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PremiumIsrael-Hamas War: On the 34rd day of the conflict, Israeli air strikes pounded Gaza City to annihilate Hamas in the region while tens of thousands of Palestinians desperate for safety fled their homes southwards in the besieged territory.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected the prospect of a ceasefire in Gaza.
The United States has backed Israel's rejection of a ceasefire, and G7 foreign ministers on Wednesday in Japan said they supported "humanitarian pauses and corridors" in the war.
Israel has set an aim of destroying Hamas, with its soldiers targeting their deep network of tunnels and underground bases.
UN rights chief Volker Turk condemned Israel over its bombardment and its orders to Gazans to flee southwards.
This blog has been closed now. Read all the latest updates on Israel-Hamas war here
A statement from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office carried by The Times of Israel has no mention of the four-hour humanitarian pauses the White House announced, and instead pushes the narrative that Israeli forces are already pausing fighting for several hours a day to allow civilians to travel south.
“The fighting is continuing and there will be no ceasefire without the release of our captives," the Prime Minister’s Office said in the statement. “Israel is enabling safe corridors from the Strip’s north to its south, as 50,000 [Palestinians in Gaza] did only yesterday."
The death toll from Israeli raids on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank has risen to 11, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
The ministry also reported another casualty in the West Bank city of Nablus.
Three others were also killed earlier in the day in different towns across the West Bank.
This brings the total number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank today to 15.
-The Palestinian Health Ministry says 10,569 people have been killed in Gaza, including 4,324 children.
-At least seven Palestinians have been killed after Israeli jets bombed several homes in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, an Al Jazeera correspondent reported.
-The White House has announced that Israel has agreed to suspend fighting for four hours on a daily basis to allow Palestinian civilians to flee from northern Gaza.
-The death toll from Israeli raids on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank has risen to 11, which Hamas has condemned.
-The Israeli military claims that it has killed 50 Hamas fighters during operations carried out in the last few days.
-There will be a three-hour advance notice of when these pauses will occur, consisting of two civilian corridors
-The humanitarian pauses it will allow for the potential release of captives that Hamas is currently holding
-The pauses will allow for medicine and food to get in and for those living inside Gaza who have dual nationality to get out
The White House has announced that Israel has agreed to suspend fighting for four hours on a daily basis to allow for Palestinian civilians to flee from northern Gaza.
The pauses will start from Thursday in what the White House said is a step in the right direction.
The following account is by an onfield correspondent of Al Jazeera
Occasionally, you can hear gunshots, there are explosions, and you can listen to an Israeli military drone overhead.
It all started in the early hours of this morning with a raid on the camp. Nothing unusual about that – raids are a fact of life in the occupied West Bank, particularly here in Jenin.
But we’re told the military came in and left behind special forces who were looking for Palestinian fighters. Once they were spotted, the special forces called for backup, and this major gun battle has been going on since then.
The Israeli army will always say they are going after what they call “Palestinian terrorists", and that that’s the purpose of these raids.
But since October 7, they have stepped up operations. While they’re happening all over the occupied West Bank, most of them are here in Jenin, where there are different armed groups.
A trilateral meeting was held in Doha on Thursday between CIA and Mossad chiefs and the Qatari prime minister to discuss the parameters of a deal for hostage releases and a pause in the Gaza attack, a source briefed on the meeting told Reuters.
The advantage of the trilateral meeting was to bring all three parties together at one table in real time to speed up the process, the source said.
The talks also included a discussion over allowing humanitarian imports of fuel into Gaza.
-Reuters
According to international media reports, Qatar’s emir will travel to Egypt on Friday to hold talks with President Sisi on the situation in the Gaza Strip.
Last month, the pair spoke over the phone to discuss de-escalation and protection of civilians in Gaza.
Al Jazeera reported that Israeli forces have been going from house to house in the occupied West Bank looking for armed fighters.
The Palestinian news outlet Quds Network posted footage of the moments after Israel bombed a house in the camp.
Israel defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has said Israel is in a “prolonged war".
“We need to resolve things quickly, even if not perfectly," Gallant said during a meeting with directors general of government ministries and local officials, according to the Times of Israel news outlet.
He said the military’s plan was to stop Hamas rocket fire so that Israeli public life near Gaza could continue.
“We are in a prolonged war, and the issue of the [Israeli] civilian economy is a main factor in the management of the war," he was quoted as saying.
UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, said the world body must not help push Palestinians out of their homes.
Israel has told Palestinians in the heavily populated north of Gaza to move to the south, as its ground forces move in.
“The United Nations cannot be part of unilateral proposal to push Palestinians into so-called safe zones," Griffiths said.
Speaking at the same conference, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) chief, Isabelle Defourny, called southern Gaza safe zones “fake zones", and said about 30% of those killed in Gaza were in the south.
The United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Volker Turk, on Wednesday called out Israel for what he said was the “unlawful forcible evacuation of civilians".
Footage shared by Palestinians on Telegram show Israeli bulldozers destroying infrastructure in the vicinity of Jenin refugee camp, in the occupied West Bank, that it raided earlier today.
According to Al Jazeera report, Mohammad Barakeh, the head of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, has been arrested by Israeli forces in Nazareth.
Initial reports suggested that the former member of the Israeli parliament was arrested for planning a protest against the war.
Another ex-Knesset member, Haneen Zoabi, and Sami Abou Shehadeh, leader of the Tajamo’ party, have also been arrested.
Belgium’s deputy prime minister has called on the Belgian government to adopt sanctions against Israel and investigate the bombings of hospitals and refugee camps in Gaza.
“It is time for sanctions against Israel. The rain of bombs is inhumane," deputy prime minister Petra De Sutter told Nieuwsblad newspaper. “It is clear that Israel does not care about the international demands for a ceasefire."
Negotiations are under way to reach a three-day humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the release of about a dozen hostages held by Hamas. That’s according to two officials from Egypt, one from the United Nations and a western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic efforts.
The deal would enable more aid, including limited amounts of fuel, to enter the besieged territory to alleviate worsening conditions for the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped there. It is being brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, according to the officials and the diplomat.
-AP
The Israeli military informed that the road out of Gaza City is open again today, 9 November, for Palestinians in the north to flee to the south.
It is open until 4 pm local time.
The warning comes even as Israel has continued to bomb residential areas in both north and southern Gaza. Israeli troops have encircled Gaza City, in the north, and are preparing to enter.
Aid workers have warned that many people – including the sick and wounded, as well as premature babies - cannot leave Gaza City.
“The northern Gaza Strip area is considered a fierce combat zone and time is running out to evacuate it," the IDF said in an Arabic-language post.
Officials from Western and Arab nations, the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations are gathering today in Paris for a conference on how to provide aid to civilians in the Gaza Strip during Israel's war with Hamas, including proposals for a humanitarian maritime corridor.
Over 50 nations are expected to attend, including several European countries, the United States and regional powers such as Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf countries, the French presidency said. Also attending is Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh. Israeli authorities won't participate in Thursday's conference.
Israeli officials have clarified they do not intend to occupy Gaza after the war, but they have yet to articulate how they might ensure security without maintaining a military presence. Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ha spushed back at Israeli comments that it would be responsible for security in Gaza indefinitely.
There should be "no reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza," Blinken said.
While Blinken said there may be a need for "some transition period" at the end of the conflict, but that post-crisis governance in Gaza must include Palestinian voices.
"It must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority."
The Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, says the Gaza Strip, where Hamas has ruled since 2007, is an integral part of what it envisions for a future Palestinian state.
The Israel Defense Forces on the X platform said its soldiers have taken over a Hamas outpost in Jabalia in northern Gaza on Thursday.
They said it took "10 hours of fighting, during which they eliminated terrorists, captured many weapons, uncovered terrorist tunnel shafts, including a shaft located near a kindergarten and leading to an extensive underground route".
Two Israelis were shot overnight into Thursday and moderately wounded while driving in the northern West Bank, Israeli media reported.
It was the second shooting attack on Israeli drivers in the West Bank in a week. On November 2, an Israeli man was killed after his car was shot at, then crashed and overturned.
Negotiations are underway to reach a three-day humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza in exchange for the release of about a dozen hostages held by Hamas, according to Egyptian and UN officials.
The war, now in its second month, was triggered by the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel.
The number of Palestinians killed in the war passed 10,500, including more than 4,300 children.
The United Nations human rights chief said that Hamas and Israel have both committed war crimes . UN rights chief Volker Turk urged both sides to agree to a ceasefire to allow aid deliveries to Gaza.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed it has destroyed 130 Hamas tunnel shafts since 7th October attack. The Israeli military said its oldiers were still working to expose and destroy more tunnels.
