Israel-Hamas war live: Biden defends refusal to call for ceasefire; Israel criticises UN resolution urging humanitarian pause | Israel-Hamas war

Israeli fight jets struck the Gaza home of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have said on Telegram.

Haniyeh, considered to be the militant group’s overall leader, has lived in Qatar for several years.

But the IDF said his house was “used as terrorist infrastructure and often served as a meeting point for Hamas’ senior leaders”.

Israeli soldiers had also “located and destroyed a Hamas naval forces weapons cache, containing diving gear, explosive devices and weapons,” the IDF said.

They also “struck terrorists and located weapons including explosive belts, explosive barrels, RPGS, anti-tank missiles, comms equipment and intelligence documents.

The Guardian was not able to verify these claims.

Israel’s UN ambassador has denounced a UN security council resolution calling for a “humanitarian pauses” as “disconnected from reality” and “meaningless”. He continued:

Regardless of what the Council decides, Israel will continue acting according to int’l law while the Hamas terrorists will not even read the resolution at all, let alone abide by it.

It is unfortunate that the Council continues to ignore, not condemn, or even mention the massacre that Hamas carried out on October 7, which led to the war in Gaza. It is truly shameful!

The UN security council resolution, passed late Wednesday after weeks of disagreement among members, calls for “urgent extended humanitarian pauses for [a] sufficient number of days to allow aid access” to Gaza.

The US and the UK, two potentially veto-wielding powers, abstained on the resolution on the grounds that although they supported the emphasis on humanitarian relief, they could not give their full support because it contained no explicit criticism of Hamas.

Russia also abstained on the grounds that it made no mention of an immediate ceasefire, its top imperative.

The resolution, drafted by Malta, was passed with 12 votes in favour, and is the first UN resolution on the Israel-Palestine conflict since 2016.

Joe Biden issues strident defence of refusal to call for ceasefire

Julian Borger

Joe Biden has presented an unapologetic defence of his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, arguing that Hamas presented a continuing threat to Israel and that Israeli forces were seeking to avoid civilian casualties. After a summit meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, Biden told reporters:

Hamas has already said publicly that they plan on attacking Israel again like they did before, cutting babies’ heads off, burning women and children alive. So the idea that they’re going to just stop and not do anything is not realistic.

Reports that Hamas beheaded babies in the 7 October attack on Israeli civilians remain unconfirmed, though the brutality of the massacre in which some 1,200 were killed is not in doubt.

Biden also argued that Israeli forces had switched from aerial bombardment, which he seemed to acknowledge had been “indiscriminate” in parts, to more targeted ground operations, after more than 11,000 Gazans are reported to have died. He said:

It is not carpet bombing. This is a different thing. They’re going through these tunnels, they’re going into the hospital. They’re also bringing in incubators or bringing in other means to help people in the hospital, and they’ve given, I’m told, the doctors and nurses and personnel the opportunity to get out of harm’s way. So this is a different story than I believe it was occurring before, the indiscriminate bombing.

He continued: “The IDF, Israeli Defence Forces, acknowledge they have an obligation to use as much caution as they can, in going after their targets. It’s not like they’re rushing to the hospital knocking on doors, you know, pulling people aside and shooting people indiscriminately.”

Biden also suggested that a possible hostage deal was imminent, saying the Israelis had agreed to a “pause” as part of the deal, but then stopped short, appearing to acknowledge the uneasiness of secretary of state Antony Blinken, finally adding: “I’m mildly hopeful.”

The forcefulness of Biden’s defence of the Israeli military, is notably out of step with recent remarks by senior US officials, who have shifted their emphasis to appeals to the IDF to observe humanitarian law and avoid civilian casualties. It seemed to confirm reports that the president is more unreservedly pro-Israel than many in his administration.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war with me, Helen Livingstone.

US President Joe Biden has defended his refusal to call for a ceasefire, arguing that Hamas has said it would attack Israel again and that “the idea that they’re going to just stop and not do anything is not realistic.”

Biden also argued that Israeli forces had switched from aerial bombardment, which he seemed to acknowledge had been “indiscriminate” in parts, to more targeted ground operations, after more than 11,000 Gazans are reported to have died.

He said: “It is not carpet bombing. This is a different thing. They’re going through these tunnels, they’re going into the hospital. They’re also bringing in incubators or bringing in other means to help people in the hospital, and they’ve given, I’m told, the doctors and nurses and personnel the opportunity to get out of harm’s way.

“So this is a different story than I believe it was occurring before, the indiscriminate bombing.”

