Opinion | In the Palestine-Israel war, put civilians at the centre of the story
Nowhere to go. No safe place to go to. Nowhere else to go. Nowhere to bury the dead. It is a litany that is repeated relentlessly in Gaza and with increasing intensity in recent days since the Israeli retaliation to the October 7 Hamas attacks began. The Gaza Strip, perhaps the most uncharted place in the world, has been a small land completely closed off from the outside world for 17 years, ever since Israel imposed the blockade around its land and sea borders, leaving Egypt to manage the southern Rafah Crossing Point. Gaza is a small strip of land where people are born, live and die without ever leaving a prison without bars. Forty kilometres from north to south, less than 10 kilometres east to west, between the Mediterranean Sea and the border with Israel.
For a suffering humanity that has already swelled the ranks of the world’s displaced, more than a million people setting out from their homes or rubbles means putting something in a bag — a bottle of water, diapers for the children, something warm to cover themselves — and finding a means of transportation, a car, a cart, in which they can pick up an elderly father who cannot walk. It means walking down a road already destroyed by bombs, dodging fighter plane raids, not having water, food, toilets or an electrical outlet to recharge the cell phone and communicate with the family.
It is an exodus on an unimaginable scale, of which we have very few images other than those that Palestinian journalists and cameramen in Gaza manage to dispatch, putting their lives at risk. No international or Western journalists have access to the Strip. (Read more)
Efforts were under way on Sunday to resume evacuations of injured Gazans and foreign nationals through the Rafah crossing to Egypt, suspended since Saturday after a deadly attack on an ambulance, Egyptian, U.S. and Qatari officials said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas demanded an immediate Israeli ceasefire at a meeting with U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Ramallah, while Gaza’s health ministry said dozens died in a strike on a refugee camp overnight.
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Blinken, who has dismissed the idea of a ceasefire by Israel for fear it would benefit Hamas, was making an unannounced visit to the occupied West Bank as part of efforts to prevent the Israel-Hamas war spreading. (Read More)
An Israeli minister from the far-right Otzma Yehudit party on Sunday said that dropping an atomic bomb on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip was “an option”, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to suspend him from government meetings indefinitely.
In a radio interview, Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said that “there are no non-combatants in Gaza” and providing humanitarian aid to the Strip would constitute “a failure”.
When asked if there are no non-combatants in Gaza in his view then if a nuclear attack on the Gaza Strip is “an option”, Eliyahu responded, “That’s one way.” His remarks infuriated members of both the ruling coalition and the Opposition, evoking calls to fire him from the government. (Read More)
The photo of the white-haired woman in a golf cart, wrapped in a purple blanket and flanked by a gunman, was among the first to emerge of the hostages seized during the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
But Yaffa Adar’s granddaughter is afraid that the world’s memory of that harrowing day – and the impetus to free some 240 people held by Hamas – is fading. So Adva Adar and her brother, like many other relatives of the hostages, have left Israel for what they hope will be a friendly reception in cities around the world.
Paris, Atlanta and London. Chicago and Vienna. The island of Cyprus.
They fear the alternative will be a collective amnesia, as memories of that day are replaced by news of Palestinian deaths in Gaza. Israeli social media is filled with images of the missing person flyers of the hostages being ripped down around the world. (Read More)
ran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has met with the leader of Tehran-backed Palestinian group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, Iranian state media reported on Sunday, a day after a Hamas official said they held a meeting in recent days.
Iranian state media said Haniyeh, who has resided between Qatar and Turkey since 2019, "briefed Khamenei on the latest developments in the Gaza Strip and the crimes of the Zionist regime in Gaza, as well as the developments in the West Bank".
The Islamic Republic says it supports Hamas but did not play any role in the militants' surprise attack on Israel last month. Iran's Tasnim news agency said the country's top authority Khamenei "emphasized Tehran's consistent policy of supporting the Palestinian resistance forces against the Zionist occupiers". (Reuters)
Qatar's foreign ministry said on Sunday that without a "period of calm" in Gaza its mediators would not be able to secure the release of Israeli hostages held there.
"Any hostage release has to be linked to a period of calm that allows for the hostage release to work, which is something we have not seen for a while," Majed Al Ansari, Qatar's foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday rejected US calls for a temporary stop to Israel's offensive against Hamas to facilitate work to free more than 240 hostages seized by the Palestinian Islamist group. Israel would not pause its attacks unless the hostages held by the militants are freed first, Netanyahu said.