A US drone was shot down by Yemen's Houthi rebels yesterday. The Houthis said it was an MQ-9 Reaper drone that was in Yemeni air space and was shot down by air defenses.
The Houthis have fired at least four batches of drones and missiles toward southern Israel since 7 October. The group controls the capital and much of northern and western Yemen.
The US has responded to the UN Secretary-General's comment that Gaza is "becoming a graveyard for children".
US's John Kirby said, "Hamas is putting these children and their families in danger".
Hospitals in Gaza are nearing collapse amid Israel vs Hamas war. Inside the maternity department at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, the workload has doubled because of the mass displacement from Gaza’s north.
Shouq Hararah is one of those mothers. She says her delivery took place with “no proper birth procedures, no anesthesia, painkillers or anything."
“I gave birth to twins. The boy was discharged, but the girl remains in the maternity ward," she said.
Power cuts and shortage of fuel and food have worsened the situation.
A doctor told the AP news agency, "When the electricity is cut, these devices stop working, and all the babies will face certain death".
The UN human rights chief said collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians and their forced evacuation, as well as atrocities committed by Palestinian armed groups on 7 October and their continued holding of hostages, amount to war crimes.
Volker Türk, standing in front of Egypt's Rafah border crossing into Gaza, told reporters Wednesday: “These are the gates to a living nightmare."
“We have fallen off a precipice. This cannot continue," he said later in Cairo.
Türk said international human rights and humanitarian law must be respected to help protect civilians and allow desperately needed aid to reach Gaza’s beleaguered population.
Fighter jets of the Israeli Air Force on Thursday attacked terrorist infrastructures of the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon a short time ago, in response to launches towards Israeli territory in the last day.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claims to have destroyed a Hamas tunnel near a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) sponsored school in northern Gaza, CNN reported.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said that due to 'intensified hostilities, intense overcrowding and disrupted health, water, and sanitation systems' in Gaza, there is now an 'added danger of the rapid spread of infectious diseases', The Spectator Index reported.
International concern over the fate of Gaza's civilians has strengthened calls for humanitarian "pauses" or a full ceasefire.
G7 foreign ministers meeting in Japan on Wednesday called for "humanitarian pauses and corridors" to protect civilians, but stopped short of calling for a ceasefire.
UN chief Antonio Guterres has said that "the unfolding catastrophe makes the need for a humanitarian ceasefire more urgent with every passing hour".
Meanwhile 13 major aid groups including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Oxfam and the Norwegian Refugee Council on Wednesday urged leaders attending the conference to push for a halt to fighting.
Government chiefs should "do everything in their power to obtain an immediate ceasefire" and stepped-up access for aid, they said.
Israel has for now remained firm in keeping up its offensive, with a stated objective of destroying Hamas -- which has governed Gaza since 2007.
The UN estimates that $1.2 billion in aid will be needed for the populations of Gaza and the West Bank from now until the end of the year.
France's President Emmanuel Macron will on Thursday host a conference on humanitarian aid for Gaza.
Macron spoke to Netanyahu on Tuesday. The French president also spoke to Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on the same day requesting for ceasefire.
A couple trapped in Gaza like hundreds of other US citizens described the roar of bombs and the fear of not making it home after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Wednesday.
Zakaria and Laila Alarayshi, who live west of Detroit in Livonia, recently returned after finally being allowed to cross the border into Egypt.
“Everyone was scared. Bombs everywhere. When I go to sleep, we cannot sleep. Maybe I’ll sleep in a chair for 30 minutes a day."Zakaria Alarayshi, 62, said.
Sleep was scant, as was water and food. Often they only had cake to eat and tea to drink. There was no electricity.
“I have my money, but we cannot buy nothing," he said. “No food, no water, no nothing."
No wounded Palestinians or dual nationals were evacuated on Wednesday from the Gaza Strip to Egypt via the Rafah crossing as per the media reports. The crossing point remained closed due to Israel's refusal to approve the list of wounded who were to be evacuated, a Hamas militant told AFP news agency.
The Rafah terminal -- which connects the bombarded Gaza Strip to Egypt -- reopened on November 1 to allow the evacuation of foreigners and dual nationals stranded in the small Palestinian territory.
