Israel-Hamas war live: no ceasefire or hostage release before Friday, Israeli and US officials say - The Guardian

A long-awaited hostage and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas won’t take effect before Friday, US and Israeli officials have said, dashing the hopes of families who thought captives may be freed earlier and prolonging the suffering of Palestinians under bombardment in Gaza.

“The contacts on the release of our hostages are advancing and continuing constantly,” Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said in a statement. “The start of the release will take place according to the original agreement between the sides, and not before Friday.”

Multiple news outlets later cited anonymous Israeli officials as saying that the halt in fighting would not begin on Thursday either, as had been widely expected.

White House spokesperson Adrienne Watson later said final logistical details for the release were being worked out. “That is on track and we are hopeful that implementation will begin on Friday morning,” Watson said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the delay. The deal had been expected to come into force from Thursday. An Egyptian security source told Reuters that mediators had sought a start time of 10am.

Here’s our full report on the deal:

British foreign secretary David Cameron has made some comments to the media while visiting kibbutz Be’eri, which was the scene of some of the worst violence during the Hamas assault inside Israel on 7 October.

The former prime minister said:

I wanted to come here to see it for myself; I have heard and seen things I will never forget.

Today is also a day where we hope to see progress on the humanitarian pause. This is a crucial opportunity to get hostages out and aid in to Gaza, to help Palestinian civilians who are facing a growing humanitarian crisis.

Cameron was accompanied by Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen, who said “World leaders need to see the horrors of Hamas with their own eyes.”

Earlier the IDF posted to its Telegram channel that “a number of launches were detected from Lebanese territory towards Israeli territory.”

Haaretz is now reporting that Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for firing 48 rockets towards the Upper Galilee region in Israel’s north.

There are, to date, no reports of any casualties.

A Palestinian official told AFP on Thursday a delay in implementation of a truce in the Gaza Strip between Israeli forces and Hamas was due to “last minute” details over which hostages would be released and how.

The truce, widely expected to go into force on Thursday but delayed during the night, had been put back over “the names of the Israeli hostages and the modalities of their release”, said the official, who has knowledge of the negotiation process but asked to remain anonymous.

Lists of those to be freed had been exchanged by both sides, he added. Questions were also being raised over Red Cross access to the hostages before they would be released into Egypt, he said, and whether the Red Cross would have access to those who remained.

A senior Hamas official reached by phone told AFP there were “obstacles linked to the situation on the ground”, hoping that there would not be “a mistake that has a negative impact on the truce or prevent it happening”.

But “mediators are shuttling between the two sides and the atmosphere is still constructive”, he added.

Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by the Hamas-led government, has told Associated Press it has resumed its detailed count of casualties from the Israel-Hamas war in the territory.

The director of the health ministry, Medhat Abbas, confirmed the resumption, saying it has documented more than 13,000 deaths.

The latest count is based on updated figures from hospitals in the south and 11 November figures from the northern hospitals. The real toll, it said, is likely higher.

The health ministry says another 6,000 people have been reported missing, and are feared buried under the rubble.

The health ministry had stopped updating its figures on 11 November after the breakdown of access and communication in northern Gaza.

It is 11am in Gaza City and in Tel Aviv. Here are the latest headlines …

• A long-awaited hostage and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas won’t take effect before Friday, US and Israeli officials have said, dashing the hopes of families who thought captives may be freed earlier and prolonging the suffering of Palestinians under bombardment in Gaza. It was not immediately clear what caused the delay. The deal had been expected to come into force from Thursday.

• Under the agreement, Hamas will free at least 50 of the more than 240 mostly Israeli hostages they took on 7 October. In turn, Israel will release at least 150 Palestinian prisoners and allow up to 300 trucks of humanitarian aid into Gaza after more than six weeks of bombardment, heavy fighting and a crippling blockade of fuel, food, medicine and other essentials.