Qatar in coordination with the US, led mediation talks with Hamas and Israeli officials over the release of hostages since the militant group led a rampage into Israel. (Reuters)
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Sunday reiterated calls for an "immediate humanitarian truce" in Gaza, which she said must be able to lead to a ceasefire, adding that too many civilians have died in Israeli strikes.
Colonna said during a joint press conference with Qatar's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha that schools, hospitals, humanitarian workers and journalists must be protected.
Colonna added that an international humanitarian conference, to be hosted by France on November 9, will cover respecting international law, basic needs such as health, water, energy and food, and will call for concrete action for civilians in Gaza.
At least 9,770 Palestinians, including 4,800 children, have been killed in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, the spokesman for the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, Ashraf Al-Qudra, said on Sunday.
US top diplomat Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit to the occupied West Bank on Sunday and met with the Palestinian Authority president as he continues a tour of the region amid spiralling tensions over Israel's war with Hamas.
Abbas told Blinken in Ramallah on Sunday that there must be an 'immediate ceasefire' and humanitarian aid allowed to enter the Gaza Strip, his spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh told Reuters.
A spokesman for the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said on Sunday that Israeli military had struck a refugee camp overnight, killing at least 40 people, as calls by the Arab world for a ceasefire were rejected by the United States and Israel.
In a separate attack, 21 Palestinians from one family, including women and children, were killed in Israeli strikes targeting Gaza overnight, the health ministry said. (Reuters)
Twenty-one Palestinians from one family were killed in Israeli strikes targeting Gaza overnight, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip said on Sunday.
"The victims belong to the family of Abu Hasira when the Israeli shelling targeted their house, full of women and children," the ministry said in a post on its Facebook page. (Reuters)
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Saturday said that though he condemned the Hamas attacks of October 7 and that though “nobody in their right mind” would “belittle” the pain felt by Israel that day, the war in Gaza could not be permitted to continue
“The whole region is sinking in a sea of hatred that will define generations to come,” Safadi said after meeting US Secretary of state Antony Blinken.
He said the Arab countries were demanding an immediate cease-fire, a more dramatic action than the humanitarian pauses supported by the Biden administration.
“We don’t accept that this is self-defense,” Safadi said, adding, “It cannot be justified under any pretext and it will not bring Israel security, it will not bring the region peace.”
With deadly Israeli strikes repeatedly hitting and damaging shelter, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said it has lost contact with many in the north.
An Israeli airstrike overnight struck a water well in Tal al-Zatar in northern Gaza, cutting off water for tens of thousands of people in the area, the Hamas-run municipality in the town of Beit Lahia said in a statement early Sunday.
The UN said about 1.5 million people in Gaza, or 70% of the population, have fled their homes.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Sunday accused the leaders of the "free world" of financing the "genocide" of thousands in Palestine and demanded that the international community should enforce an immediate ceasefire there.
Without naming Israel or specifying any country of the free world, she described the situation as horrific and said that around 10,000 civilians have been massacred.
"It is horrific and shameful beyond words that almost 10,000 civilians of which nearly 5000 are children have been massacred, whole family lines have been finished off, hospitals and ambulances have been bombed, refugee camps targeted and yet the so-called leaders of the 'free' world continue to finance and support the genocide in Palestine," she said in a post on X.
"A ceasefire is the very least step that should be immediately enforced by the international community or it will have no moral authority left," the Congress leader also said.
Israeli warplanes struck a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip early Sunday, killing at least 33 people and wounding dozens, health officials said.
The strike came as Israel said it would press on with its offensive to crush the territory's Hamas rulers, despite U.S. appeals for a pause to get aid to desperate civilians.
The soaring death toll in Gaza has sparked growing international anger, with tens of thousands from Washington to Berlin taking to the streets Saturday to demand an immediate ceasefire.
Israel has rejected the idea of halting its offensive, even for brief humanitarian pauses proposed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his current tour of the region. Instead, it said that the besieged enclave’s Hamas rulers were “encountering the full force” of its troops.
“Anyone in Gaza City is risking their life,” Israel’s Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said.
