Israel-Hamas war live: Netanyahu says progress made on release of hostages held by Hamas and hopes for ‘good news soon’
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Benjamin Netanyahu said today progress was being made on the release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“We are making progress. I don’t think it’s worth saying too much, not at even this moment, but I hope there will be good news soon,” Reuters reports the Israeli prime minister told reservists, according to a statement from his office.
The Times of Israel earlier reported Qatar foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari as saying “we are at the closest point we ever had been in reaching an agreement,” adding that negotiations were at a “critical and final stage”.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said this morning: “We are close to reaching a deal on a truce [with Israel]”, adding that the group had delivered its response to Qatari mediators.
It is reported that the deal would involve a multi-day pause in hostilities, the release of about 50 civilian hostages by Hamas and the release of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli custody.
Any agreement would mark the biggest hostage release and first prisoner swap since the 7 October Hamas attack inside Israel. To date, just four of the estimated 240 people seized and abducted into Gaza have been returned to Israel.
Before the war, Israel was holding about 5,200 Palestinians in custody, and since 7 October there have been more than 2,900 further arrests. Human rights and monitoring groups believe Israel is holding at least 95 women, 37 journalists and 145 children among them.
Key events
Patrick Wintour is the Guardian’s diplomatic editor:
A revolt by leaders of the global south against US support for Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is brewing as Arab diplomats met their counterparts in China and Moscow, while South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa convened a virtual meeting of the leaders of the Brics countries to condemn Israel.
The Biden administration has been repeatedly warned, including by its own diplomats, that it risks serious loss of support among global south nations that accuse the US of displaying double standards by condemning Russian war crimes in Ukraine, yet remaining largely silent over Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The Brics group consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and new Brics entrants whose full membership commences next year, including Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, were also invited. South Africa has already cut off diplomatic ties with Israel.
The Arab diplomats have been on a tour of capitals of permanent members of the UN security council to gather support for a further UN security council resolution instructing Israel to stop preventing humanitarian aid reaching Gaza. It may also ask for the security council to upgrade the call made on Israel to implement a humanitarian pause to an instruction. Israel immediately rejected a UN security council last week to introduce humanitarian pauses.
The delegation started their tour in China before heading to Russia on Tuesday in a sign that the Arab countries now realise they will have to demonstrate to the US president Joe Biden he cannot take an Arab-US alliance for granted if he continues to provide such strong support to Israel.
It is also expected that some members of the delegation will visit France and the UK. The Qatar prime minister Mohammed bin Abdulraham bin Jassim Al Thani had announced he is due to visit Moscow and London this week.
An Egyptian foreign ministry spokesperson said the diplomats had “drafted a new resolution to be submitted to the security council by the Arab and Islamic groups; to deal with existing obstacles and imbalances of humanitarian aid entry to Gaza.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Gaza and Israel.
Britain has deployed 1,000 extra troops in Middle East since 7 October
Dan Sabbagh
Dan Sabbagh is the Guardian’s defence and security editor:
Britain has deployed an extra 1,000 military personnel around the Middle East since Hamas’s deadly 7 October attack on Israel, junior defence minister James Heappey said on Monday in a parliamentary answer, revising upwards the deployment to the region.
The figure is notably higher than the 600 mentioned by Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, to British MPs yesterday, but it is understood that he was incorrectly referring to an older figure that also did not fully include the UK’s naval commitment.
Responding to a question from opposition Labour’s shadow defence secretary John Healey, Shapps also confirmed that UK forces personnel “have been moved to Tel Aviv” in Israel as well as Beirut and Jordan to help protect British military and civilians in the region.
Defence sources indicated on Tuesday these were British officers to provide liaison with the Israeli Defense Force, and to draw up emergency evacuation and other plans in event of a wider war involving Hezbollah and possibly Iran – but not combat-ready soldiers providing force protection.