• The Israeli military (IDF) says it struck more than 300 “Hamas terror targets” in total over the past day. In a Telegram post the IDF said it had struck “military command centres, underground terror tunnels, weapon storage facilities, weapon manufacturing sites and anti-tank missile posts”.

• The chief of the general staff of Israel’s armed forces has told soldiers “we are not ending the war”. In comments to brigade commanders inside Gaza released to the media, Herzi Halevi said: “We are not ending the war. We will continue until we are victorious, going forward and continuing in other Hamas areas. I’m very proud of you, you are doing an outstanding job.”

• The Israeli offensive in Gaza has so far killed between 13,000 and 14,000 people, thousands of them children, according to Palestinian officials. More are thought to be under rubble. Israel launched the assault after the Hamas attacks on 7 October inside Israel, which killed at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and during which an estimated 240 people were taken hostage. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.

• Sarbini Abdul Murad, the head of the Indonesian charity Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, has said: “The Indonesia hospital in Gaza is now empty. The doctors and the wounded were moved to the European hospital. Our volunteers are sheltering at a school with thousands of others.”

• In another development, unconfirmed reports say the director of the al-Shifa hospital has been detained by Israeli forces.

• The US says it has downed drones in the Red Sea that had been launched from Yemen.

• Israel’s military spokesperson, Danial Hagari, has said the IDF has again attacked targets inside Lebanon. There had been indications yesterday that while it was not a direct part of the Israel-Hamas deal, Hezbollah would respect a truce period on the northern boundary between Israel and Lebanon. The IDF reported “a number of launches” from Lebanon into Israel.

• The British foreign secretary, David Cameron, is in Israel, where he has visited kibbutz Be’eri, one of the sites attacked by Hamas on 7 October in an assault that one of the survivors described as a “pogrom”.

• Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, on Thursday said his country is in favour of the recognition of a viable Palestinian state “in the very short term”.

• Germany’s interior ministry said 15 properties of members and supporters of Hamas and another Palestinian organisation – Samidoun had been raided in four regions. The groups are banned in the country. There are an estimated 450 Hamas members in Germany, according to official figures.

Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy has been appearing on television in the UK, where he told viewers that Hamas could choose to release any of the hostages it holds at any time, and that it did not have to be contingent on a deal.

He said on Sky News that the delay in releasing hostages was “heartbreaking”, saying:

You know, Hamas could release the hostages now. It could have released them yesterday. It could have released them on 7 October. And every moment that it chooses not to release those vulnerable little children is a moment that it continues to psychologically terrorise these children’s families.

They’ve been holding them in the dark and they’ve been keeping their families in the dark. Their families know nothing about their condition. Physically, mentally, emotionally. You know, maybe even worse, these children don’t know what has happened to their families.

This hostage crisis is intensely personal for everyone in Israel. We’re a small country. Everyone knows someone who has had someone stolen from them. And we’re hoping to begin bringing back our stolen children, bring back those hostages, and we’re committed to the pledge that we will bring all of them back, and there will be no one left behind.

Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Gaza and Israel.

The UK’s shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has said she urges Hamas to “finally do the right thing” and release the hostages it is holding.

Speaking on Sky News, she said:

[For] all hostages and their families [it] is just so awful. It’s 7 October. It’s weeks now. Not knowing. Not hearing the conditions of the person you love the most and particularly the children, but also for elderly people who need access to medicine. And they’ve been locked in tunnels in who knows what conditions.

So much hope yesterday that prisoners were going to be released today. Let’s hope it’s tomorrow. Let’s hope that deal can be got across the line.

It is so important that the hostages are released, but also that support is getting into Gaza, but that won’t happen until the hostages are released.

So I urge Hamas, a terrorist organisation, to finally do the right thing and release those hostages.

Al Jazeera is reporting that the Indonesia hospital in Gaza has been evacuated.

It quotes Sarbini Abdul Murad, head of the Indonesian charity Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER-C), saying:

The Indonesia hospital is now empty, and our volunteers have been moved to a school near the European hospital in Rafah. The doctors and the wounded were moved to the European hospital. Our volunteers are sheltering at a school with thousands of others.

