Israel-Hamas war live: IDF says forces ‘fighting in the heart of Gaza City’ as Netanyahu says ‘Israel won’t stop’ | Israel-Hamas war

Joanna Walters

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said a humanitarian convoy carrying lifesaving medical supplies came under fire in Gaza City on Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reports.

The convoy of five trucks and two Red Cross vehicles was carrying supplies to health facilities, including to Al-Quds hospital, when it was hit, an ICRC statement said, adding that two trucks were damaged and a driver lightly wounded.

The ICRC did not specify who had fired at its convoy or from what direction the fire came.

“These are not the conditions under which humanitarian personnel can work,” said William Schomburg, the head of the ICRC sub-delegation in Gaza.

“We are here to bring urgent assistance to civilians in need. Ensuring that vital aid can reach medical facilities is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law.”

After the gunfire, the convoy altered its route and reached Al-Shifa hospital, where it delivered the medical supplies, the ICRC said.

Later the ICRC convoy accompanied six ambulances with critically wounded patients to the Rafah crossing to Egypt, it added.

Joanna Walters

At the White House, national security spokesman John Kirby said moments ago that the US does not want Israel to reoccupy Gaza and, ultimately, future control of the Palestinian territory cannot include Hamas, the fundamentalist group that controls Gaza.

“Reoccupation of Gaza [by Israel] is not the right thing to do,” Kirby said.

But he added that, in the future, “Hamas cannot be part of the equation” about who will administer Gaza, saying “we cannot go back to October 6”, ie the day before Hamas fighters broke across the border into southern Israel and killed more than 1,400 Israeli citizens and, in addition, taking more than 200 hostages back into Gaza, where they are still held.

The White House is sticking to its line that it is urging Israel to pick its targets in Gaza carefully, while acknowledging that “many thousands” of Palestinian civilians have been killed in the blockaded territory.

The Biden administration continues to refuse to publicly endorse the death toll stated by the health ministry in Gaza, while saying the US does not have a verified death toll to talk about as a counterclaim.

Kirby acknowledged it was “horrible to see the images of children being pulled out of rubble in Gaza”, many of whom have not survived Israel’s bombardment of the territory.

It’s just past 9pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s where things stand:

• Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are encircling Gaza City and operating inside it. In a televised statement on Tuesday, Netanyahu said there would be no ceasefire before hostages were released and urged people in Gaza to move south “because Israel will not stop”.

• Netanyahu said Israel may consider “tactical little pauses” in fighting to allow the entry of aid or the exit of hostages from the Gaza Strip. The Israeli prime minister told ABC news in an interview broadcast on Monday night: “Israel will for an indefinite period … have the overall security responsibility [in Gaza] because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have that security responsibility.”

• Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, also said the IDF are operating in the heart of Gaza City and “tightening the chokehold” around the city. In a televised statement on Tuesday, Gallant rejected any humanitarian pauses without the return of hostages.

• Waving white flags and holding their hands above their heads, Palestinian families fled past tanks waiting to storm Gaza City. Israel’s military gave civilians inside the encircled city a four-hour window to leave on Tuesday, as its forces prepared to retake the biggest city in the strip. The IDF said they would allow residents to leave from 10am until 2pm local time, and published a video of dozens of people along a main road. Hundreds of thousands of people are feared to still be trapped.

• Israel’s military claims to have captured a Hamas military stronghold and detonated a Hamas weapons depot “in a civilian area” adjacent to al-Quds hospital. Israel has repeatedly claimed that Hamas is using hospital buildings to carry out military operations. Israeli forces on Monday said they had severed northern Gaza from the rest of the besieged territory.

• The Israel Defence Forces military spokesperson Daniel Hagari has said that on Tuesday Israel again fired into Lebanon in response to an attack. The IDF also claimed it intercepted “a suspicious aerial target” near the blue line which marks the UN-drawn boundary between Israel and Lebanon.