From Washington to Milan to Paris, tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched Saturday, calling for a halt to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. The marches reflected growing disquiet about the mounting civilian casualty toll and suffering from the Israel-Hamas war. Protesters, particularly in countries with large Muslim populations, including the US, UK and France, expressed disillusionment with their governments for supporting Israel while its bombardments of hospitals and residential areas in the Gaza strip intensify. AP
Palestinian news agency WAFA said the Israeli military attacked a Gaza refugee camp on Saturday, killing 51 people, mostly women and children, as calls for a ceasefire by the Arab world were rejected by the United States and Israel.
“Anyone in Gaza City is risking their life,” Israel’s Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Arab foreign ministers in Jordan a day after talks in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who insisted there could be no temporary ceasefire until all hostages held by Hamas are released.
- Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Arab countries want an immediate ceasefire, saying “the whole region is sinking in a sea of hatred that will define generations to come.”
- Blinken, however, said “it is our view now that a cease-fire would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on October 7.” He said humanitarian pauses can be critical in protecting civilians, getting aid in and getting foreign nationals out, “while still enabling Israel to achieve its objective, the defeat of Hamas.”
Israeli military strikes killed multiple civilians Saturday at a UN shelter and hospital in the main combat zone in the Gaza Strip as the assault intensified on the besieged enclave’s Hamas rulers, amid growing international uproar over the soaring death toll and deepening humanitarian crisis.
Israel’s military said it had encircled Gaza City, the target of its offensive to crush Hamas, but on Saturday offered a three-hour window for residents trapped by the fighting to flee south.
The new attacks came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in the region seeking ways to ease the plight of civilians caught in the fighting. He met with Arab foreign ministers on Saturday in Jordan, the day after talks in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who insisted there could be no temporary cease-fire until all hostages held by Hamas are released. (Read More)
Speaking about the incident in Gaza where 15 people were killed due to an attack on an ambulance convoy, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres today said that he was 'horrified' by it.
'I am horrified by the reported attack in Gaza on an ambulance convoy outside Al Shifa hospital. Now, for nearly one month, civilians in Gaza, including children & women, have been besieged, denied aid, killed & bombed out of their homes. This must stop,' he psoted on X.
About 15 people were killed and 60 injured after Israeli troops struck an ambulance that was part of a convoy at Gaza’s biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, the Gaza health ministry said Friday.
Yemen's Houthi Rebels Join Palestine Conflict with Drone & Missile Strikes on Israel | Houthi Spokesperson Yahya Saree declared support for Palestinians in their latest attacks. While the distance makes a direct threat unlikely, the region is on high alert.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa announced a $65 million in humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip on Friday as she condemned attacks on civilians and promised Japan’s continued support for a two-state solution for the conflict.
Kamikawa met with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and her Palestinian counterpart, Riyad al-Maliki, during her visit to the region Friday, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
The aid will cover support for the Palestinians and supplies for the Gaza Strip, in addition to $10 million in emergency aid Japan announced earlier, she said.
Speaking to reporters in the Jordanian capital of Amman after her Israel visit, Kamikawa said she urged the Israeli and Palestinian ministers to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip and to calm the situation as soon as possible. (AP)
Lebanon's Hezbollah said it carried out simultaneous attacks on Israeli positions at the Lebanese border on Saturday, as residents of south Lebanon reported some of the fiercest Israeli strikes yet during weeks of cross-border clashes.
The Israeli army said its warplanes had struck Hezbollah targets in response to an earlier attack from Lebanese territory, and was accompanying the air strikes with artillery and tank shelling.
A Lebanese source familiar with Hezbollah's attacks said the group had fired a powerful missile not yet used in the fighting, saying it had hit an Israeli position across the border from the villages of Ayta al-Shaab and Rmeich.
Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces across the Lebanese-Israeli frontier since its Palestinian ally Hamas went to war with Israel on Oct. 7. It marks the worst fighting at the frontier since a 2006 war, but has mostly been contained to the border area. (Reuters)
According to Russia’s official stance on the war between Hamas and Israel, the US is to blame for the terrorist attack by militant Islamist organization Hamas. Moscow also assigns responsibility for tensions across the wider Middle East to the US. Conversely, Russia says it wants peace and is doing everything to end the war.
In reality, however, Russia’s interests diverge from its official position, Russian Middle East expert Ruslan Suleymanov told DW. It is clear Russia benefits from theIsrael-Hamas conflictand is interested in seeing it drag on, Suleymanov said. He added that it may welcome the conflict spilling over as this would harm its adversary, the US.