More details soon …

The chief of the general staff of Israel’s armed forces has told soldiers “we are not ending the war”.

In comments released by Israel’s military, Herzi Halevi, speaking to brigade commanders inside Gaza, said:

We are trying to connect the goals of the war, so that the pressure from the ground operation brings about the ability to also achieve the goal of this war, to create the conditions for the release of the abducted hostages. We are not ending the war. We will continue until we are victorious, going forward and continuing in other Hamas areas. I’m very proud of you, you are doing an outstanding job.

The Israeli offensive has killed between 13,000 and 14,000 people, thousands of them children, according to Palestinian officials. More are thought to be under rubble.

Israel launched the assault after the Hamas attacks on 7 October inside Israel, which killed at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and during which an estimated 240 people were taken hostage.

It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.

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2023-11-23 09:06:00Z
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Dutch election: Anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders wins dramatic victory - BBC

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By Paul Kirby & Anna Holligan

BBC News, The Hague

Veteran anti-Islam populist leader Geert Wilders has won a dramatic victory in the Dutch general election, with almost all votes counted.

After 25 years in parliament, his Freedom party (PVV) is set to win 37 seats, well ahead of his nearest rival, a left-wing alliance.

"The PVV can no longer be ignored," he said. "We will govern."

His win has shaken Dutch politics and it will send a shock across Europe too.

But to fulfil his pledge to be "prime minister for everyone", he will have to persuade other parties to join him in a coalition. His target is 76 seats in the 150-seat parliament.

Mr Wilders, 60, harnessed widespread frustration about migration promising "borders closed", and he put on hold his promise to ban the Koran.

He was in combative mood in his victory speech: "We want to govern and... we will govern. [The seat numbers are] an enormous compliment but an enormous responsibility too."

Before the vote, the three other big parties ruled out taking part in a Wilders-led government because of his far-right policies. But that might change because of the scale of his victory.

The left-wing alliance under ex-EU commissioner Frans Timmermans has come a distant second with 25 seats, according to a forecast based on 94% of the vote.

He made clear he would have nothing to do with a Wilders-led government, promising to defend Dutch democracy and rule of law. "We won't let anyone in the Netherlands go. In the Netherlands everyone is equal," he told supporters.

That leaves third-placed centre-right liberal VVD under new leader Dilan Yesilgöz, and a brand new party formed by whistleblower MP Pieter Omtzigt in fourth.

Mr Wilders made a direct appeal to his political rivals to work together, and both Ms Yesilgöz and Mr Omtzigt congratulated him on his success.

Although Ms Yesilgöz doubts Mr Wilders will be able to find the numbers he needs, she says it is up to her party colleagues to decide how to respond. Before the election she insisted she would not serve in a Wilders-led cabinet, but did not rule out working with him if she won.

Mr Omtzigt said initially his New Social Contract party would not work with Mr Wilders, but now says they are "available to turn this trust [of voters] into action".

REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

A Wilders victory will send shockwaves around Europe, as the Netherlands is one of the founding members of what became the European Union.

Nationalist and far-right leaders around Europe praised his achievement. In France, Marine Le Pen said it "confirms the growing attachment to the defence of national identities".

Mr Wilders wants to hold a referendum to leave the EU, dubbed a "Nexit", although he recognises there is no national mood to do so. He will have a hard time convincing any major prospective coalition partner to sign up to that.

He tempered his anti-Islam rhetoric in the run-up to the vote, saying there were more pressing issues at the moment and he was prepared to "put in the fridge" his policies on banning mosques and Islamic schools.

The strategy was a success, more than doubling his PVV party's numbers in parliament.

During the campaign Mr Wilders took advantage of widespread dissatisfaction with the previous government, which collapsed in a disagreement over asylum rules.

