
Since early yesterday evening, there has been nonstop heavy artillery shelling, relentless airstrikes, and mass bombardment. The vast majority of residential homes and public facilities – schools, hospitals, medical centres and shops – in the eastern side of Khan Younis, have been completely destroyed.
As ambulances tried to get to the eastern side … where people were stranded and caught under the heavy bombardment, they were shot at and could not evacuate any of the injured or bring out any of those who were killed overnight.
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Turkey’s state-run news agency says Turkish intelligence officials have warned their Israeli counterparts of “serious consequences” if they attempt to target members of Hamas on Turkish soil.
The warning, reported by the Anadolu Agency late Monday, came after Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s domestic security agency Shin Bet, said in an audio recording that his organisation was prepared to destroy Hamas “in every place”, including in Lebanon, Turkey and Qatar.
Associated Press, citing the Anadolu Agency, quoted unnamed Turkish intelligence officials who said “necessary warnings were made” to Israeli officials who were told their actions would “have serious consequences.”
The agency also quoted the officials as saying that Turkey had prevented “illegal activities” by foreign operatives in the past and that no foreign intelligence agency would be allowed to carry out operations on Turkish territory.
In 2018, Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.
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Dennis Francis, the president of the UN general assembly, has reiterated his call for a ceasefire, saying he is “deeply alarmed and saddened by the resumption of hostilities”.
I’m deeply alarmed and saddened by the resumption of hostilities in the Middle East.
— UN GA President (@UN_PGA) December 5, 2023
I reiterate my call for a longer-term humanitarian ceasefire; unconditional release of all remaining hostages & for unimpeded access to humanitarian aid to Palestinians. pic.twitter.com/J3ukaRGZl3
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It’s just past 9am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. Here are some key recent developments:
Lynn Hastings, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said that “an even more hellish scenario” looms in Gaza in which humanitarian aid simply grinds to a halt. “The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist,” Hastings said. “Nowhere is safe in Gaza and there is nowhere left to go.” The United Nations office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) gave an update on Monday on aid coming into Gaza. The organisation said that 100 aid trucks carrying humanitarian supplies and 69,000 litres of fuel entered from Egypt into Gaza on Monday. “About the same as the previous day. This is well below the daily average of 170 trucks and 110,000 litres of fuel that had entered during the humanitarian pause implemented between 24 and 30 November.”
Israel’s military expanded ground operations deeper into southern Gaza, with dozens of Israeli tanks, armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers entering the Gaza Strip near Khan Younis. Witnesses said Israeli military vehicles were on the southern section of the main north-to-south road in Gaza, “firing bullets and tank shells at cars and people trying to move through the area”. The Israeli military issued fresh orders to Palestinians in about 20 areas of central Gaza to move further south, posting maps online.
The Israeli army has denied telling the World Health Organization to empty an aid warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours before ground operations in the area render it unusable. The Israeli defence ministry body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, COGAT said on X: “The truth is that we didn’t ask you to evacuate the warehouses and we also made it clear (and in writing) to the relevant UN representatives”. The WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, wrote on X on Monday: “Today, WHO received notification from the Israel Defense Forces that we should remove our supplies from our medical warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours, as ground operations will put it beyond use … We appeal to Israel to withdraw the order, and take every possible measure to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and humanitarian facilities,” he wrote.
The White House said Hamas broke an agreement to release more female hostages, and its refusal to do so was the cause of the collapse of the week-long truce with Israel on Friday. In a briefing at the White House on Monday afternoon, the US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said: “It is that refusal by Hamas that has caused the end of the hostage agreement, and therefore the end of the pause in hostilities.” He it was “too soon” to judge if Israel provided enough notice, or had done enough to inform Palestinian civilians where it would be safe as it moved into southern Gaza, but said the US warned Israel civilians must be protected.
Matthew Miller, a US state department spokesperson, said Hamas continued to hold female Israeli hostages because it did not want them to reveal what they experienced in captivity. Hamas fighters committed widespread “gender-based atrocities and sexual violence” during the 7 October attacks according to Israeli police who say they have evidence of more than 1,500 incidents. “The fact [Hamas] continue to hold women hostages, the fact that they continue to hold children hostages … and the reason this pause fell apart, is they don’t want those women to be able to talk about what happened to them during their time in custody,” Miller told a media briefing.