“Russia and China are rubbing their hands, watching with glee as the [Middle East] situation unfolds,” Suleymanov said. Russia will be pleased that “the US and other Western countries are now paying attention to the Middle East and no longer to Ukraine,” he added. (Read More)
Israeli media reports suggest that Shin Bet, the country’s internal security service along with the Mossad, tasked with foreign intelligence, have set up a special unit to track down the Hamas members who organised the deadly October 7 attack that killed more than 1,500 Israelis.
The name chosen for the task force is supposedly NILI — a Hebrew acronym for the Biblical phrase meaning ‘The Eternal One of Israel will not lie’. The unit takes on a symbolic value as well, sharing its name with the NILI espionage network which assisted the British in its fight against the Ottoman Empire in Palestine during the First World War.
Ahron Bregman, an Israeli political scientist at King’s College London who spent six years in the Israeli army tells France24, NILI’s operations are likely to resemble those of the Mossad during Operation Wrath of God, in which the agency tracked down the terrorists involved in the Munich Olympics massacre, killing them methodically over the span of 20 years. (Read More)
At least 9,488 Palestinians including 3,900 children have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said on Saturday.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the European Union (EU) had not taken a fair stance on the Israel-Hamas war and the situation in Gaza and as a result trust in the bloc had been "deeply shaken", broadcaster Haberturk and others reported on Saturday.
The support shown by European countries for Israel stemmed from "their debts" over the Holocaust, Erdogan added in comments to reporters on a return flight from Kazakhstan on Friday. (Reuters)
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan today said that Gaza must be part of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state once the Israel-Hamas war is over. He said Ankara would not support models "gradually erasing Palestinians from history".
Speaking to media on a return flight from Kazakhstan on Friday, Erdogan also said his intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin was in contact with Israeli and Palestinian authorities, as well as Hamas, broadcaster Haberturk and others reported.
He said he would not take Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a counterpart, but added Ankara would not sever its ties with Israel either, according to Haberturk. (Inputs from Reuters)
According to a Reuters report, an Israeli air strike on a UN-run school sheltering displaced people in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed 15 people and injured dozens more, said Mohammad Abu Selmeyah, the head of al-Shifa Hospital.
'There are 15 martyrs and the number is expected to increase,' said Abu Selmeyah, who is also an official in the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave.
The misinformation about the latest Israel-Hamas war is thriving on social media platforms, where misrepresented video footage, mistranslations and outright falsehoods often crowd out real reporting from the conflict. In recent weeks, users have pushed false claims that “crisis actors” are staging scenes of carnage and that US Marines are flooding in to fight on the ground in Gaza.
Here is a closer look at the latest misinformation spreading online — and the facts:
? CLAIM: Yemen has declared war against Israel.
THE FACTS: Yemen’s internationally recognized government has not declared war on Israel. Houthi rebels that control the country’s capital launched missiles at Israeli targets this week and threatened further attacks. But experts say the Iran-backed militia stopped short of declaring an all-out war against the Jewish state.
Social media users are sharing a video of a a military leader dressed in combat fatigues speaking in Arabic, which they say shows Yemen has become the first regional power to officially enter the latest Israel-Hamas war. “BREAKING: YEMEN DECLARED THEY ARE NOW AT WAR WITH ISRAEL,” wrote one user who shared the brief clip in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “The Republic of Yemen is the first country officially to announce its entry into the ‘Battle of the Flood’ of Al-Aqsa and launches a large number of ballistic and winged missiles and drones at a number of Israeli IOF targets inside occupied Palestine.” (Click here to read more)
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday said the October 7 attack on Israel by militant group Hamas was “a big act of terrorism” and is “unacceptable” but there is also an issue of Palestine which must be resolved through dialogue and negotiation.
Addressing the Joint Session of the Senate’s External Affairs and Defence Commission here, Jaishankar underlined that international humanitarian law must be respected by everybody.
“What happened on October 7, this big act of terrorism, the subsequent happenings after that, this has taken the entire region into a very different direction…the conflict cannot be the normal of that region, that it comes back to some stability, some cooperation. And within this, we have to find a balance between different issues,” he said in response to questions from senators at the session. (Read More)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stepped up his frantic diplomacy on Saturday, trying to build support for planning a post-conflict future for Gaza as he continued his second urgent mission to the Middle East since the Israel-Hamas conflict began.
