We are now closing this blog but you can read our report on today’s developments in Gaza here.
Turkey’s foreign ministry has submitted a letter to the UN, signed by 52 countries and two organisations, calling for a halt in arms deliveries to Israel.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, told a press conference in Djibouti, where he was attending a Turkey-Africa partnership summit:
We have written a joint letter calling on all countries to stop the sale of arms and ammunition to Israel. We delivered this letter, which has 54 signatories, to the UN on 1 November.
We must repeat at every opportunity that selling arms to Israel means participating in its genocide.
Fidan said the letter is “an initiative launched by Turkey”. Among the signatories was Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Algeria, China, Iran and Russia, with the two organisations being the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called on the UN to impose an arms embargo on Israel, which he said would be an “effective solution” to end the war.
Erdoğan has been a vocal opponent of Israel’s war in Gaza. He has accused Israel of genocide, called for it to be punished in international courts and criticised western nations for backing the country’s military assault.
Summary of the day
Palestinian medics said at least 31 people were killed by Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Sunday. Nearly half of those killed by the Israeli military were reported to have been in northern Gaza, including in Beit Lahiya and Jabalia. Other deadly Israeli airstrikes were reported in Gaza City and the southern city of Khan Younis.
At least 43,341 Palestinian people have been killed and 102,105 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said.
Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike killed three people near the southern city of Sidon. “The Israeli enemy’s raid on Haret Saida resulted in an initial death toll of three people killed and nine others injured,” Lebanon’s health ministry said.
The Israeli military called for the evacuation of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, warning that it was poised to strike Hezbollah targets there and in nearby Douris.
A polio vaccination centre and the car of UN aid official involved in this weekend’s vaccination campaign came under fire despite a promised “humanitarian pause” in Israeli bombardment, the UN said.
Israeli bombardments causing 'apocalypse' to unfold in northern Gaza - Save the Children
Rachael Cummings, the team lead and health specialist from Save the Children International, has warned that apocalyptic scenes are unfolding in northern Gaza.
She was quoted by Al Jazeera as having said:
We are seeing the apocalypse now unfolding in the north of Gaza. People are being constantly bombarded with aerial attacks and of course, we know that the food and the water is not sufficient. The convoys of food and water are being denied into the north … It is absolutely catastrophic.
A renewed Israeli assault was launched on the northern part of the Strip last month, with the Israeli military saying it was to stop Hamas fighters regrouping there.
The blockage of aid and food deliveries and the targeting of civilian infrastructure, however, have led to accusations that Israel is committing the war crime of seeking to forcibly displace the remaining population.
The entirety of northern Gaza is under Israeli evacuation orders but many people have stayed as there is nowhere safe to flee the relentless bombardments. The Israeli army has previously ordered residents to flee towards the so-called “humanitarian zone” of al-Mawasi, even though it has been targeted in deadly airstrikes and is severely overcrowded.
An Israeli court is considering whether to lift a gag order on a case surrounding suspected leaks of classified information from an associate of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Associated Press has the following report:
Israeli media reports say the case concerns the leak of classified information to two European media outlets by an adviser who may not have been formally employed and did not have security clearance, without naming the individual.
Netanyahu said the person in question “never participated in security discussions, was not exposed to or received classified information, and did not take part in secret visits.”
The leaked documents are said to have formed the basis of a widely discredited article in the London-based Jewish Chronicle — which was later withdrawn — suggesting Hamas planned to spirit hostages out of Gaza through Egypt, and an article in Germany’s Bild newspaper that said Hamas was drawing out the talks as a form of psychological warfare on Israel.
Israeli media and other observers expressed skepticism about the articles, which appeared to support Netanyahu’s demands in the talks and absolve him of blame for their failure…
A court document confirmed that an investigation by police, the military and the Shin Bet internal security agency is underway and that a number of suspects have been arrested for questioning.
It said the affair poses “a risk to sensitive information and sources” and “harms the achievement of the goals of the war in the Gaza Strip.” The court will decide on Sunday whether to lift a gag order on other details of the case.
Updated
The special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, has said that Palestinian children living in areas that Israel unlawfully occupies are being targeted by Israeli forces in “many depraved ways”.
She shared a video on X showing schoolchildren in the Jaber neighborhood of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, unable to reach Haj Ziad Jaber school because of barbed wire blocking their access.
Albanese wrote:
Look at the totality of Israel’s conduct, in the totality of the land it unlawfully occupies, against the totality of the Palestinian people living there.
And when you see how children, in particular, are targeted in so many depraved ways - through killing, maiming, starving, torture, terror, depriving them of schools, dreams, future, hope - you see the destructive mind and intent at work, in the realisation of a plan that comes from afar.