The forcefulness of Biden’s defence of the Israeli military, is notably out of step with recent remarks by senior US officials, who have shifted their emphasis to appeals to the IDF to observe humanitarian law and avoid civilian casualties. It seemed to confirm reports that the president is more unreservedly pro-Israel than many in his administration.

In other key developments:

• The United Nations security council adopted a resolution calling for humanitarian pauses in the fighting in Gaza and the establishment of aid corridors to speed relief supplies to those in need. Russia, the UK and US abstained from the vote, which passed 12-0, the first global agreement since the conflict began last month. Israel dismissed the resolution as “detached from reality”, while the the permanent observer of Palestine to the UN said the body should hold Israel accountable if it ignores it.

• The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew from the al-Shifa hospital complex in Gaza city almost 24 hours after an overnight raid it called a “precise and targeted operation” against Hamas. The IDF said it discovered military equipment including grenades, automatic weapons, ammunition and communications technology, confirming what it said was a Hamas command operations center beneath the hospital.

• Hamas denied the claim, which it said in a statement was “nothing but a continuation of the lies and cheap propaganda, through which [Israel] is trying to give justification for its crime aimed at destroying the health sector in Gaza”.

• Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of the al-Shifa hospital, said that water, electricity and medical oxygen supplies were completely cut off within the facility, and that he was unable to communicate with doctors. “We cannot reach the pharmacy to treat patients as the occupation shoots everyone who moves. The smell of death wafts everywhere,” he told Al Jazeera.

• Seven staff members at the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza were injured in what Jordan alleged was an Israeli airstrike on the emergency department. “Our field hospital staff rushed to the emergency section as they saw a number of Palestinians carrying wounded persons, and as our staff got to the emergency room, they got hit again,” foreign minister Ayman Safadi said, adding that “many other” Palestinians were killed or injured.

• The Ministry of Health in Gaza did not update the death toll for the fifth consecutive day on Wednesday, due to the collapse in communications and in hospital services in the territory, the UN humanitarian relief agency OCHA noted. As of 10 November the death toll was 11,078, of whom 4,506 were said to be children and 3,027 women. Another 27,490 Palestinians have reportedly been injured.

• Eight senior politicians from the Britain’s opposition Labour Party resigned or were fired for defying leader Keir Starmer’s demand they not support a resolution in the UK parliament calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Overall, 56 Labour MPs voted for an amendment to the king’s speech brought by the Scottish National party, a major blow to the party leader’s attempts to keep unity over the war.

• The US navy warship Thomas Hudner shot down a drone that emanated from Yemen in the Red Sea early on Wednesday. It was only the second time the US had brought down projectiles near its warships since the Israel-Hamas conflict began last month.

• Israel’s former deputy prime minister Gideon Sa’ar told the UK publication Jewish News that his country will agree to a temporary ceasefire in Gaza to facilitate the release of hostages held by Hamas. “It will be achieved. We will see a temporary ceasefire,” he said. His words contradict those of Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has frequently and vociferously ruled out a ceasefire.

• Gaza’s two main telecommunications companies warned of a “complete telecom blackout in the coming hours” in the Gaza Strip. “Main data centres and switches are gradually shutting down due to fuel depletion,” the companies said in a joint statement.

• The UN children’s agency says its top official visited children and their families in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the south of the territory. “What I saw and heard was devastating. They have endured repeated bombardment, loss and displacement,” Unicef’s executive director, Catherine Russell, said in a statement. “Inside the strip, there is nowhere safe for Gaza’s one million children to turn.”

• Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNWRA, has said: “Our entire operation is now on the verge of collapse,” and that “by the end of today, around 70% of the population in Gaza won’t have access to clean water”.

• Thomas White, the director of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), has said that water pumps and sewage treatment in the south of the Gaza Strip have stopped due to lack of fuel.

• Egypt’s state-run al-Qahera television station reported on Wednesday that the first fuel truck to enter the Gaza Strip since the war started on 7 October had crossed the Egyptian gate of the Rafah crossing. It is reported to be carrying 24,000 litres. “This is not enough for anything – not for hospitals, not even for aid deliveries,” an international source familiar with the operation told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

• Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, called on prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign, saying “we can’t run an extended [military] operation with a prime minister we do not have faith in”. In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, Lapid did not call for an election but said the ruling Likud party should replace Netanyahu with someone from within its ranks.

• Qatari mediators were on Wednesday seeking to negotiate a deal between Hamas and Israel that includes the release of about 50 civilian hostages from Gaza in exchange for a three-day ceasefire, an official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters. The deal would also involve Israel releasing some Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails and increase the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza. Hamas has to date released four of the estimated 240 hostages seized from inside Israel’s borders on 7 October.