Israel-Hamas war live: Troops ‘completed the encirclement of Gaza City’, says IDF; WHO says ‘almost impossible’ to bring aid to Gaza | Israel-Hamas war
Israeli troops have ‘completed the encirclement of Gaza City’, says IDF
Israeli forces are fighting “with full force” in Gaza and focused on “destroying” Hamas and “making every effort” to bring all of the hostages home, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said.
A statement from Hagari on Thursday said IDF troops “completed the encirclement of Gaza City, which is the focal point of the Hamas terror organisation”.
Israeli forces are “killing terrorists in close combat, in any place in which fighting is required”, he said.
Key events
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Summary of the day so far
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Blinken to push for ‘humanitarian pauses’ during visit to Israel – report
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Palestinian journalist killed in Gaza bombing, says network
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WHO says ‘almost impossible’ to bring humanitarian aid to people in Gaza
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Israeli troops have ‘completed the encirclement of Gaza City’, says IDF
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US ‘not telling Israel how it should conduct this war’, says Kamala Harris
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Summary of the day so far
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Hamas and Hezbollah say they have attacked Israeli areas near Lebanon boundary
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Dozens reportedly killed after four Gaza shelters damaged in less than 24 hours, says UN agency
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Biden: 74 dual citizens have been allowed to leave Gaza
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Time is running out to prevent genocide in Gaza, UN experts warn
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More British citizens crossed into Egypt from Gaza on Thursday
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Israel could allow fuel into Gaza if hospitals run out, says IDF commander
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Israeli troops ‘at the height of battle’ after pushing through Gaza City outskirts, says Netanyahu
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Sirens sound across central and northern Israel
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Israeli troops ‘operating inside and surrounding Gaza City’, says IDF
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It is just past 5pm in Gaza City and in Tel Aviv. Here is a summary of the latest news:
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About a third of hospitals in Gaza non-functional – WHO
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Lebanon’s Hezbollah says it used drones to attack Israeli army position
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15 killed after airstrike on Bureij refugee camp, says Gaza civil defence
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About 100 foreign nationals leave via Rafah – AFP
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Gaza health ministry says Palestinian death toll climbs to 9,061, including 3,760 children
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It is just past 12.30pm in Gaza City and in Tel Aviv. Here is a summary of the latest news:
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400 with foreign passports expected to cross border at Rafah today – Egyptian official
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Israeli forces say ‘dozens’ of Hamas fighters killed in overnight operations
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Thai officials hold talks with Hamas in Iran
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Israel says ‘no damage’ to drone over Lebanese border
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Main generator at key Gaza hospital ‘out of service’ – reports
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At least 195 Palestinians killed in strikes on Jabalia refugee camp – Hamas
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Biden calls for a humanitarian ‘pause’
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Opening and summary
Summary of the day so far
It’s 1am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s where we stand:
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Israeli forces have “completed the encirclement of Gaza City” and are fighting “with full force”, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said. Israel’s top military commander said his country’s forces have surrounded Gaza City on three sides and that Israeli troops are operating inside the city. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also said Israeli forces had pushed further in than the outskirts of Gaza City. “We’re at the height of the battle,” he said.
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At least 9,061 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, including 3,760 children, the health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday. The current conflict began on 7 October when Hamas launched an onslaught on southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people and swept up hundreds more as hostages. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify figures from either Israeli or Palestinian authorities.
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The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said four of its schools in Gaza that are being used as shelters have been damaged in less than 24 hours. At least 20 people have reportedly been killed and five others injured on Thursday after a school that is being used as a shelter was damaged at the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, the agency said in its latest update. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said at least 27 people were killed in a blast near a UN school in the Jabalia camp on Thursday.
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At least 15 people have been killed after a blast in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry said. A spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence said the blast took place in a residential building, and residents reported scores of people trapped beneath the rubble.