Gaza’s health ministry issued new casualty figures, saying that 15,899 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip since 7 October. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip, says that 70% of those who have been killed are women and children. It does not distinguish in the figures between civilians and combatants. The number of deaths is probably under-counted, as the collapse of the health system in Gaza has made it difficult for statistics to be gathered, and there are more than 6,000 Palestinians considered missing within the territory.
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Here are some of the latest images coming out of Gaza, as Palestinians flee the fighting in Khan Yunis.
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Several thousand people gathered on Parliament Hill in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, on Monday, demonstrating in support of Israel and calling for an end to antisemitic violence.
“It’s so important that diverse parts of our country come together and stand up for the Jewish people … and stand together against hatred of Jews,” Sara Lefton of United Jewish Appeal, one of the groups sponsoring the rally, told Agence France-Presse.
Jewish schools, synagogues and a Jewish community centre have been the target of gunfire and molotov cocktails in Montreal in recent weeks.
Updated
Israel has changed the threat level for multiple countries as the Israel-Hamas war continues.
Israel’s national security council says in an online statement:
The threat level for many countries in Western Europe (including the UK, France and Germany), South America (including Brazil and Argentina), as well as Australia and Russia, has been raised to level 2, with the recommendation to exercise increased precaution.
The threat level for countries in Africa (including South Africa and Eritrea) and Central Asia (including Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan) has been raised to level 3, with the recommendation to reconsider non-essential travel to these countries.
The statement also warns Israeli citizens to stay “away from demonstrations and protests” and to avoid “openly displaying your Israeli and Jewish identities and any relevant symbols and, and staying away from Israeli and Jewish gatherings.”
Israel has been urged by UN and US officials to avoid a repeat of the devastating impact that its operations in northern Gaza had on civilians as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) expanded its ground offensive against Hamas further south to the city of Khan Younis.
Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza (UNRWA), said on Monday the expansion of military operations in southern Gaza was “repeating horrors from past weeks” by displacing people who had already been displaced, overcrowding hospitals and further “strangling the humanitarian operation” due to limited supplies.
The United Nations office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) gave an update Monday on aid coming into Gaza. The organisation said that 100 aid trucks carrying humanitarian supplies and 69,000 litres of fuel entered from Egypt into Gaza on Monday. “About the same as the previous day. This is well below the daily average of 170 trucks and 110,000 litres of fuel that had entered during the humanitarian pause implemented between 24 and 30 November.”
Read our full report here for more:
The IDF has said in two posts on Telegram this hour that “Sirens [have] sounded in the city of Be-er Sheva, southern Israel” and “in communities near the Gaza Strip”. The Times of Israel reports the rocket warning sirens were near a kibbutz and an airbase.
The White House said Monday that the US might establish a naval taskforce to escort commercial ships in the Red Sea.
It’s a day after three vessels were struck by missiles fired by Iranian-back Houthis in Yemen.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US has been in active conversations with allies about setting up the escorts though nothing is finalised, describing it as a “natural” response to that sort of incident, Associated Press reports.
On Sunday, ballistic missiles fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck three commercial ships, while a U.S. warship shot down three drones in self-defence during an hours-long assault, the U.S. military said. It marked an escalation in a series of maritime attacks in the Mideast linked to the Israel-Hamas war. Jake Sullivan told reporters:
We are in talks with other countries about a maritime taskforce of sorts involving the ships from partner nations alongside the United States in ensuring safe passage
He noted similar task forces are used to protect commercial shipping elsewhere, including off the coast of Somalia.
Israeli military pushes deeper into southern Gaza as UN warns 'even more hellish scenario' looms
Israeli tanks, armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers have entered the southern part of the Gaza Strip near Khan Younis, as an Israeli commander claimed the army had almost completed its mission in the north.
Israeli military vehicles were on the southern section of the main north-to-south road in Gaza, “firing bullets and tank shells at cars and people trying to move through the area”, a witness, Moaz Mohammed, told the AFP news agency.