Healey asked on Monday whether the government was right to continue to pursue planned cuts to the size of the British army to 73,000, given the Israel-Hamas war, but Shapps said the UK could manage the extra deployment and more if needed. “I am satisfied that we cut our cloth in order to react to events around the world,” the defence secretary said.
Netanyahu announces series of government meetings tonight ‘in light of developments’ on hostage releases
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has announced a series of government meetings tonight “in light of developments on the issue of the release of our hostages”.
The war cabinet will meet at 6pm (4pm GMT), the security cabinet at 7pm (5pm GMT) and the full government at 8pm (6pm GMT).
Prime Minister’s Office Announcement:
In light of developments on the issue of the release of our hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will, this evening, convene the War Cabinet at 18:00, the Security Cabinet at 19:00, and the Government at 20:00.
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) November 21, 2023
Emine Sinmaz
Emine Sinmaz reports from Shefayim for the Guardian on Israelis displaced from their homes by the 7 October Hamas attack:
Yali Shamriz was celebrating her second birthday when Hamas gunmen arrived at the kibbutz where she lived and opened fire.
For 22 hours, she sheltered with her father, Jonathan, 33, and mother, Natali, 31, in the safe room at their home while the attackers murdered 63 of the kibbutz’s 700 residents and kidnapped 19 others, including Jonathan’s brother, Alon, 26.
When the family was finally evacuated from Kfar Aza, they left with just the clothes on their backs and a handful of belongings. They are now among the 126,000 displaced Israelis living in hotels across the country in the wake of the 7 October attacks.
“It’s horrible. It’s a nightmare,” Jonathan Shamriz said. “We still don’t fully understand what happened. We still haven’t fully grieved for everyone.
“My best friends are dead, my brother is kidnapped, and when you walk through the kibbutz, it’s no place to return to.”
Displaced Israelis are now residing in 280 guest houses and hotels across the country, including in the Red Sea resort of Eilat, according to the Israeli defence ministry.
It added that as well as those in Gaza border communities, it had evacuated 23,000 people from the northern city of Kiryat Shmona and 38,000 from areas nearby. The ministry said a further 49,000 people were moved as part of a “revitalisation programme” for those affected by the war.
In Gaza, two-thirds of the population of 2.3 million have been displaced to the south, according to the United Nations, and the death toll from Israeli bombardment has reached 13,000, including 5,500 children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
Read more of Emine Sinmaz’s report here: ‘I’ll never go back’: the Israelis displaced from homes by Hamas attack
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday urged all parties in the Gaza conflict to immediately cease fire, end all attacks against civilians and release civilian detainees to avoid more loss of lives and suffering, according to Chinese state media.
It is also important to ensure the safe and smooth passage of humanitarian relief, expand humanitarian aid to people in Gaza, and stop the forced relocation and the cut-off of water, electricity and oil that targets people in Gaza, Reuters reported it quoted Xi saying at a virtual Brics leaders summit. The meeting was also attended by his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Summary of the day so far
It has just gone 4pm in Gaza City and in Tel Aviv. Here are the latest headlines:
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Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said today progress was being made on the release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. “We are making progress. I don’t think it’s worth saying too much, not at even this moment, but I hope there will be good news soon,” he told reservists, according to a statement from his office.
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Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said this Tuesday morning: “We are close to reaching a deal on a truce”. Qatar foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said “we are at the closest point we ever had been in reaching an agreement”, adding that negotiations were at a “critical and final stage”.
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It is reported that the deal would involve a multi-day pause in hostilities, the release of about 50 civilian hostages by Hamas and the release of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli custody. Any agreement would mark the biggest hostage release and first prisoner swap since the 7 October Hamas attack inside Israel. To date just four of the estimated 240 people seized and abducted into Gaza have been returned to Israel. Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir issued a statement this morning warning against a deal.
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Israel’s air force has said on social media that in the last 24 hours it has “struck approximately 250 Hamas terror targets”. The Israeli military also issued a video of its troops in action within the Gaza Strip, claiming that “division 162 completed the encirclement of Jabalia tonight and is ready for the continuation of the attack”.
