Israel-Gaza war latest: IDF hints at ground invasion tonight

Israel has amassed hundreds of thousands of troops along the border with Gaza ahead of an expected ground offensive against the Hamas militant group and has been pounding Gaza with airstrikes since Hamas militants carried out a bloody cross-border incursion on Oct. 7. In addition, it was reported that internet services in the Strip had been cut off last night.

The Palestinian telecom provider Paltel & Jaawal said services were down, following reports of large explosions. Israel also repeated its warning for Gazans to move south.

The Palestine Red Crescent, the main emergency service in Gaza, said it was cut off from its operations room in the strip because of the internet blackout. Rights groups and journalists also said they had lost contact with colleagues in the territory.

Earlier, health officials in Gaza published a list of names of almost 7,000 people it has recorded as having been killed by Israeli bombing.

Israel and President Biden have both accused the health ministry of being a front for Hamas and publishing unreliable statistics since the Israeli bombing campaign began.

But a UN aid agency said the ministry’s figures had proved consistent and accurate in past cycles of conflict and that it had no reason to doubt them on this occasion.

Israel’s military has claimed that Gaza’s biggest hospital is a legitimate target, suggesting an attack on the medical centre is imminent — which could potentially constitute a war crime.

Presenting an illustration of the hospital, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) identified several areas of the al-Shifa hospital they claimed were used by Hamas to co-ordinate attacks on Israel.

They alleged that Hamas has command-and-control centres both inside and underneath the hospital. The military did not use real images and would only show mock-ups of the hospital.

Attacking hospitals is a war crime under the International Criminal Court statute.

“When medical facilities are used for terror purposes they are liable to lose their protection from attack in accordance with international law,” suggested the IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari.

Ezzat El-Reshiq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said on Telegram: “There is no basis in truth to what was reported by the enemy army spokesman.” He accused Israel of spreading lies as “a prelude to committing a new massacre against our people”.

The Israeli army spokesman also claimed that Hamas has fuel inside the hospital. For weeks aid organisations have tried desperately to negotiate the delivery of fuel to Gaza to keep hospitals, water pumps and bakeries operating. Doctors inside al-Shifa have repeatedly said they are about to run out of their fuel reserves.

The comments suggest Israel will continue its ban on fuel from entering Gaza in the few aid convoys that can enter the territory, and that they intend to strike the hospital.

A nine-month-old Argentinian baby is being held captive by Hamas in Gaza, according to the head of Argentina’s embassy in Israel (David Harding writes).

It is thought the baby is the youngest of more than 200 hostages seized by Hamas during its deadly attack on Israel on October 7.

“The youngest hostage, a baby of only nine months, is Argentine. It’s very difficult to talk about such painful topics,” Francisco Tropepi told the Vis a Vis news outlet in Israel.

The baby’s identity has not been revealed. A total of 21 Argentinians remain missing and are presumed to be held hostage by Hamas, the foreign minister Santiago Cafiero said in a radio interview. A further nine were killed in the Hamas attacks.

“In some cases we have precise information that they’ve been captured, and in others we’ve been actively searching for them,” Cafiero said.

Qatar is reassessing its ties with Hamas, whose exiled senior officials they host, as negotiations continue with the United States (Abbie Cheeseman in Beirut writes).

The emirate has told Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, it will reconsider the presence of Hamas in Doha and its association with the group once its mediation of hostage negotiations is over, according to the Washington Post and Associated Press. The understanding was said to have been reached at a meeting in Doha this month.

It is not yet clear if the exiled Hamas leadership will be ejected from Qatar, where they have been since 2012, or if smaller steps will be taken. The US will want Qatar’s help in negotiating the release of hostages held by Hamas while also wanting to further isolate the group on the world stage.

Doha has brought about the release of four hostages so far. According to Israel, a further 229 are still being held in Gaza.

Qatar has not made any public comments about the future of its relationship with Hamas but Blinken told reporters in a joint press conference with the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, that there could be “no more business as usual” with Hamas when he was asked if the US wanted Doha to close down Hamas’s political office there.

Grant Shapps has described Russian officials’ meeting with Hamas in Moscow as “tyranny meets terrorism”, saying it demonstrated the Kremlin’s moral degradation (Tom Parfitt writes).