• Dutch election promises new political era

For political scientist Martin Rosema from the University of Twente, it was one of several gifts that had been handed to Mr Wilders on a plate in a matter of months. Another was that the centre-right liberal leader had opened the door to working with him in coalition.

"We know, also from international precedent, that radical right-wing parties fare worse when they're excluded," he said.

Migration became one of the main themes, and Mr Wilders made clear on Wednesday he intended to tackle a "tsunami of asylum and immigration".

Last year net migration into the Netherlands more than doubled beyond 220,000, partly because of refugees fleeing Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But the issue has been aggravated by a shortage of some 390,000 homes.

At the Hague headquarters of Ms Yesilgöz's VVD, supporters had been preparing to raise their glasses at the prospect of the Netherlands' first female prime minister.

Reuters

But there was a collective gasp of disbelief when the exit polls flashed up on the screens and they huddled over their phones trying to understand what went wrong.

Ms Yesilgöz took over as centre-right leader when the country's longest-serving prime minister, Mark Rutte, bowed out of politics in July. She came to the Netherlands as a seven-year-old refugee from Turkey but has adopted a hard line on immigration.

Some politicians and Muslim figures have accused her of opening the door to the far right by refusing to rule out working with Geert Wilders.

Ms Yesilgöz, 46, had tried to distance herself from the Rutte government in which she was justice minister, but ultimately she was unable to live up to the opinion polls.

Right up to the eve of the election, almost half of the electorate were being described as floating voters. Many of those may well have decided not to back her.

A measure of Mr Wilders' success in winning over voters came from one Muslim voter in The Hague who said: "If he wasn't so opposed to Muslims, I'd be interested in him."

Hours before the vote, Mr Wilders was buoyant about his chances, telling the BBC. "I think it's the first time ever in Holland that in one week we gained 10 seats in the polls."

He was realistic about the uphill task he faced in forming a government led by him, but he said he was a positive person and victory would make it "difficult for the other parties to ignore us".

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• Netherlands

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2023-11-23 08:04:16Z
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Israel-Hamas war live: no ceasefire or hostage release before Friday, Israeli and US officials say - The Guardian

A long-awaited hostage and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas won’t take effect before Friday, US and Israeli officials have said, dashing the hopes of families who thought captives may be freed earlier and prolonging the suffering of Palestinians under bombardment in Gaza.

“The contacts on the release of our hostages are advancing and continuing constantly,” Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said in a statement. “The start of the release will take place according to the original agreement between the sides, and not before Friday.”

Multiple news outlets later cited anonymous Israeli officials as saying that the halt in fighting would not begin on Thursday either, as had been widely expected.

White House spokesperson Adrienne Watson later said final logistical details for the release were being worked out. “That is on track and we are hopeful that implementation will begin on Friday morning,” Watson said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the delay. The deal had been expected to come into force from Thursday. An Egyptian security source told Reuters that mediators had sought a start time of 10am.

Here’s our full report on the deal:

The US says that it has downed drones in the Red Sea that had been launched from Yemen.

Yemen’s Houthis have vowed to continue targeting Israel and what it deems Israeli assets. On Monday Houthi rebels said they had seized what they called an Israeli cargo ship in the Red Sea, and warned that all vessels linked to Israel “will become a legitimate target for armed forces”.

Israel’s military spokesperson Danial Hagari has said the IDF has again attacked targets inside Lebanon.

He wrote: “IDF aircraft spotted and attacked an anti-tank squad … At the same time, the IDF force attacked the squad with artillery. Following the warnings in the northern part of the country, a number of launches were detected from Lebanese territory towards Israeli territory.”

The claims have not been independently verified.

There had been indications yesterday that while it was not a direct part of the Israel-Hamas deal, Hezbollah would respect a truce period on the northern boundary between Israel and Lebanon if Israel did. There have been daily exchanges of fire over the UN-drawn blue line that separates the two countries since the 7 October Hamas attack inside Israel.