Look at the totality of Israel's conduct, in the totality of the land it unlawfully occupies, against the totality of the Palestinian people living there. And when you see how children, in particular, are targeted in so many depraved ways - through killing, maiming, starving,… https://t.co/i1zwUQWEAK
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) November 3, 2024
Last week, Albanese said the UN should consider suspending Israel as a member state due to its continuing “genocide” against the Palestinians. You can read more on her comments in this piece.
Israeli attacks kill at least 31 people in Gaza, medics say
Palestinian medics have said at least 31 people were killed by Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Sunday, increasing an earlier death toll of 23 (see earlier post at 10.05).
Nearly half of those killed by the Israeli military were reported to have been in northern Gaza, where the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been conducting an intense month long assault.
Updated
A polio vaccination centre and the car of UN aid official involved in this weekend’s vaccination campaign came under fire despite a promised “humanitarian pause” in Israeli bombardment, the UN has said.
Catherine Russell, the executive director of the UN child support and protection agency Unicef, said: “At least three children were reportedly injured by another attack in the proximity of a vaccination clinic in Sheikh Radwan, while a polio vaccination campaign was under way.”
She added that the personal car of a Unicef employee working on the polio vaccine campaign “came under fire by what we believe to be a quadcopter”.
“The car was damaged. Fortunately, the staff member was not injured. But she has been left deeply shaken,” Russell wrote.
Read the full report here
Updated
Three killed in strike near Lebanese city of Sidon
Lebanon’s health ministry said three people were killed and nine others wounded in an Israeli strike Sunday on Haret Saida, a densely populated area near the southern city of Sidon.
“The Israeli enemy’s raid on Haret Saida resulted in an initial death toll of three people killed and nine others injured,” the ministry said. Agence France-Presse reports that the strike was not preceded by an Israeli evacuation warning.
Updated
Seven killed in Israeli strike on Khan Younis
At least seven Palestinians, including children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Sunday, health officials told Reuters.
There are mounting concerns over whether the Israeli government’s ultimate war aims in Gaza include territorial expansion, as the IDF’s siege on the northern part of the territory – under sweeping evacuation orders - intensifies.
Here is an extract from a report by my colleagues Malak A Tantesh and Julian Borger, who explore these concerns further:
The IDF says it is hunting Hamas militants but suspicions are growing that Israel is putting into practice a blueprint it had officially distanced itself from, known as the “generals’ plan”.
The plan, named after the retired senior officers promoting it, was intended to depopulate northern Gaza by giving the Palestinians trapped there an opportunity to evacuate and then treating those that stayed as combatants, laying total siege.
The government insisted the plan had not been adopted, but some IDF soldiers in Gaza, as well as Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups, say it is being implemented on a daily basis, but with a major difference: the Palestinians in northern Gaza were not given a realistic chance to evacuate. They are trapped.
You can read the full story here:
Updated
Death toll from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza reaches 43,341, says health ministry
At least 43,341 Palestinian people have been killed and 102,105 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Of those, 27 Palestinians were killed and 86 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry said.
Gaza’s health ministry has said in the past that thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the territory.
Here are some of the latest images coming out of Gaza from the newswires:
Israeli forces have detained at least 16 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank since last night, the Palestinian Authority’s Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees and the Prisoners’ Society said.
According to Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, the detentions were carried out in Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah, Salfit and Tubas.
It is estimated that at least 11,500 Palestinians have been arrested in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since last October.
Human rights groups and international organisations have alleged widespread abuse of inmates detained by Israel in raids in the West Bank.
They have described alleged abusive and humiliating treatment, including holding blindfolded and handcuffed detainees in cramped cages as well as beatings, intimidation and harassment.
The commissioner general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), which provides shelter, education, medical services, food and water to Palestinian refugees, has said that banning the agency from operating within Israel and occupied East Jerusalem will deprive Palestinian children of learning in the “foreseeable future”.
Philippe Lazzarini, in a statement posted to X, said this deprivation of education will increase the likelihood of children becoming radicalised and exploited into joining armed groups, as well as increasing poverty levels.
“Without Unrwa, the fate of millions of people will hang by the thread. Instead of focusing on banning Unrwa or finding alternatives, the focus should be on reaching an agreement to end this conflict,” Lazzarini wrote.
“This is the only way to prioritize the return to school for hundreds of thousands of children, currently living in the rubble. It’s time to prioritise children and their future.”
Children & their education are not featured in any discussions when “experts “ or politicians talk about replacing @UNRWA .
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) November 3, 2024
Why?
Because in the absence of a functioning state, there is no alternative.
