MoD says any information on the potential whereabouts of captives will be shared with Israel
The UK will conduct surveillance flights over Israel and Gaza to search for hostage locations used by Hamas, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.
MoD officials said a range of unarmed aircraft would be used for the reconnaissance flights, including Shadow R1s, which are used for intelligence gathering.
Continue reading...As pressure grows on Israel to avoid civilian deaths, IDF believes killing leaders will collapse organisation
The Israeli military’s coming push into southern Gaza is driven by the belief that intelligence gleaned from hundreds of militants captured during the fighting in the north will allow them to find and kill leaders of Hamas.
Israel’s politicians and generals believe that taking out top commanders – and leader Yahya Sinwar – is their best chance of forcing the collapse of an organisation that is deeply embedded in Gaza, after nearly two decades controlling the enclave.
Continue reading...One lesson from the 1982 Lebanon war is that Israel’s enemy only needs to survive against superior firepower to gain an advantage
The scene is one familiar from many conflicts. Soldiers line up to get food from an outdoor canteen, weapons slung haphazardly over their shoulders, boots muddy, shirts undone. An armoured personnel carrier clanks by, the roar of its engine temporarily drowning out the boom of artillery. Officers shout orders. Tired men jump down from dusty vehicles and swear.
Even during the recent ceasefire, the rear areas of the massive Israeli military offensive in Gaza were busy. So too was Hamas, which used the seven-day pause in hostilities to reorganise its battered forces and reconstitute some of its degraded capabilities.
Continue reading...Online system designed to order precise evacuations inaccessible to those without power or network access
• Israel-Hamas war – live updates
Israel’s new grid system for targeted evacuation warnings in southern Gaza risks turning life in the territory into a “macabre game of Battleships”, aid workers have warned.
When Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza after a week-long ceasefire deal collapsed, it immediately signalled plans to intensify attacks on the south of the territory, in areas where Palestinian civilians had previously been urged to take shelter.
Continue reading...Airstrikes near Damascus follow end to seven-day pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza Strip
Two Iranian Revolutionary Guards members serving as military advisers in Syria have been killed in an Israeli attack, Iranian state media has said.
Strikes near the Syrian capital of Damascus came less than 24 hours after the end of a seven-day pause in fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah ally Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Continue reading...A team from Israel’s Mossad intelligence services has been ordered home after talks in Qatar about another pause in fighting in Gaza reach a ‘dead end’
Here are the latest images coming across the wires:
Israeli airstrikes killed two Syrian pro-Hezbollah fighters when they hit sites belonging to the Iran-backed group near Damascus early on Saturday, a war monitor told AFP.
Continue reading...The person, who is as yet not been identified, is in critical condition and a guard who attempted to intervene was injured
A protester with a Palestinian flag self-immolated on Friday outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, injuring a security guard who attempted to intervene, authorities said.
The person, whom officials did not identify, is in critical condition, the Atlanta police chief Darin Schierbaum said at a news conference. The guard’s condition was not immediately clear.
Continue reading...Palestine Action’s Richard Barnard and co-defendants say alleged actions against Elbit Systems were aimed at stopping bombings
A co-founder of Palestine Action on trial with others for damaging an Israeli arms manufacturer’s UK sites has said they were justified because they were trying to stop people being bombed.
Richard Barnard, 51, and seven other defendants are accused of charges relating to actions against Elbit Systems Limited, which he said Palestine Action aims to “shut down”.
Continue reading...IDF claim to be avoiding blanket bombing the south, where about 2mn people live, but their new approach does not look much different
Israel’s Defense Forces waited just four minutes after the truce expired at 7am before restarting bombing, according to one resident of Khan Younis. An hour later, its military set out its plan for the “next stage of the war”: a division of Gaza into dozens of numbered “evacuation areas”, a core part of the military’s plan to gradually take control of the southern part of the strip.
The military’s plan, canvassed privately this week, is to avoid a repeat of the blanket bombing of the northern Gaza in the crowded south, with sequential, targeted bombing campaigns. Under the plan, people in certain numbered districts of Gaza will be told to evacuate before bombing begins, although how much time they will get is not clear; homes in Khan Younis were among the targets struck on Friday hours after the truce expired, and residents were given little if any time to flee.
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Palestinian media is reporting Israeli military strikes in northern Gaza, Reuters has snapped.
The Israeli military has resumed combat against Hamas in Gaza, the military announced, saying Hamas had violated the truce and fired towards Israeli territory, Reuters has snapped.
Continue reading...More than 170 Palestinians killed as Red Cross head warns ‘nightmarish situation’ for civilians has returned
Israel attacked targets across Gaza after the end of a seven-day ceasefire on Friday, leaving more than 170 Palestinians dead after negotiations over further hostage releases fell apart overnight.