A day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointedly snubbed Blinken’s blunt warning that Israel risks losing any hope of an eventual peace deal with the Palestinians unless it eases the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, he met in Amman with senior Jordanian and other Arab officials, who remain angry and deeply suspicious of Israel as it intensifies its war against Hamas.
Blinken met first with Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, whose economically and politically ravaged country is home to Hezbollah — an Iranian-backed force hostile to Israel. (Read More)
“Maya! Maya! Water! Water!” is now the refrain from people on Gaza streets, the Gaza director for the UNRWA, the United Nation's agency for Palestinian refugees, said Friday.
Thomas White described Gaza as "a scene of death and destruction.” No place is safe now, he said, and people fear for their lives, and their futures, and that they will not be able to feed their families.
UNRWA is supporting about 89 bakeries across Gaza aiming to get bread to 1.7 million people, White said in a video briefing to diplomats from the UN’s 193 member nations.
The average person in Gaza is living on two pieces of bread made from flour the UN had stockpiled in the territory, he said. But “now people are beyond looking for bread. It’s looking for water,” he said. (AP)
Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Amman on Saturday and emphasized the importance of working towards a ceasefire in Gaza and stopping Israeli aggression in southern Lebanon, Lebanon state news agency said.
Mikati also stressed Lebanon's commitment to international legitimacy and the implementation of UN Resolution 1701, calling on the international community to pressure Israel to cease its violations.
Blinken, in turn, emphasized his efforts to halt military operations for humanitarian reasons and to address the issue of prisoners.
Earlier, Blinken urged Israel on Friday to do everything in its power to protect civilians caught in the fighting in Gaza and ensure they receive humanitarian aid, while underscoring the country’s right to defend itself.
An Israeli drone has fired a missile at the Gaza house of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who is currently outside the enclave, Al-Aqsa Radio has reported.
It was unclear whether any of his family members were at the house when it was struck.
Haniyeh has been outside the Gaza Strip since 2019, residing between Turkey and Qatar.
The United Nations chief renewed his demand for a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, saying civilians “have been besieged, denied aid, killed and bombed out of their homes” for nearly one month in Israel's retaliation after Hamas' surprise attacks.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement late Friday that he is “horrified by the reported attack in Gaza on an ambulance convoy outside Al Shifa hospital,” calling the images of bodies strewn on the street “harrowing.” The secretary-general said international humanitarian law must be respected, including protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure — and not using civilians as human shields. He also called for the delivery of humanitarian supplies across Gaza “at a scale commensurate with this dramatic situation.”
Palestinians in Gaza have reported apparent Israeli airstrikes overnight into Saturday across the besieged enclave, including explosions in the south where Israel had told civilians to seek refuge as its ground operation intensifies in northern Gaza.
Calls for a humanitarian pause increased with the UNRWA, the United Nation's agency for Palestinian refugees, reporting the average Palestinian in Gaza is surviving on two pieces of bread a day, and only one of three water supply lines from Israel is operational.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday, “We are going full steam ahead” unless the hostages held by Hamas are released.
The average Gazan is living on two pieces of Arabic bread made from flour the UN had stockpiled in the region, yet the main refrain now being heard in the street is “Water, water,” the Gaza director for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Friday. Thomas White, who said he traveled “the length and breadth of Gaza in the last few weeks,” described the place as a "scene of death and destruction.” No place is safe now, he said, and people fear for their lives, their future and their ability to feed their families. AP
Hours after Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, the country's new fortified, subterranean blood bank kicked into action. Staffers moved equipment into the underground bunker and started saving lives.
The Marcus National Blood Services Center in Ramla, near Tel Aviv, had been scheduled to open within days, but with more than 1,400 people in Israel killed since the Hamas raids — most killed during the initial attack — the timeline changed.
How big is the blood bank?
Nestled some 15 meters (50 feet) underground at its lowest level, the $135-million, 6-story, state-of-the-art facility is protected from rockets, missiles, chemical attacks and earthquakes, ensuring blood processing can continue when it's needed most.
It is said the center provided tens of thousands of units of blood in the days that followed the Hamas attacks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday pushed back against growing US pressure for a “humanitarian pause” in the nearly month-old war to protect civilians and allow more aid into Gaza.
He reportedly insisted there would be no temporary cease-fire until the roughly 240 hostages held by Hamas are released.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made his third trip to Israel since the war began, reiterating American support for Israel's campaign to crush Hamas after its brutal Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel. He also echoed President Joe Biden's calls for a brief halt in the fighting to address a worsening humanitarian crisis.