Al Jazeera reports that Munir al-Bursh, the director-general of Gaza’s health ministry, has said Israel has given four hour’s notice to evacuate the Indonesian hospital.

The claims have not been independently verified.

As part of his visit to Israel, the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, has been taken to kibbutz Be’eri, one of the sites attacked by Hamas on 7 October in an assault that one of the survivors described as a “pogrom”.

The British foreign secretary, David Cameron, is due to visit the Middle East on Thursday and meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Britain’s Foreign Office said in a statement, Reuters reports.

The former prime minister was appointed to the foreign policy brief last week by Rishi Sunak after he moved James Cleverly to the Home Office following the sacking of Suella Braverman for her criticisms of the way London’s police were handling pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Cameron met counterparts from Arab and Islamic countries in London on Wednesday to discuss the Israel-Hamas conflict. In a briefing, the group – from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Turkey, Nigeria and Palestine – said western powers on the UN security council face a choice of either demanding Israel lift its stranglehold on humanitarian aid into Gaza or being complicit in Israeli war crimes and collective punishment.

In case you missed it earlier, here’s an excerpt from an analysis by our world affairs editor, Julian Borger, and our correspondents Jason Burke and Ruth Michaelson on how the hostage and truce deal was reached:

The first sign that Hamas was interested in a hostage deal came only a few days after its 7 October attack in which its gunmen killed 1,200 Israelis and took about 240 captive. The government in Qatar approached the White House to convey Hamas’s interest in negotiations, and suggested that a dedicated cell be set up involving a handful of US, Qatari and Israeli representatives, according to senior US officials.

Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, designated his Middle East coordinator, Brett McGurk, and Josh Geltzer, the deputy White House counsel, to set up the cell, which was kept secret from the rest of the administration on Israeli and Qatari insistence.

Biden and his team were focused in particular on 10 US nationals who had not been accounted for and were presumed to be among the hostages. On 13 October, the US president held a Zoom call with their families. A senior administration official said colleagues on the call described it as “one of the most gut-wrenching things they’ve experienced in their time here”.

When Biden visited Israel five days later, he met the families of hostages in person, and their release was a main focus of his face-to-face meeting with Netanyahu, according to US officials. Three Americans were included in the final deal on Wednesday.

Alongside Biden’s personal commitment, the White House came to see the hostage issue as the most likely route to persuading the Israeli government to ease its onslaught on Gaza, which had flattened entire residential districts and killed thousands of Palestinian civilians.

The Israeli military (IDF) says it struck more than 300 “Hamas terror targets” in total over the past day.

In a Telegram post the IDF said it had struck “military command centres, underground terror tunnels, weapon storage facilities, weapon manufacturing sites and anti-tank missile posts”.

It also said Israeli forces were currently striking Jabiliya in northern Gaza, where dozens of people were reported killed on Wednesday.

As we reported earlier, about 50 of the victims in Jabiliya on Wednesday were from the same family, according to Riyad al-Maliki, the Palestinian foreign minister.

The German interior ministry says it is conducting searches in four federal states in relation to formerly announced bans of activities of Hamas, already a designated terrorist organisation in the country, as well as pro-Palestinian group Samidoun, Reuters reports.

“We continue our consistent action against radical Islamists,” German interior minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement.

“With the bans on Hamas and Samidoun in Germany, we have sent a clear signal that we will not tolerate any glorification or support of the barbaric terror of Hamas against Israel,” Faeser added.

The bodies of dozens of unidentified people were buried on Wednesday in a mass grave at a cemetery in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, AFP reports. The agency writes:

Wrapped in blue tarpaulin, the bodies were lowered on stretchers, some of them stained with blood, into a sandy pit that was gradually enlarged by a digger. Some were the size of children.

“As these martyrs had no one to say goodbye to, we dug a mass grave to bury them. They are unknown martyrs,” Bassem Dababesh of the emergency committee at the religious affairs ministry told AFP.

