PM tells parliament he wants to ‘beat Hamas’ before investigation into deadliest attack in Israel’s history
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has rejected calls for an immediate independent inquiry into the security failures that allowed the deadliest attack in his country’s history.
Speaking to Israel’s parliament, Netanyahu told lawmakers: “First, I want to beat Hamas.”
Continue reading...Targets include ‘humanitarian zone’ and school harbouring displaced people, where IDF says there were Hamas fighters
At least 60 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, health officials have said, including in an attack on a school sheltering displaced people and another on an Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone”, as ceasefire talks in the nearly 10-month-old conflict appeared to stall again.
The Red Crescent said on Tuesday that 17 people were killed in a bombing near a petrol station in Mawasi, an area on the Mediterranean shoreline packed with hundreds of thousands of displaced people that Israel had previously declared an evacuation zone. Another 16 were killed in a strike that targeted the UN-run al-Awda school in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, medics at a nearby hospital said.
Continue reading...The US secretary of state reportedly told senior Israeli leaders they must do more to reduce civilian casualties
At least eight Palestinians were killed and several were wounded in an Israeli air strike on a school in central Gaza on Tuesday, Gaza health officials said.
The strike hit Al-Awda school in Al-Nuseirat camp, the ministry said.
Continue reading...David Lammy holds second day of meetings with Israeli officials but hopes of immediate ceasefire are dwindling
Israeli air and naval strikes continued to pummel Gaza as the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, reiterated his demand for a ceasefire during a visit to Jerusalem.
Strikes on central Gaza followed two days of particularly deadly attacks including one in a humanitarian zone in southern Gaza that killed at least 90 people when Israeli forces targeted the head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif.
Continue reading...Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza Strip, says it can no longer provide drinking water after running out of fuel
After a night spent shaking in fear as the roof rattled from explosions, and a long walk along a crowded road, Diana Mahmoud arrived at the hospital where she gave birth to her son, Yaman.
Mahmoud, 22, discovered she was pregnant a week after the outbreak of the war in Gaza and, like other mothers who became pregnant about that time, spent her entire pregnancy fearing for her own safety as well as that of her child. Miscarriages are three times more likely than before the war, according to a February report by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health.
Continue reading...Airstrikes add to one of deadliest weeks amid uncertainty over whether Hamas has withdrawn from ceasefire talks
At least 31 Palestinians have been killed and more than 50 wounded in fresh Israeli bombings across the Gaza Strip, rescuers and health officials have said, as conflicting reports emerged over whether Hamas was withdrawing from ceasefire talks after the targeting of the group’s top military commander.
Four attacks in various parts of Gaza City in the early hours of Sunday morning occurred less than 24 hours after Israeli forces said Mohammed Deif, who is believed to be the mastermind behind the 7 October attack on southern Israel, was the target of a strike in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza that, according to the territory’s emergency services, killed more than 90 people and injured 300 others.
Continue reading...Israeli Defense Forces say one of masterminds of 7 October attack was ‘struck’ in Gaza strike targeting him
Mohammed Deif is the head of the military wing of Hamas and one of the masterminds of the group’s bloody surprise attack on 7 October which triggered the latest war in Gaza.
Israeli officials said Deif – whose real name is Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri – was the target of Saturday’s airstrike, which levelled several buildings in Khan Younis and killed 90 people, according to local health authorities.
Continue reading...Hamas says 90 people killed and almost 300 injured in attack – but it is unclear if Mohammed Deif is among them
The Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, who it has been reported was the target of an Israeli strike in Gaza, has previously been described as the “mastermind” of Hamas’s 7 October attack.
In this piece from November, the international security correspondent of the Guardian, Jason Burke wrote of Deif:
The exact role of different Hamas leaders in the attack is yet to be established, but it is clear that Sinwar and Deif were central to its planning.
Deif means “guest”, a reference to the 58-year-old’s constant relocation to avoid detection by Israel. A member of Hamas since his early 20s, the former science student oversaw a wave of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians in the early 1990s, and another a decade later. Deif may have been crippled by one of many Israeli assassination attempts, and his wife and young family were killed in an airstrike in 2014. Israeli officials have described Deif, whose real name is Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, as “a dead man walking”.
Continue reading...Health officials say at least 90 people killed and 289 injured by strike on camp for displaced people in Khan Younis
Israeli forces say the Hamas military chief, Mohammed Deif, the mastermind of the 7 October attack, was the target of a strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, which, according to the territory’s emergency services, has killed 90 people and injured hundreds more.
Deif, 58, who has been on Israel’s most-wanted list since 1995 and escaped multiple Israeli assassination attempts, is believed to be the chief architect of the attack that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and triggered the Israel-Hamas war.
Continue reading...Forces involved in week-long offensive against Hamas in territory’s largest urban area have now pulled back
Emergency workers claim to have recovered the bodies of approximately 60 Palestinians from two districts of Gaza City after Israeli forces pulled back from days of battles with Hamas militants in the territory’s biggest urban area.
The civil defence agency in Hamas-run Gaza on Friday said the bodies were found in the Tal al-Hawa and Al-Sinaa districts after the week-long offensive.
Continue reading...Group says that mediators have not provided any updates over negotiations about a deal to end the war
Iran is still conducting indirect nuclear talks with the United States via Oman, Iran’s Etemad newspaper on Thursday quoted Iran’s acting foreign minister as saying.
Ali Bagheri Kani’s reported comments followed remarks on Monday in which a White House spokesperson said the United States was not ready to resume nuclear talks with Iran under the newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, Reuters reported.
Continue reading...Evacuation order follows deadly airstrikes on locations including schools and shelters in past few days
The Israeli military told all Palestinian civilians to leave Gaza City and head south on Wednesday as it stepped up a military offensive in the territory that has killed dozens of people over the past 48 hours.