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At least 195 Palestinians were killed in two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday and Wednesday, a Hamas-run government media office said. Israel claims it killed senior Hamas officials in both attacks. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said Muhammad A’sar, the commander of Hamas’s anti-tank guided missile array, was targeted in Wednesday’s airstrike. The UN human rights office said Israel’s airstrike on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday could amount to war crimes.
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Eighteen Israeli soldiers have been killed amid fierce fighting in Gaza, the IDF said, in a series of incidents that have underlined the mounting challenges facing the IDF in their attempts to push further into built-up areas of Gaza.
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A journalist working for the Palestinian Authority’s television channel was killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza, his network reported. Mohammed Abu Hatab was killed along with 11 members of his family after an Israeli aistrike on their home, according to the PA’s official news agency WAFA. His death marks the 36th journalist who has been killed in the conflict, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
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Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam brigades, said its fighters in southern Lebanon were behind the shelling of the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, where four rockets landed in an industrial area, injuring two people and damaging buildings.
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Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, said it had simultaneously attacked 19 positions in Israel on Thursday evening. The strikes came hours after Hezbollah said it had used two drones packed with explosives to attack an Israeli army command position in the disputed Shebaa Farms area on the Lebanese-Israeli border earlier in the day. It is the first time Hezbollah has acknowledged carrying out an attack against Israeli forces using such drones, and comes a few days after it said for the first time it had used a surface-to-air missile against an Israeli drone.
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The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened for a second day to allow the evacuation of some injured Palestinians requiring hospital treatment and foreign passport holders. British nationals were able to get out of Gaza on Thursday, the UK Foreign Office confirmed. The US has been able to get 74 dual citizens out of Gaza, Joe Biden said. A total of 400 foreign passport holders as well as 60 severely wounded Palestinians were due to cross by the end of Thursday, a spokesperson for the Palestinian side of the crossing said.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it is “almost impossible” to bring humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. The WHO’s emergencies director, Michael Ryan, said the basic safety of staff on the ground in Gaza could not be guaranteed at the moment. It was “unconscionable”, he said. WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the situation on the ground in Gaza is “indescribable”.
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A group of United Nations experts have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, warning that “time is running out” as Palestinian people there find themselves at “grave risk of genocide”. In a statement, they expressed “deep frustration with Israel’s refusal to halt plans to decimate” the Gaza Strip and said they felt “deepening horror” about Israeli airstrikes against the Jabalia refugee camp.
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Turkey is ready to take in cancer patients from the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital in Gaza after it went out of service after running out of fuel, Turkey’s health minister, Fahrettin Koca, said. Health officials yesterday said the hospital – the only cancer treatment hospital in the Gaza Strip – had used up its fuel and was out of service.
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The US will not seek to impose any conditions on the support it gives Israel to defend itself in the wake of the Hamas attacks of 7 October, vice-president Kamala Harris said on Thursday. She refused to comment on Israel’s bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp, adding: “We are not telling Israel how it should conduct this war.”
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The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken will urge the Israeli government to agree to a series of “humanitarian pauses” to the fighting in Gaza, according to a report. Blinken told reporters on Thursday he would seek “concrete steps” from Israel to “minimise harm” to civilians in Gaza. He is due to spend the day on Friday in Israel, his fourth visit since 7 October.
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Joe Biden called for a “pause” in the Israel-Hamas war on Wednesday and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is expected back in the region on Friday. Biden has been under pressure to call for a ceasefire or a meaningful humanitarian pause in Israel’s campaign. Israel did not immediately respond to Biden’s remarks, but Netanyahu has previously ruled out a ceasefire.
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Netanyahu’s office announced that ministers have voted to transfer tax funds it had collected for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to Ramallah, but deducted the money earmarked for the Gaza Strip. “Israel is cutting off all contact with Gaza,” a statement from the office said on Thursday.
Blinken to push for ‘humanitarian pauses’ during visit to Israel – report
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken will urge the Israeli government to agree to a series of “humanitarian pauses” to the fighting in Gaza, according to a report.