Israel largely captured the northern half of Gaza in November. Since a week-long truce collapsed on Friday they have swiftly pushed deep into the southern half. Hamas ally Islamic Jihad’s armed wing told Reuters its fighters engaged in fierce clashes with Israeli soldiers north and east of Khan Younis, Gaza’s main southern city.
Israeli tanks have driven into Gaza across the border and cut off the main north-south route, residents told Reuters. The Israeli military said the central road out of Khan Younis to the north “constitutes a battlefield” and was now shut.
It’s as the UN expresses fears of what lies ahead for Gaza. Lynn Hastings, UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories said that “an even more hellish scenario” looms in Gaza in which humanitarian aid simply grinds to a halt.
“The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist,” Hastings said. “Nowhere is safe in Gaza and there is nowhere left to go.”
At the United Nations, Secretary-General António Guterres appealed to Israel to avoid further action that would make the already dire humanitarian situation in Hamas-run Gaza worse, and to spare civilians from more suffering.
Updated
Welcome and Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. It’s currently 6:49am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. My name is Reged Ahmad and I’ll be with you for the next while.
A UN official has warned that “an even more hellish scenario” looms in Gaza in which humanitarian aid simply grinds to a halt. “The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist,” said Lynn Hastings, UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories.
More on that shortly – but first – here are the other key recent developments.
Israel’s military expanded ground operations deeper into southern Gaza, with dozens of Israeli tanks, armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers entering the Gaza Strip near Khan Younis. Witnesses said Israeli military vehicles were on the southern section of the main north-to-south road in Gaza, “firing bullets and tank shells at cars and people trying to move through the area”. Israeli military issued fresh orders to Palestinians in about 20 areas of central Gaza to move farther south, posting maps online.
The Israeli army has denied telling the World Health Organization to empty an aid warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours before ground operations in the area render it unusable. The Israeli defence ministry body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, COGAT said on X “The truth is that we didn’t ask you to evacuate the warehouses and we also made it clear (and in writing) to the relevant UN representatives”. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X on Monday: “Today, WHO received notification from the Israel Defense Forces that we should remove our supplies from our medical warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours, as ground operations will put it beyond use… We appeal to Israel to withdraw the order, and take every possible measure to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and humanitarian facilities,” he wrote.
The White House said Hamas broke an agreement to release more female hostages, and its refusal to do so was the cause of the collapse of the week-long truce with Israel on Friday. In a briefing at the White House on Monday afternoon, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said “it is that refusal by Hamas that has caused the end of the hostage agreement, and therefore the end of the pause in hostilities”. He it was “too soon” to judge if Israel provided enough notice, or done enough to inform Palestinian civilians where it would be safe as it moved into southern Gaza, but said the US warned Israel civilians must be protected.
Matthew Miller, a US state department spokesperson, said Hamas continued to hold female Israeli hostages because it did not want them to reveal what they experienced in captivity. Hamas fighters committed widespread “gender-based atrocities and sexual violence” during the 7 October attacks according to Israeli police who say they have evidence of more than 1,500 incidents. “The fact [Hamas] continue to hold women hostages, the fact that they continue to hold children hostages … and the reason this pause fell apart, is they don’t want those women to be able to talk about what happened to them during their time in custody,” Miller told a media briefing.
Gaza’s health ministry issued new casualty figures, saying that 15,899 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip since 7 October. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip, says that 70% of those who have been killed are women and children. It does not distinguish in the figures between civilians and combatants. The number of deaths is likely under-counted, as the collapse of the health system in Gaza has made it difficult for statistics to be gathered, and there are more than 6,000 Palestinians considered missing within the territory.
Telecoms company PalTel said that Gaza is facing a communications blackout, with all telecom services (landline, cellular and internet) in Gaza City and north Gaza Strip lost due to the disconnection of main elements of the network.
At least 60 Palestinians were arrested in the occupied West Bank overnight, Al Jazeera reported, with Israeli forces carrying out raids in the cities of Qalqilya, Jericho, Jenin and Tulkarem. At least 30 armoured vehicles were deployed in Jenin following a dawn raid, the broadcaster reported.