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The Al-Mayadeen news channel has accused Israel of a direct attack on its journalists, after correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Maamari were killed on Tuesday while working in the south of Lebanon, near the UN-marked boundary with Israel. “It was a direct attack, it was not by chance,” AFP reports Bin Jiddo said in an interview on the channel, noting it came after an Israeli government decision this month to block access to the website of Al-Mayadeen. Hezbollah said in a statement that the attack and others on civilians in Lebanon “will not pass without a response”.
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A World Health Organization spokesperson said on Tuesday that three hospitals in Gaza had requested help with evacuating patients and that planning had started.
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Unicef, the UN children’s agency, has said there is a serious threat of a mass disease outbreak in besieged Gaza. “It’s a perfect storm for tragedy,” Unicef spokesperson James Elder said. “We have a desperate lack of water, faecal matter strewn across densely populated settlements, an unacceptable lack of latrines, and severe, severe restraints on hand-washing, personal hygiene and cleaning.”
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Avi Shoshan has left his position as spokesperson for Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Medical Centre. He was responsible for organising the press conference that presented exchanged hostage 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz to the media after her 16 days as a hostage in Gaza. The interview was criticised in Israel as a PR victory for Hamas, after Lifshitz described what she said was “care” and “gentleness” from her captors after the initial violence of being abducted by Hamas, and criticised the Israeli government and military.
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In Germany, authorities on Tuesday raided the homes of 17 people in the state of Bavaria accused of spreading antisemitic hate speech and threats targeting Jews online.
Vladimir Putin has called for a ceasefire in Gaza and international efforts to de-escalate the situation. The Russian president was speaking in Moscow while attending an online summit of the Brics group.
Russian state-owned news agency Tass quoted Putin saying:
Russia’s position is consistent and non-opportunistic. We call for the joint efforts of the international community aimed at de-escalating the situation, a ceasefire and finding a political solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
He spoke of a human catastrope in Gaza, with Tass quoting him as saying: “The death of thousands of people, the mass expulsion of civilians and the humanitarian catastrophe that has erupted cause deep concern.”
Tass reports Putin drew attention to the fact that children also died during the conflict, quoting him saying: “This is terrible. When you watch how operations are performed on children without anesthesia, it certainly evokes strong emotions.”
In March 2023 the international criminal court inThe Hague issued an arrest warrent for Putin for overseeing the abduction of Ukrainian children. In granting the request for warrants by the ICC prosecutor, a panel of judges agreed that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Putin and his children’s rights commissioner, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, bore responsibility for the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children.
Benjamin Netanyahu said today progress was being made on the release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“We are making progress. I don’t think it’s worth saying too much, not at even this moment, but I hope there will be good news soon,” Reuters reports the Israeli prime minister told reservists, according to a statement from his office.
The Times of Israel earlier reported Qatar foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari as saying “we are at the closest point we ever had been in reaching an agreement,” adding that negotiations were at a “critical and final stage”.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said this morning: “We are close to reaching a deal on a truce [with Israel]”, adding that the group had delivered its response to Qatari mediators.
It is reported that the deal would involve a multi-day pause in hostilities, the release of about 50 civilian hostages by Hamas and the release of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli custody.
Any agreement would mark the biggest hostage release and first prisoner swap since the 7 October Hamas attack inside Israel. To date, just four of the estimated 240 people seized and abducted into Gaza have been returned to Israel.
Before the war, Israel was holding about 5,200 Palestinians in custody, and since 7 October there have been more than 2,900 further arrests. Human rights and monitoring groups believe Israel is holding at least 95 women, 37 journalists and 145 children among them.
The Palestine football team were due to be playing their first home game since 2019 in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Because of the war, it has been moved to Kuwait. They face Australia in a qualifying match for the 2026 World Cup.