Blinken will push Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and other Israeli officials to agree to a series of brief cessations of military operations in Gaza to allow for hostages to be released and for humanitarian aid to be distributed, the New York Times reported, citing White House officials.
White House officials said the request for pauses was far different from an overall ceasefire. Kan news reported that Netanyahu was considering honoring the US request.
A doctor has described the situation at Gaza’s largest hospital as “beyond catastrophic”.
Dr Marwan Abusada, chief of surgery at al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, told Medical Aid for Palestinians:
The situation is beyond catastrophic. The corridors are full of injured people. The ER rooms are beyond full. We have zero capacity to treat all the injured people.
The high number of displaced people are no longer sheltering in the courtyard of the hospital but are now inside the hospital, including in the corridors. There is a high chance of infectious diseases spreading between patients and those displaced.
Palestinian journalist killed in Gaza bombing, says network
A journalist working for the Palestinian Authority’s television channel was killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza, his network reported.
Mohammed Abu Hatab was killed along with 11 members of his family after an Israeli aistrike on their home, according to the PA’s official news agency WAFA.
Abu Hatab’s death marks the 36th journalist who has been killed in the conflict, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
At least 15 people have been killed after a blast in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Aerial shots show the huge destruction of the camp, while residents searched for survivors in the rubble.
Turkey is ready to take in cancer patients from the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital in Gaza after it went out of service after running out of fuel, Turkey’s health minister, Fahrettin Koca, said.
Health officials yesterday said the hospital – the only cancer treatment hospital in the Gaza Strip – had used up its fuel and was out of service.
In a social media post, Koca said that if the necessary coordination was done, Turkey was ready to bring both cancer patients and others in need of emergency help to Turkey to continue their treatment. He added:
The international community and relevant institutions have unfortunately not taken enough initiative to prevent the attacks on the hospital. Saving the lives of the patients is now a duty that cannot be escaped.
Uluslararası toplum, hastaları bilerek ölüme terk etmekle hayatlarını kurtarmak arasında bir tercih yapmak zorunda.
Gazze’de faaliyet gösteren Türk-Filistin Dostluk Hastanesi, yakıtının tükenmesi ve İsrail’in devam eden saldırıları sonucunda dün faaliyetine tamamen son vermek…
— Dr. Fahrettin Koca (@drfahrettinkoca) November 2, 2023
On Wednesday, the Palestinian health minister Mai al-Kaila said the lives of 70 cancer patients inside the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital are “seriously threatened”.
Gaza’s health ministry said on Thursday that four cancer patients died due to the hospital being out of service.
The office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced that ministers have voted to transfer tax funds it had collected for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to Ramallah, but deducted the money earmarked for the Gaza Strip.
The decision by Israel’s security cabinet came amid tensions in the government over whether some West Bank tax revenues should be transferred to the PA.
“Israel is cutting off all contact with Gaza,” a statement from the office said on Thursday.
There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza and the workers who were in Israel on the day the war broke out will be returned to Gaza.
From Kan News’ Amichai Stein:
#BREAKING: Israel cuts off all contact with Gaza. The security cabinet decided there will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza in Israel
— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) November 2, 2023
Under interim peace accords, Israel’s finance ministry collects tax on behalf of the Palestinians and makes monthly transfers to the PA, which go to pay for public sector salaries and other government expenditure.
But Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, had refused to release the funds, accusing the Palestinian Authority of supporting the “horrific massacres of the Nazi terror organisation Hamas”.
Antony Blinken will spend the day on Friday in Israel, his fourth visit since 7 October.
The White House said the US secretary of state will urge the Israeli government to agree to a series of brief cessations of military operations in Gaza to allow for hostages to be released safely and for humanitarian aid to be distributed, Reuters reported.
Blinken will also head to Jordan before heading to Asia next week. Jordan, which was the second Arab nation to make peace with Israel, has withdrawn its ambassador to protest against the “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe” caused by the “ongoing Israeli war”.
Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, will tell Blinken that Israel must end its war on Gaza when the pair meet in Amman, a Jordanian ministry statement said.
The statement accused Israel of committing war crimes by bombing civilians and imposing a siege, adding that Israel’s unreadiness to end the war was pushing the region rapidly towards a regional war that threatened world peace.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said he would seek “concrete steps” from Israel to “minimise harm” to civilians in Gaza amid mounting alarm over soaring casualties in Israel’s bombardment of the territory.
Speaking to reporters before departing on his second Middle East trip in less than a month, Blinken said discussions will also focus on the future of Gaza, when and if Hamas is defeated, as well as on getting more humanitarian aid into Gaza and on ways to ensure the conflict does not spread.
Speaking a day after Joe Biden said the US wanted Israel to allow humanitarian “pauses” to let through aid and people, Blinken said:
When I see a Palestinian child – a boy, a girl – pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building, that hits me in the gut as much as seeing a child in Israel or anywhere else. So this is something that we have an obligation to respond to, and we will.
The US (and the UK) have stopped short of calling for a ceasefire. A ceasefire would “give Hamas the ability to rest, to refit and to get ready to continue launching terrorist attacks against Israel”, US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said last month.
UN experts warned earlier today that “time is running out” as Palestinian people in Gaza find themselves at “grave risk of genocide”.
WHO says ‘almost impossible’ to bring humanitarian aid to people in Gaza
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it is doing everything it can to ensure that the people of Gaza have access to life-saving health and humanitarian services but that “in the current situation this is almost impossible”.
The WHO’s emergencies director, Michael Ryan, said the basic safety of staff on the ground in Gaza could not be guaranteed at the moment, Agence France-Presse reported. It was “unconscionable”, he said.
The UN agency had never found it as difficult to establish basic rules of engagement regarding minimum safety guarantees for humanitarians, he added.
Getting medical supplies to where they are needed “has not been facilitated, that has not been supported; in fact, if anything, quite the opposite”, he added.
WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the situation on the ground in Gaza is “indescribable”.
“We are running out of words to describe the horror unfolding in Gaza,” he said.
Hospital crammed with the injured, lying in corridors; morgues overflowing; doctors performing surgery without anesthesia. And everywhere, fear, death, destruction, loss. As health needs soar, our ability to meet those needs is plummeting.
It is too late to help the dead now. But we can help the living.
Ireland’s president, Michael D Higgins, has said “collective punishment” cannot be “something we accept” in the Israel-Hamas war.
Higgins said a solution must be found to both deliver “a reasonable security” to Israeli citizens and deliver “the long-neglected rights” of the Palestinians, PA news agency reported.
The enlistment of civilians for military purposes on any side has to be recognised and addressed; collective punishment is not something we can accept and claim to be advocates of international law.
It is simply unacceptable that hospitals and those being cared for within them are threatened by the basic lack of resources, damaged or indeed threatened with destruction, or those within them forced to be evacuated.
Higgins said there must be a push for the independent verification of facts, adding that it was important that those killed in the fighting were “not reduced to competing press releases”.
Israeli troops have ‘completed the encirclement of Gaza City’, says IDF
Israeli forces are fighting “with full force” in Gaza and focused on “destroying” Hamas and “making every effort” to bring all of the hostages home, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said.
A statement from Hagari on Thursday said IDF troops “completed the encirclement of Gaza City, which is the focal point of the Hamas terror organisation”.
Israeli forces are “killing terrorists in close combat, in any place in which fighting is required”, he said.
Here are some of the latest images we have received over the newswires from Gaza.
Joanna Walters
Amid ongoing debates at the international level about the merits and likelihood of pauses in hostilities, and demands from some quarters for a ceasefire, at this moment Israeli forces are firing into the northern part of the blockaded Gaza.