Israel’s military said it had attacked 200 targets from land, sea and air across the north and south of the strip by lunchtime, including in Khan Younis, a southern city from which it had ordered civilians to evacuate.
Continue reading...Study covering period in late October and early November shows damage to 10 hospitals and health facilities
• Warning: this article contains images and videos some may find distressing.
An investigation has revealed the damage caused to hospitals, health facilities and ambulances in the northern Gaza Strip over 21 days in the course of the Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza.
The Guardian collected and analysed more than 200 pieces of evidence including videos, photos, news footage and satellite imagery from between approximately 21 October and 11 November, and spoke to international humanitarian organisations, to investigate the damage caused to 10 of Gaza’s hospitals and health facilities. Of the 10, only two are functioning.
Continue reading...Mia Schem was abducted from music festival on 7 October; lawyer Amit Soussana has also been released
Mia Schem, a French-Israeli woman who was abducted from the Supernova music festival in Israel and shown in the first Hamas video of a hostage speaking from captivity, has been released.
She was one of eight hostages released in two tranches on Thursday.
Continue reading...Philippe Lazzarini urges Israel to think of consequences of offensive if truce is not further extended
An Israeli military assault into the south of Gaza may lead to 1 million refugees, the head of the UN’s Palestine relief agency UNRWA has warned.
After a second overnight visit to Gaza where he met overwhelmed Palestinians, Philippe Lazzarini urged Israel to think through the consequences of an offensive in the south if the temporary truce in the fighting is not extended.
Continue reading...Representatives from 10 countries sign statement warning of rising hate crimes against Muslims and Jews
Anti-racism officials across Europe have called on law enforcement agencies to remain alert for hate crimes against Muslims and “spare no effort” to protect them, in one of the first statements aimed at addressing a rise in Islamophobia amid the Israel-Hamas war.
The statement, signed by representatives from 10 European countries as well as EU officials, notes the rising number of hate crimes, hate speech and threats to civil liberties that have targeted Muslim and Jewish communities across Europe in recent months. Both “have become targets of physical and verbal attacks”, with people feeling “more and more unsafe and threatened, online and offline”, it read.
Continue reading...Two men, reportedly brothers from East Jerusalem, shot dead at scene after attack that killed three people
Hamas has claimed responsibility for a deadly gun attack at a busy bus stop in west Jerusalem in which three Israelis were killed, prompting the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to pledge to eliminate the Palestinian group whenever the hostage release halts.
The shooting overshadowed negotiations aimed at extending the existing truce in Gaza, but despite the attack, Egypt and Qatar remained hopeful of securing a two-day extension in return for the release of another 20 hostages and a further 60 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
Continue reading...Anthony Hurndall, whose son was shot by the IDF in 2003, has called on governments to challenge Israeli claims about deaths of women and children
Western governments are “actively encourag[ing] the killing of women and children” in Gaza, because they are not willing to challenge Israeli accounts of the war there, the father of a British peace activist killed by an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) sniper has warned.
Anthony Hurndall’s son, Tom Hurndall, was shot in the head in April 2003 in Rafah, while he was helping Palestinian children.
Continue reading...IDF and Hamas agree at last minute to extend truce into seventh day as Antony Blinken arrives in Israel as part of diplomatic efforts to avoid a return to fighting in devastated Gaza Strip
Israel’s military confirmed on Thursday that a truce with Hamas will continue, allowing further hostage and prisoner releases and the possibility of more a durable pause in hostilities.
There were frantic diplomatic efforts through the night to prolong the six-day halt to fighting in Gaza which was set to end at 7am local time (5am GMT) on Thursday. The current extension appears to be only for 24 hours, though this has yet to be explicitly confirmed by all parties.
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China’s government has released a position paper on the Israel-Hamas conflict. The country this month took the chair of the UN security council, and the position paper’s release coincided with an address to the council by China’s foreign minister Wang Yi.
The five point proposal reiterated much of China’s ongoing position on the conflict, which is that a two-state solution remains the answer, and again called for an immediate ceasefire, and an end to the fighting. It said humanitarian corridors had to be safe and unimpeded, and expansion of the conflict must be prevented.
Pursuant to the Charter of the United Nations, the Security Council shoulders primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and should thus play an active and constructive role on the question of Palestine.
Any arrangement on the future of Gaza must respect the will and independent choice of the Palestinian people, and must not be imposed upon them.
Continue reading...With olives the largest single agricultural product on the West Bank, Palestinians say Israeli restrictions and settler violence are losing them $70m
Shaadi, Isa and Mahmud Saleh look out across the valley, bite their nails, wring their hands and worry. There is no work locally and travelling to find any is almost impossible because of restrictions imposed by Israel on the occupied West Bank after the 7 October attacks by Hamas that killed more than 1,200 people. The main road into their village has been almost entirely blocked. Their debts are mounting up.
“There has never been anything like this,” says Isa, 73. “Life is not normal.”
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