The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken arrives in Tel Aviv today and is expected to urge the Israeli government to agree to pauses to the fighting in Gaza, according to the White House.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the US was not advocating for a general cease-fire but a “temporary, localized” pause.
Departing the Washington, Blinken said he would discuss concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in Gaza during his visit to Israel.
Since Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October killing 1,400 Israelis, at least 9,061 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, and more than 32,000 people have been wounded, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday. The death toll is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence, the Associated Press reports.
More than 3,700 Palestinian children have been killed in 25 days of fighting - more than six times the 560 children that the UN had reported killed in 19 months of war in Ukraine as of 8 October.
Bombardment has driven more than half the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes. Food, water and fuel are running low under Israel’s siege, and overwhelmed hospitals warn they are on the verge of collapse.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Israel, Reuters reports.
On Friday afternoon, Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah is to make a highly anticipated speech. The head of the influential Iran-backed Shia militant group will break weeks of silence with a broadcast from Beirut, which comes in the wake of a rise in violence on Israel’s northern border.
Hezbollah said on Thursday it had simultaneously attacked 19 positions in Israel on Thursday evening. The clashes have so far been mostly contained to the frontier, and Hezbollah has used only a fraction of the firepower that Nasrallah has been threatening with Israel for years.
According to some estimates, about 50 Hezbollah fighters have died since 7 October in exchanges in which it has tried to target Israeli positions with anti-tank missiles.
US national security spokesperson Kirby said of Nasrallah’s speech: “I don’t believe we’ve seen any indication yet specifically that Hezbollah is ready to go in full force. So we’ll see what he has to say.”
Following Joe Biden’s stated support for a pause in fighting to allow time for hostage releases, US national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday the White House was exploring the idea of “as many pauses as might be necessary to continue to get aid out and to continue to work to get people out safely, including hostages”.
The White House has said any pauses in fighting should be temporary and localised, and insisted they would not stop Israel defending itself.
Blinken is due to meet Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi in Amman on Saturday. In a statement, Safadi said Israel must end the war on Gaza, where he said it was committing war crimes by bombing civilians and imposing a siege.
Concerns that the UK Foreign Office has neglected the Israel-Palestine conflict in its tilt to the Indo-Pacific and the pursuit of trade deals across the Middle East is to be investigated by the Commons foreign affairs select committee.
Alicia Kearns, the chair of the committee, which will start holding evidence sessions on the issue in November, has been one of the most prominent MPs warning that a crisis was brewing that required greater attention and a more robust approach from the UK towards Israel’s new government.
Critics argue that the UK government, along with others, missed the danger signals and invested in an unconditional and one-sided relationship with Israel that did not acknowledge how different the government elected in November was to its predecessors:
Here is our full report on what we can expect from Blinken’s visit to Israel:
US secretary of state Antony Blinken was due in Israel on Friday and was expected to call for localised pauses in fighting to allow aid into Gaza, as Israel’s military said it had surrounded the Palestinian enclave’s biggest city and was moving further into the centre and fighting in close quarters.
As Blinken left Washington, he said he would discuss concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in Gaza when he holds talks with Benjamin Netanyahu. It is his second meeting with Israel’s prime minister since the war began nearly a month ago, when Hamas militants killed 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, and took more than 240 hostages.
Since then, Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Gaza have killed at least 9,061 people, including 3,760 children, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday, drawing warnings from independent United Nations experts that Palestinians in the territory were at “grave risk of genocide”.
Thailand said it is in touch with Iran and other governments that can make contact with Hamas for the safe release of nearly two dozen Thai nationals being held hostage, Reuters reports.
Thailand’s Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara said on Friday that Iran, which is close to Hamas, had promised to help with negotiations.
Gulf Arab power the United Arab Emirates warned on Friday that there was a real risk of a regional spillover from the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, adding that it was working “relentlessly” to secure a humanitarian ceasefire, Reuters reports.
“As we continue working to stop this war we cannot ignore the wider context and the necessity to turn down the regional temperature that is approaching a boiling point,” Noura al-Kaabi, a minister of state for foreign affairs, told a policy conference in the capital, Abu Dhabi.
“The risk of regional spillover and further escalation is real, as well as the risk that extremist groups will take advantage of the situation to advance ideologies that will keep us locked in cycles of violence.”
Reuters: The Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt is due to open for a third day on Friday for limited evacuations under a Qatari-brokered deal aimed at letting some foreign passport holders, their dependents and some wounded Gazans out of the enclave.
According to border officials, more than 700 foreign citizens left for Egypt via Rafah on the two previous days. Dozens of critically injured Palestinians were to cross too. Israel asked foreign countries to send hospital ships for them.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken arrives in Tel Aviv today and is expected to urge the Israeli government to agree to pauses to the fighting in Gaza, according to the White House.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the US was not advocating for a general cease-fire but a “temporary, localized” pause.
Departing the Washington, Blinken said he would discuss concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in Gaza during his visit to Israel.