“Pariah meets proscribed, as Russia sits down with Hamas,” the defence secretary wrote on Twitter/X. “Putin’s humiliating search for friends, from North Korea to Hamas, has shown how far Russia has fallen and proven the disastrous cost of his failing invasion of Ukraine.”

A Hamas delegation visited Moscow yesterday, meeting senior Russian diplomats. Moscow has drawn attention to Palestinian suffering in the Gaza Strip while seeking not to damage relations with Israel.

Mousa Abu Marzouk, the head of the delegation, told a Russian state news agency Hamas would pay special attention to requests from Moscow to free dual Israeli-Russian citizens who were captured by Palestinian militants and taken to Gaza.

Russia has dismissed Israeli criticism of its decision to welcome a Hamas delegation to Moscow, saying it wants to maintain contact with both sides amid the growing conflict in the Middle East (Tom Parfitt writes).

“We consider it necessary to continue our contacts with all parties and, of course, we will continue our dialogue with Israel,” said Dmitry Peskov, President Putin’s spokesman.

Peskov added that the Hamas delegates had met foreign ministry staff in Moscow on their visit yesterday but not Putin or Kremlin officials.

A spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry earlier described Russia’s invitation of senior Hamas officials to Moscow as “an obscene step that gives support to terrorism and legitimises the atrocities of Hamas terrorists”.

During the visit, Russian diplomats and the Hamas team discussed the position of more than 200 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during their October 7 incursion into Israel, and now held in the Gaza Strip.

Moqtada al-Sadr, Iraq’s powerful Shia cleric and militia chief, has told the goverment that if it did not shut down the US embassy in Baghdad in retaliation for Washington’s “unfettered” support of Israel, then his followers would (Abbie Cheeseman writes).

“If the government and parliament do not abide by this demand, we will go for further actions which we will later announce,” he said.

Some 800 supporters of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), an Iranian-backed umbrella group of mainly Shia militia, began a sit-in last week at Iraq’s main border crossing with Jordan.

Yesterday they were reported to be blocking oil tankers attempting to cross into Jordan, saying they would not allow Iraqi oil to be exported to countries that have peace agreements with Israel.

Sadr called for a peaceful sit-in at the Palestinian borders with Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan until Israel lifted the blockade on Gaza and allowed aid through.

Unlike other Shia leaders, Sadr has opposed Iranian influence in Iraq but has millions of followers he can use to exert political pressure. He has long opposed the presence of US troops in Iraq and last year called on his followers to storm Baghdad’s international green zone.

A team of international surgeons and unexploded ordnance experts have entered Gaza with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), making them the first humanitarian support personnel to get in since the war began almost three weeks ago (Abbie Cheeseman writes).

“A war surgery team and a weapons contamination specialist are among 10 International Committee of the Red Cross experts who arrived in Gaza on Friday, entering alongside six ICRC trucks carrying urgently needed medical material and water purification supplies,” the ICRC said.

Hisham Adwan, of Gaza’s interior ministry, told the New York Times that the surgeons were from Denmark, France, Germany and Spain. He said: “We need hundreds like them, as we have thousands of injured people.”

The medical supplies delivered could treat between 1,000 and 5,000 people, depending on the severity of their injuries, said the ICRC. A consignment of chlorine tablets could treat 50,000 litres of drinking water.

Fabrizio Carboni, the ICRC’s regional director for the Near and Middle East, said: “This crucial humanitarian assistance is a small dose of relief, but it´s not enough. Our surgical team and medical supplies will help relieve the extreme pressure on Gaza’s doctors and nurses. But safe, sustained humanitarian access is urgently needed. This humanitarian catastrophe is deepening by the hour.”

Hamas’ al Qassam brigades have claimed responsibility for a rocket attack that hit an apartment building in Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon, injuring three people (Abbie Cheeseman writes).

Footage online appears to show the rocket hurtling through the sky before a ball of flames bursts out of the top of the apartment building.

A 20-year-old man is injured and two are lightly hurt, the emergency services said. According to Israeli media, police have not yet been able to enter the building to see if any more people are trapped.

The Tel Aviv police chief Peretz Omer is reported to have said that the top-floor apartment and the one below were damaged in the attack.

Within half an hour Israel’s national emergency services reported that a second rocket barrage had hit Tel Aviv and that people were hurt while running to bomb shelters, but not directly from the attacks. One rocket was reported to have hit a park.

“The al Qassam Brigades have renewed bombing Tel Aviv in response to Zionist massacres against civilians,” the group said.

