Israel-Hamas war live: women and children make up nearly 70% of people reported killed in Gaza, says UN

UNRWA chief says ‘human tragedy unfolding under our watch is unbearable’; Netanyahu says ‘this is a time for war’ as he says no to ceasefire

Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has urged Israel to “listen” when its friends ask it to protect innocent lives in Gaza and warned that the world “will not accept continuing civilian deaths”.

Wong’s comments reflect a strengthening of the Labor government’s calls for Israel to minimise civilian deaths in Gaza. The foreign minister said civilians on both sides had been “murdered” in the “dreadful, tragic conflict”.

“It is a dreadful, tragic conflict. We are seeing loss of life. We are seeing civilians on both sides [who] have been murdered,” Wong told Radio National.

“We have seen civilians up on both sides in a lot of pain, and obviously, we still have Israeli hostages who have been taken, that Hamas is still holding.”

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Israeli forces appear to be advancing on Gaza City from two sides

Witnesses report Salah al-Din Road cut as Israel expands assault, in apparent effort to divide strip in two

Israeli tanks and infantry have advanced on Gaza City from two directions, with tanks reported to be on the main north-south road, in an apparent effort to cut the strip into two.

Reports in the Hebrew media, statements from Hamas and Palestinian witness accounts, described Israeli armour operating close to the Mediterranean coast in the north of Gaza in an area where Hamas said it was engaged in heavy fighting.

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‘Hamas has created additional demand’: Wall Street eyes big profits from war

Morgan Stanley and TD Bank hope for aerospace and weapons boon after a 7% value increase from start of Israel-Hamas conflict

The United Nations has warned that there was “clear evidence” that war crimes may have been committed in “the explosion of violence in Israel and Gaza”. Meanwhile, Wall Street is hoping for an explosion in profits.

During third-quarter earnings calls this month, analysts from Morgan Stanley and TD Bank took note of this potential profit-making escalation in conflict and asked unusually blunt questions about the financial benefit of the war between Israel and Hamas.

Co-published with Responsible Statecraft

Eli Clifton is a senior advisor at the Quincy Institute and Investigative Journalist at Large at Responsible Statecraft

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UK ministers to hold Cobra meeting on terrorism threat from Israel-Hamas conflict

Suella Braverman will meet police and national security officials at No 10 to discuss ‘accelerated’ risk

UK ministers will hold an emergency meeting of its Cobra committee amid concerns that the Israel-Gaza conflict has raised the possibility of a domestic terrorist incident.

The home secretary, Suella Braverman, will meet national security officials and police at No 10 on Monday to assess the security risk after the deadly Hamas attack on Israel more than three weeks ago.

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Israeli forces advance in northern Gaza, as aid trickles in from the south

Reports of fierce clashes inside Gaza as the ‘second phase’ of the Israeli military’s war against Hamas continues

Israeli troops backed by tanks have expanded their operations inside Gaza amid reports of fierce air and and artillery strikes in the enclave’s north, as nearly three dozen trucks entered through the territory’s southern border on Sunday.

Hamas confirmed it was engaged in “heavy fighting” with Israeli troops inside northern Gaza on Sunday, as besieged residents were again warned by Israel to flee southward.

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Further air and artillery strikes reported in northern Gaza – as it happened

This blog is closed.

The UN security council scheduled an emergency meeting on Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza on Monday afternoon at the request of the United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative on the council, according to a report by Associated Press.

Israeli airstrikes have hit areas around Gaza’s largest hospital, destroying roads leading to the facility, which is a major shelter for Palestinians fleeing Israeli bombardment, residents have told Associated Press.

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Humza Yousaf says parents-in-law are alive in Gaza but have run out of water

Scottish first minister expresses relief after communications were cut off during Israeli bombardment

Scotland’s first minister has expressed relief after discovering his parents-in-law in Gaza are alive, although they have run out of clean drinking water.

Humza Yousaf said the welcome news had come through on Sunday morning, hours after describing his worries about whether they were alive or dead following the imposition by Israel of a communication blackout in Gaza on Friday.

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Palestinian civilians ‘didn’t deserve to die’ in Israeli strikes, US chief security adviser says

Jake Sullivan’s comments are a marked softening of the Biden administration’s hardline support of Israel

Thousands of Palestinians killed in Israel’s attacks on Gaza over the past three weeks “did not deserve to die”, according to the US national security adviser, in a marked softening of the Biden administration’s hardline support of Israel.

In an interview with ABC News on Sunday, Jake Sullivan, the White House’s chief security adviser, said Hamas is “hiding” behind civilians but that doesn’t lessen Israel’s “responsibility under international humanitarian law and the laws in war to do all in their power to protect the civilian population”.

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Labour will not punish calls for Israel-Hamas ceasefire, shadow minister suggests

Keir Starmer has ‘listened’ to rebels and will ‘continue engaging’, says Peter Kyle, amid mounting pressure from senior party figures

Members of Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet will not be punished if they break party ranks by demanding a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, because Labour is a “diverse party”, Peter Kyle has suggested.

The shadow science, innovation and technology minister also rejected claims that Labour was taking Muslim votes for granted, and said the party was not basing its policy on the conflict around what might win votes.

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Civil order ‘starting to break down’ in Gaza as people raid UN warehouses

Head of refugee agency says wheat, flour and hygiene supplies taken as Israel continues its bombardment

Order is beginning to collapse in the besieged Gaza Strip after thousands of desperate people raided UN warehouses in search of food, as the international criminal court’s top prosecutor said impeding relief supplies to the population may constitute a crime under the court’s jurisdiction.

Wheat, flour and hygiene supplies were taken from on Saturday from four UN-run centres across the blockaded 25- by 7-mile strip, home to more than 2 million trapped people, Thomas White, Gaza director for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said on Sunday.