Until October last year, @UNRWA provided learning to over 300,000 boys &… pic.twitter.com/uuTNZ3xXw6
Israel’s war on Gaza has left nearly all of the territory’s population in poverty, with quality of life indicators such as health and education knocked back 70 years, the United Nations development agency said in a report last month.
Since the war began last October, schools have been bombed in Israeli attacks or turned into shelters for displaced people, leaving Gaza’s estimated 625,000 school-age children unable to attend classes.
Lazzarini said that until last October Unrwa provided learning to over 300,000 children, but now they are losing a second year of education.
The Palestinian education ministry said it has begun to launch virtual schools and open schools in the occupied West Bank to students in Gaza, saying it is determined to provide as much education as possible, even if it is from inside “dilapidated tents”.
Last week, 92 Israeli MPs voted for a measure to ban Unrwa’s activities in Israel while only 10 voted to oppose the measure. A second bill severed diplomatic relations with the agency. You can read more about the passing of the bill and its effects here.
Israeli military issues new evacuation order for Lebanon’s Baalbek region
The Israeli military called for the evacuation of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, warning that it was poised to strike Hezbollah targets there and in nearby Douris.
“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate these buildings and those adjacent to them immediately and stay away from them for a distance of no less than 500 meters within the next four hours,” the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a post on X.
#عاجل إلى جميع السكان المتواجدين في منطقة بعلبك وتحديدًا في المباني المحددة في الخرائط المرفقة والمباني المجاورة لها
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) November 3, 2024
⭕️أنتم تتواجدون بالقرب من منشآت ومصالح تابعة لحزب الله حيث سيعمل ضدها جيش الدفاع على المدى الزمني القريب
⭕️من أجل سلامتكم وسلامة أبناء عائلتكم عليكم اخلاء هذه… pic.twitter.com/qfvSP5hUJW
Israel has broadened its deadly airstrikes in recent weeks to bigger urban hubs in Lebanon, like the town of Baalbek, home to about 80,000 people, after initially targeting smaller border villages in the south, where the IDF says Hezbollah conducts operations.
More than 2,100 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israel’s war on the country over the past five weeks, and 1.2 million others displaced by Israeli attacks, according to Lebanese officials.
The UN has said many people forced to flee Lebanon (many of whom have gone to Syria) have slept overnight in their vehicles, facing harsh conditions as they search for safety.
Updated
Israeli attacks across Gaza kill at least 23 people, medics say
Al Jazeera has been told by medical sources that Israeli attacks have killed 23 people in Gaza, including 13 in the northern part of the territory, since dawn. The Guardian is yet to independently verify these figures.
Medics said at least 13 Palestinians were killed in separate attacks on houses in Beit Lahiya and Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic refugee camps and the focus of the Israeli army’s renewed assault on northern Gaza.
The rest of the Palestinian people were killed in separate Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City and the southern areas, according to Reuters.
Updated
Palestinian officials have said an Israeli drone strike on a clinic in northern Gaza where children were being vaccinated for polio injured six people, including four children, on Saturday. The Israeli military has denied responsibility.
Dr Munir al-Boursh, director general of the Gaza health ministry, told the Associated Press that a quadcopter struck the Sheikh Radwan clinic in Gaza City early on Saturday afternoon, just a few minutes after a UN delegation left the health facility.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and Unicef expressed alarm over reports that the clinic was hit during the vaccination drive.
Rosalia Bollen, a spokesperson for Unicef, said:
The reports of this attack are even more disturbing as the Sheikh Radwan Clinic is one of the health points where parents can get their children vaccinated.
Today’s attack occurred while the humanitarian pause was still in effect, despite assurances given that the pause would be respected from 6am to 4pm.
The polio campaign began on 1 September after the WHO confirmed in August that a baby was partially paralysed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
The first round of the vaccine campaign in early September successfully reached 559,000 children under 10 years old. The vaccines were able to be administered due to local “humanitarian pauses” to fighting in Gaza agreed by Israel and Palestinian groups (while these temporary pauses were generally stuck to in certain areas in Gaza, there were reports of Israeli airstrikes killing Palestinian people in others).
The second phase of the drive began yesterday having been postponed last month due to relentless Israeli airstrikes in northern Gaza, mass displacement of Palestinians and a lack of access in the region (you can read this story to find out more).
Updated
A Bangladeshi worker, Mohammad Nizam, 31, was killed in an airstrike in Lebanon on Saturday afternoon, Dhaka’s foreign ministry has said.
Nizam was killed in the airstrike as he stopped at a coffee shop on the way to work in Beirut, Bangladesh’s ambassador to Lebanon, Javed Tanveer Khan, said.
Mohmmad Jalaluddin said his younger brother Nizam had lived in Beirut for more than a decade, and had not been among the estimated 1,800 Bangladeshis who had registered for an evacuation flight home.