Here’s the full statement:
“Around 4:05pm local time [14:05 GMT], a convoy of ambulances left Al-Shifa Hospital in a decision that was coordinated with the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.
The convoy, which was headed towards the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, included five ambulance vehicles: four belonged to the Health Ministry and one belonged to PRCS.
The convoy travelled about four kilometres from the hospital to the al-Rashid coastal road but found it was impassible due to rocks and a large amount of shelling in the area.
The vehicles returned towards the Al-Shifa Hospital; When they were about one kilometre from the facility, the first ambulance at the head of the convoy – which belonged to the Health Ministry – was directly hit.
The other vehicles continued towards the hospital. As soon as the first ambulance reached the gate of Al-Shifa Hospital, the front of the vehicle was hit. This attack killed 15 people and injured dozens.”
The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah warned the United States on Friday that preventing a regional war depended on stopping the Israeli attack on Gaza, and there was a realistic possibility of fighting on the Lebanese front turning into a “wide war”.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in his first speech since the Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7, also threatened Israel's main ally the United States, hinting his Iran-backed group was ready to confront US warships in the Mediterranean. “You, the Americans, can stop the aggression against Gaza because it is your aggression. Whoever wants to prevent a regional war, and I am talking to the Americans, must quickly halt the aggression on Gaza,” Nasrallah said.
“You, the Americans, know very well that if war breaks out in the region, your fleets will be of no use, nor will fighting from the air be of any benefit, and the one who will pay the price will be ... your interests, your soldiers and your fleets,” he said.
Referring to US warships in the Mediterranean, he said Hezbollah was not afraid of these. "I tell you with all sincerity, we have prepared well for your fleets, with which you are threatening us," he said.
The health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said scores of Palestinians were killed and injured on Friday in Israeli targeting of an ambulance convoy carrying critically wounded people in Gaza.
The health ministry spokesman, Ashraf Al-Qudra, earlier said they would send critically injured Palestinians who needed to be urgently transferred for treatment in Egypt from Gaza city and the north to the south.
The United States has been clear that it is determined there should not be a second or third front in the conflict, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday following meetings with Israeli leaders, adding that Washington is committed to deterring aggression from any party.
"With regard to Lebanon, with regard to Hezbollah, with regard to Iran - we have been very clear from the outset that we are determined that there not be a second or third front opened in this conflict," Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv in response to a question about whether the U.S. would be willing to use its firepower in the region on targets in Lebanon and Iran.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday discussed the situation in West Asia with UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed, and said they shared deep concerns over terrorism, the deteriorating security scenario and the loss of civilian lives in the region.
In a post on X, Modi said they agreed on the need for early resolution of the security and humanitarian situation and that a durable regional peace, security and stability is in everyone's interest.
The telephonic conversation between the two leaders came amid the Israel-Hamas conflict. They also reiterated their commitment to continue to strengthen bilateral cooperation in diverse areas within the framework of the India-UAE Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, a PMO statement added.
"Had a good conversation with my brother HH @MohamedBinZayed, President of UAE, on the West Asia situation. We share deep concerns at the terrorism, deteriorating security situation and loss of civilian lives," Modi said.
Hezbollah secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, praised “the glorious operation” carried out by Hamas, claiming that the attack has exposed “the frailty, weakness and total fragility of Israel. “It’s more fragile than a spider’s web,” he added.
He has also said that the attack, which was planned in secret by the Palestinian group, will have lasting consequences. “This glorious, seismic operation has caused an earthquake in terms of security, military, politics, diplomacy and even psychologically,” he said. “It will have profound strategic repercussions.”
Any “normal person” would be outraged by images of "bloodied children" in the Gaza Strip, but Russians need "to keep a clear head", Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.
Putin was commenting on a riot at Makhachkala airport in Russia's Muslim-majority Dagestan region that took place on Oct. 29, when hundreds of people stormed the airport in search of Jewish people who had just arrived on a flight from Tel-Aviv.
Putin has accused Ukraine and the West of stirring up the trouble, an allegation that Kyiv and Washington have rejected as false.
"As for these events in Makhachkala...it was easy to throw a spark, very easy. Against the background of the horrors taking place there (in Gaza), it is easy to do so, because...when you look at the suffering and bloodied children, you clench your fists and tears come to your eyes."