US Senator Chris Murphy said that, “The United States has a lot of experience in fighting terrorist groups like Hamas". "What we've learned is that when you are too permissive about civilian deaths, you end up providing bulletin board material to terrorist recruiters and end up killing lots of terrorists, but you end up creating lots of terrorists as well," Murphy said.
But the senator opposes a ceasefire. "Hamas made it very clear that they are intent on attacking Israel again and destroying every single Jew they can find," Murphy said. "A ceasefire would allow for Hamas to regroup and start readying their next attack on Israeli civilians."
Tens of thousands of Palestinians fled the fighting and bombardment in Gaza, as Israel said it was tightening the "stranglehold" around Hamas. The Israeli army said 50,000 people left north Gaza for the south of the narrow coastal strip on Wednesday. "They're leaving because they understand that Hamas lost control in the north, and in the south it's safer," Israeli military said. Around 15,000 people had fled on Tuesday, compared with 5,000 on Monday and 2,000 on Sunday, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“Talks revolve around the release of 12 hostages, half of them Americans, in exchange for a three-day humanitarian pause, to enable Hamas to release the hostages and to enable Egypt an extended (period of time) to deliver humanitarian aid," a source close to Hamas told AFP on Wednesday.
A senior Israeli official told Reuters that the country does not intend to "reoccupy" Gaza or control it for a long time.
“The idea behind Israel going in militarily is to destroy Hamas' ability to threaten us. We understand that will take time and that, even if we complete this phase of our military operation, we'll still have to take some action against their remaining military infrastructure," the publication quoted him as saying.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Reuters Next on Wednesday that the number of civilians killed in the Gaza Strip shows that there is something "clearly wrong" with Israel's military operations in Gaza.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said “there’s no alternative" to a two-state solution to ensure peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Otherwise, he told Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait on Wednesday, “we are going to be in this cycle of mutual destruction for generations to come."
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will head to India for talks later this week. A Reuters report quoting officials however said that the interaction will focus on security challenges in the Indo-Pacific and concerns over China, rather than the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
The widespread and systematic bombardment of housing and civilian infrastructure in Gaza amounts to a war crime and a crime against humanity, an independent United Nations expert said Wednesday.
A month of Israeli attacks on targets within the Gaza Strip have destroyed or damaged 45 percent of all housing units in the Palestinian territory, Balakrishnan Rajagopal said, warning the destruction comes at a "tremendous cost to human life".
"Carrying out hostilities with the knowledge that they will systematically destroy and damage civilian housing and infrastructure, rendering an entire city -- such as Gaza City -- uninhabitable for civilians is a war crime," he said.
(via AFP)
At least 10,569 Palestinians have been killed and 26,457 wounded in Israeli strikes since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said today. According to data cited by Reuters, the list of casualties includes 4,324 children.
"(Israeli troops) are tightening the stranglehold around the city of Gaza," Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said late Tuesday.
Japan's top diplomat said G7 foreign ministers had issued a "unified message" on the Israel-Hamas war following a two day meeting on Wednesday.
“I believe it's important that the G7 was able to put out its first unified message as a statement... regarding a humanitarian pause and a future peace process, both in terms of the responsibility the G7 has towards the international community and for Japan as this year's chair of the G7," Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa told reporters.
“The United States believes key elements should include: no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, not now, not after the war; No use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks; No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends," AFP quoted Antony Blinken as telling reporters.
“It is India's decision. We respect that. We don't interfere in that. India has decided to abstain from that resolution. And it's up to India. We don't interfere. Each country takes its own stand according to its interests," Mohamed Salam Jameel A.F. El-Kayed told ANI in an interview.
“India is an emerging power in the world and is getting involved in many international issues and has already sent aid. I think India can play a role in that situation in order to solve the problem and to save the lives of people who are killed there," he added.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a telephonic conversation with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on 6 November, regarding the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, reports have arrived that Raisi requested India to use 'all its capacities' to end the Israeli actions in Gaza.
Raisi recalled India's struggles against Western colonialism and its position as one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement in the world, news agency ANI quoted in the Iranian readout. Read the complete story here.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby has reiterated America’s stand that it will not try to dictate the “red lines" for Israel. John Kirby’s remarks have come as the death toll in Gaza continues to climb as Israel expands its military operation in the neighbouring state against the Hamas militants who stormed into the Israeli territory on October 7, killed hundreds and kidnapped nearly 250 civilians, including foreigners. Read the complete story here.