“We want to bury him in our ancestral home, and are now waiting for the government’s response,” Jalaluddin told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
But senior Bangladeshi foreign ministry official Shah Mohammad Tanvir Monsur said it was challenging to arrange a flight into Beirut.
Monsur said:
With the ongoing war, there are hardly any flights from Lebanon to Bangladesh. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to repatriate our citizens who have registered to return home.
The foreign ministry estimates that between 70,000 and 100,000 of its nationals are working in Lebanon, many as labourers or domestic workers.
Entire population in northern Gaza at 'imminent risk of death', Unicef warns
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of Israel’s ongoing wars on Gaza and Lebanon.
The entire Palestinian population in northern Gaza is at “imminent risk” of dying from disease, famine or “ongoing bombardments” by the Israeli military, the head of the United Nations children’s agency (Unicef), Catherine Russell, has warned.
In a statement issued yesterday, Russell said that in the past 48 hours alone, over 50 children had reportedly been killed in Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historical refugee camps, where deadly Israeli airstrikes destroyed two residential buildings sheltering hundreds of people.
Israel severely restricted aid to Gaza in October, allowing in only about a third of the humanitarian assistance that entered the previous month.
Russell said:
Civilians and civilian structures, including residential buildings, as well as humanitarian workers and their vehicles, must always be protected in accordance with international humanitarian law.
Displacement or evacuation orders do not permit any party to the conflict to regard all individuals or objects in an area as military targets; nor do they exempt them from their obligations to distinguish between military and civilian objectives, be proportional and take all feasible precautions in attacks.
Yet these principles are being flaunted over and over again, leaving tens of thousands of children killed, injured, and deprived of essential services needed for survival.
Attacks on civilians, including humanitarian workers, and what remains of Gaza’s civilian facilities and infrastructure must stop.
This has already been a deadly weekend of attacks in North Gaza.
— Catherine Russell (@unicefchief) November 2, 2024
Attacks on civilians, including humanitarian workers, and what remains of Gaza’s civilian facilities and infrastructure must stop.
My statement👇 https://t.co/TLNYtbN6du
Her comments come as Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported this morning that at least nine Palestinian people were killed in Israeli airstrikes targeting two homes in Jabalia and Beit Lahiya, also in northern Gaza, as well as the southern city of Rafah.
At least five Palestinians have been killed and others injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a house belonging to Warsh al-Agha family in the town of Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza. pic.twitter.com/mODbwXXOfJ
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) November 3, 2024
The Israeli military launched an intense assault in northern Gaza on 6 October, claiming it was trying to stop Hamas fighters from regrouping. But many civilians have been killed in the attacks, with residents saying Israeli forces besieged hospitals and shelters for displaced people and targeted residential areas.
Residents in the north, under sweeping evacuation orders, say they feel trapped as there is nowhere safe for them to flee to due to the relentless Israeli attacks there.
Here are some of the other key developments:
American B-52 bombers have arrived in the Middle East, the US military has confirmed. “B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers from Minot Air Force Base’s 5th Bomb Wing arrived in the US Central Command area of responsibility,” the military command for the Middle East and surrounding countries said in a post on social media. The US – Israel’s biggest arms supplier and diplomatic ally - announced on Friday evening that it was sending the bombers, fighter and tanker aircraft and ballistic missile defense destroyers to the Middle East. “Should Iran, its partners, or its proxies use this moment to target American personnel or interests in the region, the United States will take every measure necessary to defend our people,” Pentagon spokesperson Maj Gen Pat Ryder said.
B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers from Minot Air Force Base's 5th Bomb Wing arrived in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. pic.twitter.com/6mDs4n5G2u
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) November 2, 2024
The Israeli military said about 10 rockets were fired from Lebanon at northern Israel after air raid sirens were sounded in the Haifa Bay and Galilee areas. Some of the rockets were intercepted while others struck open ground. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
The Israeli military launched a series of airstrikes on southern Lebanon overnight, including the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiya in the Nabatieh district, according to reports.
Israeli naval forces captured a senior Hezbollah operative in north Lebanon, an Israeli military official said on Saturday. The operative appears to be a Lebanese sea captain. Earlier, Lebanese authorities said it was investigating whether Israel was behind the capture of a sea captain who was taken away by a group of armed men who had landed on the coast near the northern town of Batroun on Friday.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has released the following statement on the US’s military support to Israel amid its deadly wars in Gaza and Lebanon: “Ongoing events in Lebanon & Gaza have resulted in the martyrdom of 50,000 ppl in the last year, mostly women & children… The US that claims to be an advocate of human rights, supports & is complicit in those crimes. Plans & weapons used are from the US.”
Updated