Fans attending the match are expected to stage protests against Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip. Earlier, Al Jazeera reported that: “At seven minutes into the match, fans will raise Palestinian flags and wave keffiyehs to mark the start of the war on 7 October [the date of the Hamas attack inside Israel]. Thirteen minutes into the match, fans will stand and turn their backs on the pitch to protest the killing of more than 13,000 people since the start of the attacks. On 75 minutes, fans will raise their arms and join hands in protest against 75 years of occupation.”
It also reported that at another signal, fans will be raising keys during the match, to “symbolise those taken by the Palestinians when they locked their doors and fled during the Nakba”.
The Al-Mayadeen news channel has accused Israel of a direct attack on its journalists, after correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Maamari were killed on Tuesday while working in the south of Lebanon, near the UN-marked boundary with Israel.
Al-Mayadeen director Ghassan bin Jiddo said a third civilian killed with the two journalists was a “contributor” to the channel. “It was a direct attack, it was not by chance,” AFP reports Bin Jiddo said in an interview on the channel, noting it came after an Israeli government decision this month to block access to the website of Al-Mayadeen.
Elsewhere in south Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency said “enemy aircraft raided inhabited houses in Kfar Kila, leading to the death of citizen Laiqa Sarhan, 80, and the wounding of her granddaughter,” whom it identified as a Syrian national.
AFP reports that, speaking on condition of anonymity, a source in a local hospital told it the seven-year-old granddaughter was in a serious condition.
Hezbollah said in a statement that the attack and others on civilians in Lebanon “will not pass without a response”. The Israeli military said it was “looking into the details” of the incident.
Since the cross-border exchanges began after the Hamas attack in southern Israel on 7 October, at least 95 people have been killed on the Lebanese side in the north. According to an AFP tally, most of them were Hezbollah combatants but the number includes at least 14 civilians, three of them journalists.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday hosted counterparts from the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to discuss the Israel-Hamas war.
Speaking at the start of the talks in Moscow, AP reports Lavrov said Russia condemns any form of terrorism, but added that “terrorism must be fought using methods that don’t amount to collective punishment and don’t contradict, or to put it bluntly, rudely violate the norms of international humanitarian law”.
Lavrov also stressed the need to engage the countries of the region in the search for a long-term Israeli-Palestinian settlement, adding that they “understand better than anyone else how to reach a solution that will satisfy everyone”.
The group – made up of representatives of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Qatar, Jordan and the Palestinian territories – has already visited China and travels to London and Paris on Wednesday.
Since 24 February 2022, which marked the start of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, the UN has recorded 27,149 civilian casualties in Ukraine, including more than 9,600 people killed.
The Times of Israel reports that Avi Shoshan has left his position as spokesperson for Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Medical Centre. He was responsible for organising the press conference that presented exchanged hostage 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz to the media after her 16 days as a hostage in Gaza.
The chaotic press conference sparked controversy in Israel, after Lifshitz described what she said was “care” and “gentleness” from her captors after the initial violence of being abducted by Hamas.
Describing the events of 7 October, Lifshitz said “They killed and kidnapped both old and young with no distinction,” adding that she was tied to a motorcycle and driven to Gaza.
“As we rode, the motorcycle rider hit me with a wooden pole. They didn’t break my ribs, but it hurt me a lot in that area, making it difficult to breathe. They stole my watch and jewellery,” she said.
Later on though she described being held underground, but with a doctor visiting daily and providing medication and treatment, and said the captors were “very concerned with hygiene … we had toilets which they cleaned every day”.
The Times of Israel reports:
Lifshitz criticised Israeli failures and spoke well of her captors. The event was considered a propaganda win for Hamas. The 24 October press conference in the hospital lobby appeared to be hastily put together and disorganised. Some criticised the government for failing to oversee the event, and the hospital was blamed by others for arranging it.
Shoshan, who had acted as the medical centre’s spokesperson for 13 years, announced his departure on social media.
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