Sewage has begun to pour into the streets in Gaza and basic services are collapsing as a result of Israel’s intense bombardment and blockade, the UN has said (Abbie Cheeseman writes).

“Medicine is running out. Food and water are running out. The streets of Gaza have started overflowing with sewage,” said Philippe Lazzarini of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). “Gaza is on the brink of a massive health hazard as the risk of diseases is looming.”

The UN body, which is the main aid agency for Palestinians in Gaza, had been forced to “drastically” limit the consumption of fuel, Lazzarini said, as Israel continued to block fuel coming into Gaza on humanitarian aid convoys.

He said: “Our team had to make tough decisions that no humanitarian workers should do. What needs more support? Bakeries, water station? Life support machines in the hospital? All this needs fuel to function.”

Countering Israeli claims that fuel would end up in the hands of Hamas, Lazzarini said UNRWA had long had a “solid monitoring mechanism” that stopped aid being diverted.

He said: “It pains me that humanitarian aid, a very basic right for people, is constantly questioned, while at the same time despair is livestreamed on our watch.”

A missile that struck the Egyptian town of Taba on the Sinai Peninsula this morning originated from “the Red Sea area,” Israel has said in what is likely to be a reference to Yemen (Abbie Cheeseman writes).

“Israel will work together with Egypt and the US and tighten the defence against threats from the Red Sea area,” said Daniel Hagari, spokesman for Israel defence forces (IDF).

Six people were injured in the strike in Taba, which lies on the border with Israel, six miles from the southern Israeli city of Eilat.

According to Al Qahera News, which has close ties to Egypt’s intelligence service, the missile struck a medical facility. An unnamed security source cited by Al Qahera said Egypt reserved the right to respond to the attack.

Hundreds of UK-based lawyers have sent an open letter to Rishi Sunak warning he must “act urgently” against war crimes committed in Gaza (Joshua Thurston writes).

The letter from 260 lawyers, addressed to the prime minister along with James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, and Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, called upon the government to halt arms sales to Israel in case the weapons are used in severe violations of international humanitarian law.

“The starvation of a civilian population as a method of warfare, including wilfully impeding adequate relief supplies, as Israel is doing in Gaza, is strictly prohibited under customary international law… and constitutes a war crime,” said the letter, signed by 36 Kings Counsel, 49 partners and directors of law firms and 16 law professors.

It added: “Hamas’s war crimes cannot be justified by reference to prior war crimes by Israel; neither do they justify further such crimes by Israel in its response, which must comply with international law.”

The letter asked the government to comply with the UK’s legal obligations to “exert its influence to press for a ceasefire to allow aid into Gaza”.

The Gaza health ministry, run by Hamas, has issued a document listing 6,747 Palestinians they say have been killed in Israeli strikes (Joshua Thurston writes).

The 212-page list gives the names, ages, sex and identity card numbers of each victim and comes after President Biden cast doubt on the death toll in the territory, which Hamas has ruled since 2007.

The document adds that 281 bodies had not yet been identified, bringing the death toll to 7,028. A further 1,600 people, including 900 children, are said to be missing and may be under rubble, according to the UN, citing local authorities.

While Biden said on Wednesday he had “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using” for the death toll in Gaza, the UN said its figures had proved consistent and accurate in past cycles of conflict and that it had no reason to doubt them on this occasion.

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the UN Relief and Works Agency, said the agency had also compared the numbers of deaths of its own workers as a proportion of the overall figures and compared the result with previous conflicts, finding it was not out of line.

A missile struck an Egyptian resort town on its border with Israel’s Red Sea port of Eilat early on Friday, according to Al Qahera News (Joshua Thurston writes).

Launched as part of the fighting between Hamas militants and Israel, the missile hit a medical centre in Taba — an ambulance facility and a residential building for the administration — injuring at least six people, the Egyptian news program reported. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Hamas said on Wednesday that it had targeted Eilat with a missile, which the Israeli military said had hit an outlying area. Israel’s military said only that it was aware of a security incident outside its borders.

Taba is 135 miles from the Gaza Strip and a popular tourist town. If confirmed as a Hamas rocket, the incident would be their longest-range attack since the Gaza conflict began on October 7.

Egypt’s proximity to the front line has caused it to become caught up in the conflict. On October 22, several Egyptian border guards were injured by fragments from a shell fired by an Israeli tank. Israel apologised for the incident.