The evacuation order, carried out by dropping leaflets urging “all those in Gaza City” to take two “safe routes” south to the area around the central town of Deir al-Balah, came after a series of deadly strikes over the past two days in other parts of Gaza.
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Here is the video clip of US national security spokesperson, John Kirby, saying gaps remain between Israel and Hamas in ceasefire negotiations.
In a statement Israel’s military has claimed to have “eliminated dozens of terrorists and located numerous weapons” in Gaza City. It says it was acting “following intelligence indicating the presence of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist infrastructure in the area”.
Continue reading...Civil emergency service says dozens killed in strikes launched after Israeli military issued evacuation orders
People in Gaza City have reported one of the heaviest attacks by Israeli forces since 7 October, sending thousands of Palestinians fleeing from an area already ravaged in the early weeks of the nine-month-old war.
The latest Israeli incursion into the eastern sector of Gaza City came as Israel’s far-right coalition parties threatened again to stop ongoing negotiations in Qatar for a ceasefire, arguing that halting the fighting now would be a huge mistake.
Continue reading...Yair Lapid says he will offer Benjamin Netanyahu political support if he reaches a hostage deal after fears such a move could lead to collapse of government
Israeli far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has said making a ceasefire deal would be a “senseless folly” and instead Israel should press on in its military campaign against Hamas.
He posted to social media to say:
Hamas is collapsing and begging for a ceasefire. This is the time to squeeze the neck until we crush and break the enemy. To stop now, just before the end, and let them recover to fight us again is a senseless folly that will take the achievements of the war bought with much blood down the drain. We must continue until victory.
Continue reading...Mossad chief gave mediators list of new demands and it was not clear whether Hamas would accede to them, reports say
The Israeli government has been accused of attempting to sabotage a US-backed ceasefire proposal, according to Israeli media, by introducing new demands despite previously accepting the plan.
Hopes for a ceasefire in Gaza had risen in recent days following reports that Hamas had given initial approval for a new proposal for a phased deal, after ninth months of war since the attack on 7 October.
Continue reading...This live blog is closed
It is coming up to 2.30pm in Gaza and Tel Aviv. We will be closing this blog soon, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Israel-Gaza war coverage here and on the Middle East here.
Here is a recap of the latest developments:
Protests aimed at pressuring the Israeli government to reach a hostage deal with Hamas began across Israel on Sunday, with demonstrators blocking roads and picketing at the homes of government ministers. The demonstrators took to the streets, blocking rush hour traffic at major intersections across the country. They briefly set fire to tires on the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway before police cleared the way. Another Palestinian official, with knowledge of the ongoing ceasefire deliberations, said Israel was in talks with the Qataris. “They have discussed with them Hamas’ response and they promised to give them Israel’s response within days,” the official told Reuters on Sunday. Israel’s government made no immediate comment on the timing of its deliberations.
In Gaza, Palestinian health officials said at least 15 people were killed in separate Israeli military strikes on Sunday. An Israeli airstrike on a house in the town of Zawayda, in central Gaza, killed at least six people and wounded several others, while six others were killed in an airstrike on a house in western Gaza, the health officials said. Tanks deepened their raids in central and northern areas of Rafah on the southern border with Egypt. Health officials there said they had recovered three bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the eastern part of the city.
Hamas is waiting for a response from Israel on its ceasefire proposal, two officials from the Palestinian group said on Sunday. This comes five days after it accepted a key part of a U.S. plan aimed at ending the nine-month war in Gaza. “We have left our response with the mediators and are waiting to hear the occupation’s response,” one of the two Hamas officials told Reuters, asking not to be named.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement fired another 20 rockets at northern Israel, leaving one person injured there, the latest cross-border attacks launched in solidarity with Gaza’s Palestinian militant group Hamas. Hezbollah said that “in response to the attack and assassination that the Israeli enemy carried out”, it had targeted “one of the main bases” in northern Israel, west of Tiberias, with “dozens of Katyusha rockets”.
At least 38,153 Palestinians have been killed and 87,828 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday.
Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian has won Iran’s runoff presidential election, beating hardliner Saeed Jalili by promising to reach out to the west and ease enforcement on the country’s mandatory headscarf law after years of sanctions and protests squeezing the Islamic Republic.
The British Royal Navy destroyer HMS Diamond was returning to Portsmouth on Saturday after six months in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden helping to protect shipping from attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The warship shot down nine drones and a Houthi missile, sailing nearly 44,000 miles (71,000km) and spending 151 days at sea, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.
Continue reading...Israel’s ground offensive is nearing its conclusion amid the threat of indefinite occupation and a continuing insurgency
Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the phase of “intense fighting” against Hamas in Gaza is coming to an end, but with no publicly unveiled plans for the next stage of Israel’s campaign, Palestinians and Israelis alike fear that the unfolding chapter in the conflict could amount to a long period of insurgency-style warfare and indefinite occupation.
Israel’s generals are expected to announce soon that the last main ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, in the southernmost city of Rafah, is over, although the prime minister has made clear that the war will not end until Israel achieves “total victory”, which he defines as the complete eradication of Hamas as a civilian and military entity.
Continue reading...Militant group gives initial backing to plan for phased deal after ‘verbal commitments’ from mediators
Hopes for a ceasefire in Gaza have risen further after reports that Hamas has given its initial approval of a new US-backed proposal for a phased deal.
Egyptian officials and representatives of the militant Islamist organisation confirmed Hamas had dropped a key demand that Israel commits to a definitive end to the war before any pause in hostilities, Reuters and the Associated Press reported.
Continue reading...Hamas has reportedly accepted a US proposal to begin talks on releasing Israeli hostages, including soldiers and men
Continue reading...