A UN peacekeeper on the Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon was injured in cross-border fire, the world body said.

Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron “stressed the importance of getting urgent humanitarian support” into Gaza.

Jack Sullivan, Joe Biden’s national security adviser, said the US believed “there should be humanitarian pauses to get hostages out, potentially to get aid in”.

A delegation of families of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas urged President Isaac Herzog to keep their plight at the top of the political agenda.

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‘I don’t know if they are alive or dead’: father’s anxious wait in West Bank as Gaza is bombed

Mahmoud Abu Amir is among thousands of Palestinians frantically trying to locate their loved ones from afar

For Mahmoud Abu Amir, the war in his native Gaza began on Monday 9 October. An Israeli airstrike flattened a large area in the Jabalia refugee camp where he spent most of his life, demolishing the apartment block that was sheltering most of his family including his wife, Mayar, and their two young children.

Two days earlier, Hamas militants had stormed towns and kibbutzim near the Gaza Strip, killing 1,400 Israelis and taking at least 200 more hostage. When Abu Amir called his family that day to check on them, “it was a shock”, he said. “No one expected this to happen. But my wife, and my entire family were dead scared. They knew something would happen to them. They live near the border and they knew they would pay the price.”

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Does Biden’s unwavering support for Israel risk his chance for re-election?

Half of young Americans are skeptical of US support for Israel, and campus protesters demand a ceasefire in Gaza

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

On Wednesday night, Joe Biden basked in the pageantry of a state dinner – white-jacketed violinists, golden chandeliers dotted with pink roses, a vivid wall display of 3D paper flowers. But soon after toasting the Australian prime minister in a pavilion on the White House south lawn, the US president had to step away to be briefed on a deadly mass shooting in Maine.

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Humza Yousaf does not know if parents-in-law in Gaza are alive or dead

Scotland’s first minister speaks of family worry after Israel cuts off population of Gaza from communication with world

Scotland’s first minister has said he does not know if his parents-in-law who are trapped in Gaza are dead or alive after Israel knocked out communications there.

Humza Yousaf said he and his wife, Nadia, are “desperately worried” and that she is “numb” as they try to find out news about her parents.

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100,000 join London march against strikes on Gaza

Government’s failure to back ceasefire resolution adds to tensions among demonstrators


Tens of thousands marched through central London yesterday to demand a ceasefire in Gaza with many also expressing fury at the UK government’s refusal to back one.

As Israel ratcheted up its offensive in the coastal strip 2,200 miles away, around 100,000 people attended the latest demonstration – matching last Saturday’s record turnout for a pro-Palestinian march in the UK. One difference seemed to be a palpably more tense mood than previous marches, reflecting events unfolding in Gaza and widespread exasperation over the government’s approach to the three-week-old conflict.

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‘Lord, where do we go?’ Gaza’s social media voices begin to fall silent

Communications blackout cuts off stream of Snapchat updates from residents about life in the conflict
Israel and Hamas at war – live updates

Communications went dark in Gaza on Friday, but the few voices that emerged described a night of intense airstrikes and panic among a population fearing that the outage signified a new stage in the violence.

The social media platform Snapchat has been used since the war began by some Gazans to post images from their lives, with videos showing people in long queues at bakeries or for water, or gathered in crowds at hospitals and schools.

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Netanyahu declares a ‘second war of independence’ as fears for Gazans grow

As Israel’s ground operation intensifies, World Health Organization issues an urgent statement saying it is unable to cope with a total blackout

Gaza was plunged into darkness, isolation and violence on Saturday night, its communications with the outside world almost entirely cut, as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced his country was entering “the second stage” of what was likely to be a long and difficult war against Hamas.

In a televised press conference Netanyahu told Israelis: “We have unanimously approved the widening of the ground invasion … Our objective is singular: to defeat the murderous enemy. We declared ‘never again’, and we reiterate: ‘never again, now’.”

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Two arrested at London demonstration for Israel-Hamas ceasefire

As many as 100,000 believed to have joined march organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Police arrested two people after thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators took to the streets of central London on Saturday to demand a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Aerial footage showed large crowds setting off on the march organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which has coordinated multiple protests in response to the escalating conflict in the Gaza Strip.

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UK politicians lack humanity, says son of doctor trapped in Gaza

People with families in Gaza call on British government to help get them out and to join calls for ceasefire

On Friday evening, as Israeli air and ground forces ramped up their operations in the Gaza Strip and a communications blackout fell across the embattled territory, Salim Hammad received a text from the UK Foreign Office notifying him of a possible increase in attacks and violence.

“What are we supposed to do with that information?” said Salim, a 34-year-old doctor in Oxford whose father, Abdel, is stuck at the Rafah border crossing.

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Al Jazeera journalist who lost his family in Gaza airstrike returns to work

Wael al-Dahdouh’s wife, children and grandson were killed in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza on Tuesday

Israel and Hamas at war – live updates

An Al Jazeera correspondent has returned to work just days after his entire immediate family were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.

Wael al-Dahdouh’s wife, son, daughter and grandson were killed in the strike late on Tuesday. They had moved to a house in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza following Israel’s warning on 13 October.

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Qatar’s peacemaking ambitions face ultimate test in crucible of Israel-Hamas war

Doha positions itself as region’s lead mediator but balancing relations with Hamas and the west has become diplomatically precarious

A two-sentence tweet by Israel’s national security adviser has revealed the acute dilemma Israel and the west face in dealing with Qatar, the energy-rich state that has positioned itself as a mediator of conflicts around the world, from Khartoum to Kabul.

“I’m pleased to say that Qatar is becoming an essential party and stakeholder in the facilitation of humanitarian solutions,” Tzachi Hanegbi wrote. “Qatar’s diplomatic efforts are crucial at this time.”

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