The remains, which bore only numbers, had come from the Indonesian and al-Shifa hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip, according to members of the committee at the burial site.

The Indonesian hospital on the edge of the Jabalia refugee camp, which had been hit by Israeli airstrikes, was partly evacuated on Monday, said the Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesperson for the Hamas-controlled health ministry.

“There were bodies everywhere. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it,” said Umm Mohammed al-Ran, a woman evacuated from the Indonesian hospital towards Rafah in the south.

“Wounded people died in front of us as they bled out,” she told AFP.

“The stench of death was everywhere in the hospital. The wounded were crying out for painkillers, but the doctors didn’t have any to give them.”

She held up her phone to show a video she had taken. It showed worms crawling from the infected wound on a patient’s leg.

The bodies that arrived at Khan Yunis on Wednesday would have been “detained” by Israel before being released after representations from “third countries and the United Nations”, according to the emergency committee at the religious affairs ministry.

Khalil Siam, director of a transport company, told AFP that the bodies had arrived the night before, and it was not known “if they’re decomposing or not”.

AFP contacted the Israeli military and several UN agencies operating in Gaza, but no reply had been received late Wednesday.

There are thousands of dead in the Gaza Strip, and the question of burials has shocked many Gazans.

Since the war began, war dead have been buried hastily in private plots of land and even a football field, when cemeteries are full or inaccessible because of the fighting.

In Australia, hundreds of students have gathered in front of Melbourne’s Flinders Street station, with schoolchildren walking out of class to attend the strike. Some students were draped in the Palestinian flag while others held “Free Palestine” posters.

The students participating in the schools strike spilt out onto the road to block the city’s busy Flinders and Swanston street intersection.

Year 11 student Audra, co-organiser of the rally, told the crowd they must continue to stand with Palestine:

To strike for Palestine, to defy our principals and politicians who tell us we don’t know what we’re talking about.

I walked out of school today with all of you to take a stand on the right side of history.

The rally has attracted backlash, with an open letter from members of the state of Victoria’s Jewish community urging state premier Jacinta Allan and education minister Ben Carroll to take a tougher stance against the strike.

Allan said she expected students to stay in school while her federal counterpart Jason Clare said pupils should be in the classroom during school hours.

A pro-Palestine schools strike in Sydney is also planned for Friday.

There is “no cause for concern” about the hostage negotiations, a source familiar with the talks has told Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The source said:

The delay does not stem from a breakdown in talks, but rather from the need to resolve administrative matters, which are being addressed.

Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson Majid bin Mohammed Al Ansari says an announcement on the beginning of the truce could come in the next few hours, according to Reuters.

Qatar has been mediating in the negotiations on the truce.

In its latest update on the conflict, the UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA) said 190 wounded and sick people as well as their companions and a number of medical teams were evacuated on Wednesday from Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa, which was raided by Israeli forces last week.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society reported that, the evacuation lasted for almost 20 hours as the convoy was obstructed and subjected to inspection while passing through the checkpoint that separates northern and southern Gaza, “hence putting the lives of the wounded and sick people in danger.”

It said some 250 patients and staff remained at the hospital, which is no longer operational.

OCHA also said that the Indonesian hospital, also in northern Gaza was hit by “heavy strikes” late Tuesday that hit the surgery department.

Around 60 corpses were lying near the hospital, OCHA added, citing the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza.

The area surrounding Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza was heavily bombarded, resulting in dozens killed, according to media reports on Wednesday, OCHA said.

This is one of the two hospitals north of Wadi Gaza that are still operational and admitting patients. Since last night, it has admitted more than 60 dead and some 1,000 wounded people.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement has officially confirmed that five of its fighters, including the son of a senior lawmaker, have been killed, amid skirmishes at the Israel-Lebanon border, according to AFP.

Abbas Raad, son of the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc Mohammed Raad, was “martyred on the road to Jerusalem”, the group said in a statement – the phrase it has been using to announce the death of its members due to Israeli fire since the war started on 7 October.