• At least 10,328 Palestinians – including 4,237 children – have been killed within the Gaza Strip by Israeli military actions since 7 October, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said on Tuesday. The number of people wounded has risen to 25,965, according to the health ministry spokesperson Dr Ashraf al-Qudra. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued in Gaza.

• A moment’s silence was held on Tuesday to mark 30 days since the Hamas attack on Israel in which 1,400 people were killed. Vigils have been held around the world. In Jerusalem on Monday night a vigil was held with a candle lit for each victim and relatives of the dead gathered at Jerusalem’s Western Wall to mark a month of mourning.

• A Palestinian journalist has been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza and another was wounded, the official Palestinian news agency reported. Mohammad Abu Hasira was killed along with 42 members of his family “in an Israeli bombing that targeted his house located near the fishermen’s port west of Gaza City”, the WAFA news agency reported.

• The level of death and suffering in the Israel-Palestine crisis is “hard to fathom”, a World Health Organization spokesperson (WHO) has said. “Every day, you think it is the worst day and then the next day is worse,” Christian Lindmeier told journalists on Tuesday. “Nothing justifies the horror being endured by civilians in Gaza.” The WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, urged all parties involved to agree to a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and “work toward a lasting peace”. “History will judge us all by what we do to end this tragedy,” he said.

• Civilians are Gaza are “drinking water from a swimming pool” and children are “crying for lack of bread”, the international humanitarian organisation Care said as it urged an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian territory. More than half a million people in northern Gaza face death by starvation as food supplies run “perilously” low, ActionAid Palestine warned. The UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, has described the situation in Gaza as a “tragedy of colossal proportions”. A World Health Organization spokesperson said on Tuesday that more than 160 healthcare workers had died while on duty in Gaza.

• The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, began a five-day visit to the Middle East on Tuesday to engage with government officials and civil society groups on human rights violations taking place amid Israel’s escalation in Gaza. “It has been one full month of carnage, of incessant suffering, bloodshed, destruction, outrage and despair,” Türk said in a statement.

• At least 320 foreign nationals and dependents were evacuated from Gaza through the Rafah border crossing on Tuesday, as well as 100 Egyptians and 262 Jordanians and the first group of Canadian nationals. A dozen Palestinian children who have cancer were also allowed to leave Gaza on Tuesday for treatment in Egypt. In total, more than 400 US citizens, lawful permanent residents and other eligible people have been evacuated from Gaza, and more than 100 French nationals and their dependents have crossed the Rafah border.

• The British army is “posturing” itself for the prospect of a “non-combatant evacuation operation” in the Middle East in the event the Israel-Hamas conflict expands, the UK’s chief of the general staff told parliament’s defense select committee on Tuesday.

• The German government has decided to release €91m (£79m) for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) after a review launched in response to the Hamas attacks on Israel.

• Scotland Yard does not believe it has grounds to support a ban on the planned pro-Palestine demonstration through central London on Armistice Day, the Guardian has learned. The UK government has been pressing the Metropolitan police to use their powers to ask for a ban of the proposed protest on Saturday.

Oliver Holmes

Waving white flags and holding their hands above their heads, Palestinian families fled past tanks waiting to storm Gaza City.

Israel’s military gave civilians inside the encircled city a four-hour window to leave on Tuesday, as its forces prepared to retake the biggest city in the strip.

Men, women and children, some carrying their belongings on donkeys, fled their homes past Israeli troops out of the city.

In an Arabic-language message, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said they would allow residents to leave from 10am until 2pm local time, and published a video of dozens of people along a main road.

Posting online, one resident, Adam Fayez Zeyara, said the walk on Tuesday was the most dangerous of his life.

We saw the tanks from point blank. We saw decomposed body parts. We saw death.

Hundreds of thousands of people are feared to still be trapped. Hamas, which has long used the tactic of hiding among civilians, has been accused of blocking people from leaving their homes.