Putin added: "And that, I think, is the reaction of any normal person. And if there is no such reaction, then a person has no heart, it is made of stone. Despite that, we should process these events with a clear head and understand where the root of evil is."
Politicians from Thailand's Muslim minority have held talks with Hamas in an effort to secure the release of around a dozen Thai hostages held by the Palestinian Islamist group in Israeli-besieged Gaza, a former lawmaker said on Friday.
At least 23 Thai nationals were among more than 240 people taken captive by Hamas militants when they burst out of Gaza on October 7. The 23 Thais form the largest group of captives in Gaza from any single foreign country.
Areepen Uttarasin, a veteran Thai politician and former education minister, said he travelled to the Iranian capital Tehran and met senior Hamas officials there on October 26 for over two hours. “They told me that the Thai hostages are living comfortably and are out of danger," Areepen told Reuters, declining to name the Hamas officials he met. "I told them that I am here not to negotiate but simply to ask for their release.”
The parents of the wife of Scotland's leader are on a list to be evacuated from Gaza on Friday after being trapped in the besieged Palestinian territory since Hamas militants attacked Israel last month.
The Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt was opened for limited evacuations for a second day on Thursday under a Qatari-brokered deal aimed at letting some foreign passport holders, their dependents and some wounded Gazans out of the enclave.
A list of approved evacuees posted online by the Rafah border crossings authority included Elizabeth and Maged El-Nakla, the parents of the wife of Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf. Yousaf, 38, has said his wife's parents were trapped in Gaza as they were visiting family when Hamas attacked Israel last month. Israel has bombed the enclave daily since then, killing more than 9,000 Palestinians as a humanitarian crisis unfolds.
He told Reuters last month that the couple were fast running out of food and drinking water and could die if they were not able to leave soon.
Israel sent thousands of Palestinians back to besieged Gaza on Friday, pursuing a crackdown on workers and labourers from the territory who had previously been given permits to take jobs in Israel and the occupied West Bank.
Large numbers of workers returned through the Kerem Shalom crossing east of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, which has been pounded by Israeli jets and tanks for weeks since the October 7 attack on southwestern Israel by gunmen of the territory's ruling Hamas group.
“We used to serve them, work for them, in houses, in restaurants, and in markets in return for the lowest wages, and despite that we have now been humiliated,” said Jamal Ismail, a worker from the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza.
Israel previously issued more than 18,000 permits allowing Gazans to cross into Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank to take jobs in sectors like agriculture or construction that typically carried salaries up to 10 times what a worker could earn in the blockaded Gaza Strip.
However, the system has been scrapped as Israel has reversed its previous policy of offering economic incentives to stability and instead mounted a combined air and ground offensive to eradicate the militant Hamas movement that controls Gaza.
At least 9,227 Palestinians, including 3,826 children, have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Hamas-run health ministry in the territory said on Friday.
Global calls for a “humanitarian pause” in the Israel-Hamas war have gone unheeded, preventing anything more than a trickle of humanitarian aid from entering Israeli-besieged Gaza as shortages of food, fuel, drinking water and medicine worsen.
Here is a rundown of what some U.N. agencies call a "humanitarian catastrophe" enveloping the tiny Hamas-ruled enclave of 2.3 million people.
? Displacement
Nearly 1.5 million people - more than half the population of the Gaza Strip — have fled their homes, with nearly 700,000 sheltering in buildings run by the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), the U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA) says. On November 2, four UNRWA shelters were hit, killing at least 23 people, OCHA said.
Israel has called on civilians in north Gaza - the heart of Hamas' forces - to evacuate to the south for their own safety, though the south has also been hammered by Israeli air strikes that have killed and injured non-combatants.
?Hospitals
Over a third of Gaza's 35 hospitals are not functioning and those still in service report dire fuel shortages that have severely reduced their electricity supply, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.
Gaza health authorities reported that on Nov. 2 the main electricity generator of the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza ceased to operate due to a lack of fuel, OCHA said, "exposing hundreds of patients with serious injuries to imminent risk of death or lifelong disabilities".
Already, the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital in Gaza City which treats cancer patients has run out of fuel and is no longer operational, according to WHO. Israel is talking to medical agencies about setting up field hospitals in southern Gaza, an official said on Thursday.
The WHO has documented 93 attacks in the Gaza Strip since the conflict began, killing 16 on-duty health care workers and damaging or destroying 28 ambulances.