It issued separate statements with the identities and photographs of four other fighters who were also killed.

A source close to the family said that Abbas Raad “was killed with a number of other Hezbollah members” in an Israeli strike Wednesday on a house in south Lebanon’s Beit Yahun.

Since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, the frontier between Lebanon and Israel has seen escalating exchanges of fire, mainly between Israel and Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah, but also Palestinian groups, raising fears of a broader conflagration.

Israel’s army said in statements Wednesday evening that it had struck a number of Hezbollah targets and sources of fire from Lebanon, including a Hezbollah “terrorist cell” and infrastructure.

Since the cross-border exchanges began, 107 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, according to an AFP tally. At least 75 are Hezbollah fighters but the toll also included at least 14 civilians, three of them journalists.

Seven Hezbollah fighters have also been killed in Syria.

On the Israeli side, six soldiers and three civilians have been killed, according to authorities.

The strike came just hours after the four-day truce in Gaza was announced between Israel and Hamas, which is a Hezbollah ally.

Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who visited Beirut on Wednesday, warned in an interview that if the Hamas-Israel ceasefire begins but “does not continue... the conditions in the region will not remain the same as before the ceasefire and the scope of the war will expand”.

Israeli attacks have continued on Gaza overnight. Palestinian media said early Thursday that Israeli aircraft and artillery struck the southern city of Khan Younis in at least two waves and 15 people were killed.

Attacks were also reported in several other parts of Gaza, including the Jabaliya refugee camp, north of Gaza City, and the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.

There was no immediate comment from Israel and Reuters was unable to independently verify the reports.

Israel has told Palestinians to move south for safety but has continued to strike areas such as Khan Younis.

On Wednesday, about 160 Palestinians – including 50 from one family – were reported killed.

Wafa, a Palestinian news agency, said 81 people had been killed since midnight Wednesday as houses were targeted in the centre of the strip. A further 60 were believed to be dead after bombing in and around Jabaliya.

Riyad al-Maliki, the Palestinian foreign minister, said during a visit to London that 52 of the victims at Jabaliya were from the same Qadoura family. “I have the list of the names, 52 of them. They were wiped out completely, from grandfather to grandchildren,” he said.

A long-awaited hostage and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas won’t take effect before Friday, US and Israeli officials have said, dashing the hopes of families who thought captives may be freed earlier and prolonging the suffering of Palestinians under bombardment in Gaza.

“The contacts on the release of our hostages are advancing and continuing constantly,” Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said in a statement. “The start of the release will take place according to the original agreement between the sides, and not before Friday.”

Multiple news outlets later cited anonymous Israeli officials as saying that the halt in fighting would not begin on Thursday either, as had been widely expected.

White House spokesperson Adrienne Watson later said final logistical details for the release were being worked out. “That is on track and we are hopeful that implementation will begin on Friday morning,” Watson said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the delay. The deal had been expected to come into force from Thursday. An Egyptian security source told Reuters that mediators had sought a start time of 10am.

Here’s our full report on the deal:

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war with me, Helen Livingstone.

Israeli and US officials have said that the ceasefire and hostage deal will not come into effect until Friday at the earliest.

In a statement released on Wednesday night, Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said talks on the deal were continuing and that the hostage release “will begin according to the original agreement between the parties, and not before Friday.”

Multiple news outlets later cited anonymous Israeli officials as saying that the halt in fighting would not begin on Thursday either, as had been widely expected.

Israel’s public broadcaster Kan, citing an unidentified Israeli official, reported there was a 24-hour delay because the agreement had not been signed by Hamas and mediator Qatar. The official said they were optimistic the agreement would be carried out once it was signed.

White House spokesperson Adrienne Watson said final logistical details for the hostage release were being worked out. “That is on track and we are hopeful that implementation will begin on Friday morning,” Watson said.