Since Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October killing 1,400 Israelis, at least 9,061 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, and more than 32,000 people have been wounded, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday. The death toll is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence, the Associated Press reports.
More than 3,700 Palestinian children have been killed in 25 days of fighting - more than six times the 560 children that the UN had reported killed in 19 months of war in Ukraine as of 8 October.
Bombardment has driven more than half the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes. Food, water and fuel are running low under Israel’s siege, and overwhelmed hospitals warn they are on the verge of collapse.
This is the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war with me, Helen Sullivan.
The top developments this morning: the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken arrives in Tel Aviv today and is expected to urge the Israeli government to agree to pauses to the fighting in Gaza, according to the White House.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the US was not advocating for a general cease-fire but a “temporary, localized” pause.
Departing the Washington, Blinken said he would discuss concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in Gaza during his visit to Israel.
Since Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October killing 1,400 Israelis, at least 9,061 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, and more than 32,000 people have been wounded, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday. The death toll is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence, the Associated Press reports.
More than 3,700 Palestinian children have been killed in 25 days of fighting - more than six times the 560 children that the UN had reported killed in 19 months of war in Ukraine as of 8 October.
Bombardment has driven more than half the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes. Food, water and fuel are running low under Israel’s siege, and overwhelmed hospitals warn they are on the verge of collapse.
Here are the key recent developments:
Israeli forces have “completed the encirclement of Gaza City” and are fighting “with full force”, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said. The chief of staff of the IDF, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, said troops are surrounding it from several directions and “deepening” the ground offensive inside the city. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israeli forces had pushed through the outskirts of Gaza City. “We’re at the height of the battle,” he said.
At least 9,061 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, including 3,760 children, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday. The current conflict began on 7 October when Hamas launched an onslaught on southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and swept up hundreds more as hostages. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify figures from either Israeli or Palestinian authorities.
In the US, the Republican-led lower chamber of Congress has passed a $14bn aid package for Israel, defying President Joe Biden’s request to also include more money for Ukraine and other pressing priorities. The bill, which diverts funding budgeted to the US tax collection agency, is almost certain to fail in the Democratic-controlled Senate, while Biden has also threatened to veto it.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said four of its schools in Gaza that are being used as shelters have been damaged in less than 24 hours. At least 20 people have reportedly been killed and five others injured on Thursday after a school that is being used as a shelter was damaged at the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, the agency said in its latest update. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said at least 27 people were killed in a blast near a UN school in the Jabalia camp on Thursday.
At least 15 people have been killed after a blast in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Thursday, the health ministry said. A spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence said the blast took place in a residential building, and residents reported scores of people trapped beneath the rubble.
Eighteen Israeli soldiers have been killed amid fierce fighting in Gaza, the IDF said, in a series of incidents that have underlined the mounting challenges facing the IDF in their attempts to push further into built-up areas of Gaza. The dead include Lt Col Salman Habaka, an Israeli tank commander who was hailed a hero for his actions during Hamas’s attack on Be’eri kibbutz.
A journalist working for the Palestinian Authority’s television channel was killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza, his network reported. Mohammed Abu Hatab was killedalong with 11 members of his family in their home, the authority’s official news agency WAFA reported. He is the 36th journalist killed in the conflict, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, said it had attacked 19 positions in Israelon Thursday evening. The strikes came hours after Hezbollah said it had used two drones packed with explosives to attack an Israeli army command position in the disputed Shebaa Farms area on the Lebanese-Israeli border earlier in the day. It is the first time Hezbollah has acknowledged carrying out an attack against Israeli forces using such dronese.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened for a second day to allow the evacuation of some injured Palestinians and foreign passport holders. British nationals were able to get out of Gaza on Thursday, the UK Foreign Office confirmed. The US has been able to get 74 dual citizens out of Gaza, Joe Biden said. A total of 400 foreign passport holders as well as 60 severely wounded Palestinians were due to cross by the end of Thursday, a spokesperson for the Palestinian side of the crossing said.
A Japanese military plane departed Israel late on Thursday carrying 46 passengers including 20 Japanese nationals, the Japanese foreign ministry said. Passengers aboard also included 15 South Koreans, four Vietnamese and one Taiwanese, the ministry said on Friday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was “almost impossible” to bring humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. The WHO’s emergencies director, Michael Ryan, said the basic safety of staff could not be guaranteed at the moment. WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the situation in Gaza was “indescribable”.
A group of United Nations experts have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, warning that “time is running out” as Palestinian people there find themselves at “grave risk of genocide”. In a statement, they expressed “deep frustration with Israel’s refusal to halt plans to decimate” the Gaza Strip and said they felt “deepening horror” about Israeli airstrikes against the Jabalia refugee camp.
The US will not seek to impose any conditions on the support it gives Israel to defend itself in the wake of the Hamas attacks of 7 October, vice-president Kamala Harris said on Thursday. She refused to comment on Israel’s bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp, adding: “We are not telling Israel how it should conduct this war.”
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2023-11-03 05:05:00Z
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