? Aid Deliveries
On November 2, 102 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies entered Gaza through the Rafah border crossing from Egypt, OCHA said. This is the biggest since aid deliveries resumed on Oct. 21, bringing the total number of trucks that entered to 374.
Previously, only about 14 trucks a day were entering Gaza, according to Reuters' calculations. Before the hostilities erupted on Oct. 7, some 400 trucks were going into Gaza daily.
Water
One of three water supply lines to Gaza from Israel has been restored for the first time since Oct. 8, OCHA said.
The operation of water wells and desalination plants in the southern half of Gaza stopped almost completely on Nov. 2, after their fuel reserves all but ran out.
Fuel
Aid groups say fuel is urgently needed to distribute aid and to power hospitals, bakeries and desalination plants. But the entry of fuel remains banned by Israel which says it could be diverted to Hamas for military purposes.
The United Nations rights office on Friday described the situation in the West Bank as "alarming", saying Israeli forces were increasingly using military tactics and weapons in law enforcement operations there.
"While much attention has been on the attacks inside Israel and the escalation of hostilities in Gaza since the 7th of October, the situation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is alarming and urgent," said Liz Throssell, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
She added that at least 132 Palestinians, including 41 children, were killed in the West Bank, 124 of those by Israeli forces and some eight by settlers. Two Israeli soldiers were also killed.
The misinformation about the latest Israel-Hamas war is thriving on social media platforms, where misrepresented video footage, mistranslations and outright falsehoods often crowd out real reporting from the conflict. In recent weeks, users have pushed false claims that “crisis actors” are staging scenes of carnage and that US Marines are flooding in to fight on the ground in Gaza. Click Here to read about the claims and the facts.
The United Nations humanitarian office said on Friday the cost of meeting the needs of people in Gaza and the West Bank was estimated at $1.2 billion.
“The cost of meeting the needs of 2.7 million people — that is the entire population of Gaza and 500,000 people in the occupied West Bank - is estimated to be $1.2 billion,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. On October 12, OCHA had initially appealed for $294 million to support nearly 1.3 million people. “The situation has grown increasingly desperate since then,” it said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv on Friday to push for humanitarian pauses in the Gaza war for aid to flow in after Israel said its troops had surrounded the Palestinian enclave's biggest city, the focus of its drive to wipe out Hamas. Israeli forces again pounded the Gaza Strip from ground, sea and air throughout the night amid global alarm over horrendous conditions inside the besieged territory and rising number of deaths of Palestinian civilians.
Allied militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad said their fighters had detonated explosive devices against advancing troops, dropped grenades from drones, and fired mortars and anti-tank rockets in fierce urban warfare around destroyed buildings.
Blinken, on his second trip to Israel in a month, is due to discuss with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in Gaza, where food, fuel, water and medicine are running out, buildings have been flattened, and thousands of people have fled homes to escape relentless bombings.
The White House said any pauses in fighting should be temporary and localised. It has dismissed calls from Arab and several other nations for a full ceasefire in the war, now in its 28th day.
Israeli media reports suggest that Shin Bet, the country’s internal security service along with the Mossad, tasked with foreign intelligence, have set up a special unit to track down the Hamas members who organised the deadly October 7 attack that killed more than 1,500 Israelis.
The name chosen for the task force is supposedly NILI — a Hebrew acronym for the Biblical phrase meaning ‘The Eternal One of Israel will not lie’. The unit takes on a symbolic value as well, sharing its name with the NILI espionage network which assisted the British in its fight against the Ottoman Empire in Palestine during the First World War.
Ahron Bregman, an Israeli political scientist at King’s College London who spent six years in the Israeli army tells France24, NILI’s operations are likely to resemble those of the Mossad during Operation Wrath of God, in which the agency tracked down the terrorists involved in the Munich Olympics massacre, killing them methodically over the span of 20 years. (Read more)
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar today described Israel's actions in Gaza as "something approaching revenge", in some of the strongest criticism of Israel by a leader of a European Union member state.
"I strongly believe that ... Israel has the right to defend itself, has the right to go after Hamas, that they cannot do this again," Varadkar told journalists during a visit to South Korea, according to comments broadcast by state radio RTE.
"What I'm seeing unfolding at the moment isn't just self-defence. It looks, resembles something more approaching revenge," Varadkar said. "That's not where we should be." (Reuters)