Other key developments:

• Under the agreement, Hamas will free at least 50 of the more than 240 mostly Israeli hostages they took on 7 October. In turn, Israel will release at least 150 Palestinian prisoners and allow up to 300 trucks of humanitarian aid into Gaza after more than six weeks of bombardment, heavy fighting and a crippling blockade of fuel, food, medicine and other essentials.

• The deal, struck after lengthy and complex talks mediated by Qatar, the US and Egypt, came more than six weeks after the conflict began on 7 October, when Hamas launched attacks from Gaza into southern Israel, killing at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 240 people hostage. The Israeli offensive has killed between 13,000 and 14,000 people, thousands of them children, according to Palestinian officials.

• Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has warned that “the war continues” despite the deal for a temporary ceasefire and release of some hostages. At a briefing on Wednesday, he also said part of the deal with Hamas stipulates that representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will be allowed to visit the hostages that remain in Gaza after some of them are returned. The ICRC earlier on Wednesday said it had “not been made aware of any agreement…related to visits by the ICRC to the hostages”.

• A coalition of aid agencies have warned that the four-day ceasefire left almost no time to provide effective humanitarian relief to Gaza’s 2.3 million people. In a briefing on Wednesday, they argued the only effective response would be a permanent or durable end to the war and that it remained unclear if there would be sufficient access, particularly to the north of the strip, to allow anything beyond cursory relief.

• Palestinian and Israeli officials have published the names of 300 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons, at least some of whom are expected to be released in an exchange with Hamas in Gaza for dozens of Israeli hostages seized by the militant group on 7 October.

• The families of hostages held in Gaza have said they are living in a “nightmare” as they endure an agonising wait to see if their loves ones are among those freed. The relatives of some of the 240 hostages in Gaza have said they were in the dark about who would be released and when. Meanwhile, excitement is also growing for Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank that their imprisoned loved ones may also be coming home.

• More than 100 Palestinians in Gaza – including 50 from one family – were reported killed on Wednesday as Israeli forces continued attacking across the strip from land, sea and air. Wafa, a Palestinian news agency, said 81 people had been killed since midnight as houses were targeted in the centre of the strip. A further 60 were believed to be dead after bombing in and around the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north.

• The head of the UN children’s agency (Unicef) has called the Gaza Strip “the most dangerous place in the world to be a child” and said that the temporary ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas is “far from enough”. Catherine Russell, addressing the UN security council on Wednesday, also said that “all children inside the territory” were facing “what could soon become a catastrophic nutrition crisis”.

• The number of journalists killed in the Israel-Hamas conflict since 7 October has increased to at least 53, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The funerals were held in Beirut on Wednesday for Al Mayadeen’s reporter Farah Omar and camera operator Rabih al Mamari who were both killed by an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon on Tuesday.

• Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement officially confirmed that five of its fighters, including the son of a senior lawmaker, have been killed, amid skirmishes at the Israel-Lebanon border, according to AFP. Abbas Raad, son of the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc Mohammed Raad, was “martyred on the road to Jerusalem”, the group said in a statement – the phrase it has been using to announce the death of its members due to Israeli fire since the war started on 7 October.

• Israel’s military has said it intercepted a cruise missile near the southern port city of Eilat. Eilat is in the south of Israel at the northern tip of the Red Sea, and has previously been targeted during the conflict both by long range fire from the Gaza Strip and by Yemen’s Houthi forces.

• The western powers on the UN security council face a choice of either demanding Israel lift its stranglehold on humanitarian aid into Gaza or being complicit in Israeli war crimes and collective punishment, foreign ministers from Arab and Muslim countries said on a visit to London on Wednesday.

• Pope Francis has faced criticism for allegedly drawing equivalence between Israel and Hamas. During a general audience after meeting with Israeli and Palestinian delegations at the Vatican, the pope reportedly remarked: “They suffer so much, I heard how they both suffer.” He went on: “Wars do this, but here we have gone beyond war: this is not war, it is terrorism.”

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2023-11-23 07:24:00Z
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