Israel has repeatedly told civilians to move south for their own safety but continued to bomb the entire strip, striking the southern city of Khan Younis on Tuesday, killing 23 people according to Palestinian health officials.

Netanyahu says he is in “continuous contact” with Joe Biden and that Israel appreciates the support from him and the US.

The Israeli leader says he is bringing leaders from around the world to show them “the horror of horrors committed by Hamas”.

Netanyahu vows to “completely destroy” the abilities of Hamas to control the Gaza Strip. He adds:

I’m calling on the citizens of Gaza: please go south. I know you’re already doing that. Complete the move to the south because Israel will not stop. There’s no entry of workers and there will be no ceasefire without our hostages being back home.

Netanyahu says Hezbollah is “starting to take part in this war”, warning that they will be “making the mistake of a lifetime” if they do so.

The Israeli prime minister says he will not accept a reality where Hamas and Hezbollah from Lebanon will be “hurting our citizens” in northern Israel, and vows to “retaliate with fire”.

He says he has spoken with the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross about the hostages held in Gaza, and demanded that the Red Cross immediately visit the hostages to make sure that they are healthy and well. He added:

I am reiterating and I’m telling both my friends and my enemies: we will not have a ceasefire without the hostages back home.

Israel is “acting with every means possible on every front possible” to bring the hostages home, he said, adding that military action is “an essential part of that effort”.

Analysis: Netanyahu’s vague vision for Gaza after war may open up new chapter of violence

Peter Beaumont

The last time Israeli troops had a permanent security role inside Gaza, Israel’s prime minister was Ariel Sharon. Twenty-one Israeli settlements were scattered across the Gaza Strip, connected to Israel through a bypass road, used by Israeli surfers at the weekend to reach the coast.

Soldiers manned checkpoints and metal-clad towers. At night, Palestinian children would approach the towers under cover of darkness to throw crude pipe bombs that could be bought for pocket money.

For their part, the armed factions in Gaza, Hamas among them, would attempt serious attacks including shootings and suicide bombings.

Now Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has suggested what many Israelis thought unthinkable: a return of security in Gaza to the Israeli administration, a place already half in ruins, with a population of 2.3 million.

“Israel will for an indefinite period have the overall security responsibly,” Netanyahu told ABC news on Monday, “because we have seen what happens when we do not have it.”

Exactly what Netanyahu has in mind remains unclear. Indeed, his comments appear to run contrary to assessments in the US and elsewhere that Israel – which militarily controlled Gaza from 1967 to 2005 – planned to reoccupy Gaza in any fashion and in any case would be opposed by Washington.

Read the full analysis here.

Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are operating in the heart of Gaza City and “tightening the chokehold” around the city.

In a televised statement on Tuesday, Gallant described the Gaza Strip as “the biggest terror base mankind has ever built” and said IDF ground forces have stormed terror strongholds in Gaza “from all directions, in perfect coordination with maritime and aerial forces”, the Times of Israel reported.

On the subject of international demands for humanitarian pauses, he said:

Humanitarian pauses, to me, means first and foremost the captives held by animals. There will be no humanitarian truce without [the return of] the hostages.

He said neither Israel nor Hamas would govern the Palestinian enclave once the war was over, Reuters reported.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has said it is fighting in “significant centres” of the Gaza Strip during a “complex and difficult” war with Hamas militants.

Israel’s southern command has been fighting non-stop for a month to “strike the core of Hamas’ capabilites”, Maj Gen Yaron Finkelman said in a statement on Tuesday.

He said Israeli soldiers are “eliminating terrorists, discovering tunnels, destroying weapons and continuing to advance into the center of the enemy”. He added:

We are fighting at this very hour in significant centers of the Gaza Strip. I have just returned from there. For the first time in a decade, the IDF is fighting in the heart of Gaza City. In the heart of terror. This is a complex and difficult war, and unfortunately, it has costs.