The UN general assembly will vote today on a draft resolution put forward by Jordan calling for an immediate ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip.

The text calls on all parties to comply with the “protection of civilians”.

Speaking at a session of the assembly on behalf of 22 Arab countries, Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister, charged Israel with “making Gaza a perpetual hell on Earth”.

He said: “The trauma will haunt generations to come. The right to self-defence is not a license to kill with impunity. Collective punishment is not self-defence, it is a war crime.”

The draft resolution did not mention the Hamas attack on October 7 that sparked the war.

Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, said: “The drafters of the resolution claim to be concerned about peace. Yet the depraved murderers who initiated this war are not even mentioned in the resolution. The only place this resolution belongs is in the dustbin of history.”

Iran is holding two days of army drills to increase its “level of deterrence against potential threats” and the “capabilities and battle readiness of the ground forces,” according to the country’s state TV (Abbie Cheeseman writes).

According to Al Mayadeen, a Hezbollah-affiliated news channel, the “large scale” drills are being held near Isfahan in central Iran.

• Which countries support Israel — and who backs Hamas?

The drills “will encompass a wide range of military units, including armoured, artillery, missile, airborne, unmanned, and other divisions utilising various equipment employed by the nation’s army,” Mayadeen said.

Iran has criticised Washington for sending more troops to the Middle East as fears grow that the Israel-Hamas war will escalate into a regional conflict.

The Israeli army said its ground forces carried out another “targeted raid” in Gaza overnight as it prepares for a land invasion (Joshua Thurston writes).

Backed by fighter jets and drones, troops and armoured vehicles “identified and struck numerous terror targets, including anti-tank missile launch sites, military command and control centres, as well as Hamas terrorists,” an army statement said this morning.

The military said its troops “exited the area at the end of the activity”.

The army conducted a similar ground operation using tanks and infantry on Wednesday night in the northern part of the Palestinian territory.

• When will Israel invade Gaza? What a ground offensive could look like

EU leaders have called for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” in Israel’s shelling of Gaza (Joshua Thurston writes).

Late last night, the bloc demanded “continued, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need through all necessary measures including humanitarian corridors and pauses for humanitarian needs”.

A total of 74 lorries loaded with food, water and medicine have been permitted to enter the besieged territory since the conflict began.

Before the war, about 500 lorries a day entered Gaza, home to 2.4 million people, according to the United Nations.

Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas, says that airstrikes have killed more than 7,000 people, mostly civilians.

Israel has cut power, water and supplies of food, and insists that fuel cannot be imported because it could be used by Hamas.

The fuel shortage has forced 12 of the territory’s 35 hospitals to close and the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) to “significantly reduce its operations”.

Tailored strikes upon Syrian targets were directed by President Biden “to make clear that the United States will not tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests”, said Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder.

He added that the Syria operation was separate and distinct from the war in Israel and Gaza.

Biden held no public engagements on Thursday.

Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, stressed that the US was not seeking a broader conflict but said that if Iranian proxy groups continued to attack, America would not hesitate to take additional action to protect its forces.

Before the strikes were carried out, Ryder said: “I think we’ve been crystal clear that we maintain the inherent right of defending our troops and we will take all necessary measures to protect our forces and our interests overseas.”

John Kirby, US National Security Council spokesman, said: “There was a direct message relayed. That’s as far as I’m going to go.”

The US launched airstrikes against targets in eastern Syria on Thursday night in what the Pentagon said was retaliation against Iran for recent missile attacks on American bases in the Middle East.

The targets were linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, US officials said. There have been at least 12 attacks on US bases and personnel in Iraq and four in Syria since October 17. Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder said 21 US personnel were injured in two of those assaults, which used drones to target al-Asad airbase in Iraq and al-Tanf garrison in Syria. An American contractor was killed in one attack.

US weapons are being rushed to the region to protect troops amid fears that the conflict between Israel and Hamas could widen. Washington has pressed Israel to delay its expected ground incursion into Gaza until American troops are sufficiently supplied.

In a statement, Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, said: “[The] precision self-defence strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against US personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17.”

At the UN, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s foreign minister, warned the US about its support for Israel. “I say frankly to the American statesmen and military forces who are now managing the genocide in Palestine, that we do not welcome the expansion and scope of the war in the region,” he said.

“But I warn if the genocide in Gaza continues, they will not be spared from this fire.”