Cable news channel CNN is broadcasting right now images of flares and explosions lighting up the night sky over a portion of Gaza, from the US TV network’s camera positions in Sderot, Israel, at the north-east corner of the border between Gaza and Israel.
The channel is speculating that the aerial fire is fresh cover for an increase in Israeli ground troops being sent into the northern part of Gaza.
Intense bombardment of Gaza happening right now…. Around 10pm local time. Live coverage on @CNN
Meanwhile: Sec. Blinken is heading to Israel now to press for more to be done to protect Palestinian civilian lives. pic.twitter.com/b2rHUyVjD8
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) November 2, 2023
US ‘not telling Israel how it should conduct this war’, says Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris refused to comment on Israel’s bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.
A Palestinian government media office said at least 195 Palestinians were killed in two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday and Wednesday. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said a further 20 people were reportedly killed on Thursday after a blast at a school that is being used as a shelter was damaged at the Jabalia camp.
The US vice-president, during a trip to London, said:
We are not telling Israel how it should conduct this war, and so I’m not going to speak to that.
Joanna Walters
Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf has posted on X, formerly Twitter, that “we are witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza” and said Scotland “stands ready” to help treat injured civilians from Gaza.
He said: “We condemn the recent bombing of Jabalia refugee camp, and reiterate our calls for an immediate ceasefire to allow significant amounts of aid through.”
His connection to the crisis is personal as well as political. Last Sunday, Yousaf expressed relief after discovering his parents-in-law, who have traveled to Gaza from Scotland to visit relatives there, are alive, after he had not heard from them during a communication blackout Israel imposed on Gaza.
Within the last hour, Yousaf posted a clip of himself stating that “the people of Palestine, of Gaza, are a very proud people. They should not have to leave their land but of course many have been forced to leave … and of course many are lying injured in dying in hospitals”, which are fast running out of fuel and medical supplies.
He then said that Scotland was prepared, where possible, to bring such people there for treatment.
He said: “There’s not been a request for the UK to receive medical evacuations from Gaza, but we hope that if that does come then the UK, and indeed Scotland, will be ready to play its part.”
Yousaf called for an immediate ceasefire.
We are witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.@ScotGov has topped up its funding for @UNRWA’s aid efforts to £750,000.
We condemn the recent bombing of Jabalia refugee camp, and reiterate our calls for an immediate ceasefire to allow significant amounts of aid through. pic.twitter.com/n1MT3B1Vig
— Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) November 2, 2023
Emine Sinmaz
A British surgeon who was stranded in Gaza has described scenes of “absolute chaos” at the Rafah crossing after becoming one of the first British people to cross into Egypt.
Abdel Hammad, a 67-year-old transplant surgeon from Liverpool working for a charity in Gaza, told his son, Salim Hammad, that he was stuck on a bus for five hours with 54 others as he waited for approval to cross into Egypt.
Salim, a doctor living in Goring, Oxfordshire, said his father finally entered Egypt at about 3.10pm after setting off at 5am. “He’s making his way down with the help of the Foreign Office to Cairo, and then hopefully from there will be able to travel home,” the 34-year-old told the Guardian.
I think the overriding emotion is just relief that he’s finally out and safe. I’m just happy to see him soon.
Jess Phillips, the Labour frontbencher, said Britons were not getting out quickly enough, arguing that the government’s diplomatic efforts did not appear to be having “much sway”.
Another person waiting to be evacuated from Gaza said the Foreign Office had told him that the British government would pay for two nights’ accommodation in Cairo but would not facilitate flights.
The Londoner, who did not want to be named, said he received a message saying: “Once you have passed into Egypt, we will provide you transport to Cairo and two nights’ accommodation should you need it. We are not facilitating flights from Egypt at this time.”
In another message sent on Thursday afternoon, the rapid deployment team messaged the man saying: “We can offer some support with planning your onward travel but we are not at present facilitating flights from Cairo to the UK – this is at your own cost.”
He told the Guardian:
I’m just sick that the British government has abandoned us.
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