Blinken expected to call for pauses in fighting to allow aid into Gaza during Tel Aviv visit
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken arrives in Tel Aviv today and is expected to urge the Israeli government to agree to pauses to the fighting in Gaza, according to the White House.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the US was not advocating for a general cease-fire but a “temporary, localized” pause.
Departing the Washington, Blinken said he would discuss concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in Gaza during his visit to Israel.
Since Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October killing 1,400 Israelis, at least 9,061 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, and more than 32,000 people have been wounded, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday. The death toll is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence, the Associated Press reports.
More than 3,700 Palestinian children have been killed in 25 days of fighting – more than six times the 560 children that the UN had reported killed in 19 months of war in Ukraine as of 8 October.
Bombardment has driven more than half the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes. Food, water and fuel are running low under Israel’s siege, and overwhelmed hospitals warn they are on the verge of collapse.
Key events
Thai foreign minister says he has pressed Iran on Hamas hostages
Thailand’s foreign minister says he has pressed his Iranian counterpart over the fate of 23 Thais taken hostage by Hamas during its attack on Israel.
Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara travelled to Qatar and Egypt this week for talks on the hostages, and met his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, in Doha, urging him to use Tehran’s links with Hamas to help secure the release of Thai nationals.
Israeli authorities say 1,400 people, many of them civilians, were killed and more than 230 hostages taken during Hamas’s attack on 7 October.
“I pointed out to them that Thais working there are low-income people, and work in the agricultural sector to boost their income,” Parnpree told reporters in Bangkok on Friday.
“I talked to the Iranian foreign minister and told him the Thais’ work is unrelated to politics and conflict. I asked him to send a message to the Hamas group that they are just labourers.”
About 30,000 Thais are working in Israel, mostly in the agriculture sector, according to the kingdom’s labour ministry.
Thirty-two Thai nationals have been killed and 19 wounded in the conflict, and the kingdom has evacuated more than 7,000 of its citizens on repatriation flights.
All three countries committed their full support to assisting with the negotiations, Parnpree said. “They expressed their view that the earlier the ceasefire, the sooner the hostages can be released,” he said.
During the talks, Egypt agreed to allow Thai officials to travel to the Rafah border crossing once the Thai hostages were released.
A team of Thai Muslim negotiators last week met Hamas officials in Tehran and were given a pledge that the Thais would be released at the “right time”. (Via AFP)
Irish PM says Israel actions in Gaza resemble ‘something approaching revenge’
Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has once again criticised Israel’s actions, describing its operations in Gaza as “something approaching revenge”.
This morning, he told state radio RTE:
I strongly believe that … Israel has the right to defend itself, has the right to go after Hamas, that they cannot do this again. What I’m seeing unfolding at the moment isn’t just self-defence. It looks, resembles, something more approaching revenge. That’s not where we should be. And I don’t think that’s how Israel will guarantee future freedom and future security.
Asked by a journalist whether Israel’s actions were war crimes, Varadkar said: “That’s not for me to determine.”
Ireland has been a European outlier in its criticism of Israel’s response to the 7 October attacks.
Varadkar has previously said that while Israel has a right to defend itself, it “doesn’t have the right to do wrong”. Early on in the bombardment of Gaza, he also said: “To me, it amounts to collective punishment.”
Cross-border Gazan workers sent back to Gaza
Thousands of cross-border Gazan workers and labourers in Israel and the occupied West Bank were sent back to Gaza on Friday, Reuters journalists said.
Some of the workers returned through the Kerem Shalom crossing east of the Rafah border crossing between the besieged Gaza Strip and Egypt, they said.
The office of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Thursday night: “Those workers from Gaza who were in Israel on the day of the outbreak of the war will be returned to Gaza.”
Workers crossing into the Palestinian territory said they had been detained and ill-treated by Israeli authorities after the Hamas attack on southern Israel. Some still had plastic stickers carrying numbers around their legs.
“We used to serve them, work for them, in houses, in restaurants, and in markets in return for the lowest prices and despite that we were humiliated,” said Jamal Ismail, a worker from the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza Strip.
Those from areas in northern Gaza would have to stay in the south after Israeli forces have completed cutting off roads late on Thursday, according to Palestinian officials. (Via Reuters)
Here’s some background on the Hezbollah leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who is today due to make his first public comments since Israel and Hamas went to war after the latter’s terror attacks on 7 October. (Via Reuters)
Many people in Lebanon are anxiously awaiting the 3pm speech, rattled for weeks by fear of a catastrophic conflict. Some say they are not making plans beyond Friday, believing his remarks will signal the chances of escalation.
The speech is also being anticipated more widely. Nasrallah is a leading voice in a regional military alliance established by Iran to counter the US and Israel. Known as the “Axis of Resistance”, it includes Shia Muslim Iraqi militias that have been firing at US forces in Syria and Iraq, and Yemen’s Houthis, who have waded into the conflict by firing drones at Israel.
Wearing the black turban of a sayyed, or a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, and Shia clerical robes, Nasrallah is one of the most prominent figures in the Arab world.
Recognised even by critics as a skilled orator, his speeches have long been followed closely by friend and foe alike. He is deemed a terrorist by adversaries including the US.
His fiery speeches during the 2006 war elevated his profile, including one in which he announced Hezbollah had struck an Israeli naval vessel with an anti-ship missile, urging viewers to “look to the sea”.
While Nasrallah has stayed out of the public eye since 7 October, other Hezbollah officials have indicated the group’s combat readiness. But they have not set any red lines in the conflict with Israel.
The speech will be broadcast to coincide with rallies called by Hezbollah to honour fallen fighters.
Mutual threats of destruction have deterred Israel and Hezbollah from waging war across the Lebanese-Israeli frontier since 2006. Syria has meanwhile served as an arena for their conflict.
Sources familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking say the group’s attacks so far have been measured to avoid a big escalation, while keeping Israeli forces busy at the border.
Lebanon can ill-afford another war with Israel. Many Lebanese are still reeling from the impact of a catastrophic financial collapse four years ago.
Israel has said it has no interest in a conflict on its northern frontier with Lebanon. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Hezbollah against opening a second war front with Israel, saying that doing so would bring Israeli counter-strikes of “unimaginable” magnitude that would wreak devastation upon Lebanon.
As Blinken begins his visit, Reuters has a good analysis of the massive scale of the diplomatic and humanitarian challenges involved what it terms “the day after” the war.
As Israeli forces intensify their assault against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, diplomats in Washington, the UN, the Middle East and beyond have started weighing the options for the “day after” if the Palestinian militant group is ousted – and the challenges they see ahead are daunting.
Discussions include the deployment of a multinational force to post-conflict Gaza, an interim Palestinian-led administration that would exclude Hamas politicians, a stopgap security and governance role for neighbouring Arab states and temporary UN supervision of the territory, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The process is still at what another US source terms an informal “idea-floating stage”. Key questions include whether Israel can destroy Hamas as it has vowed and whether the US, its western allies and Arab governments would commit military personnel to stand between Israel and the Palestinians, overcoming a long reluctance to do so.
The White House said on Wednesday there were “no plans or intentions” to put U.S. troops on the ground in Gaza.
More than half of Gaza’s population is already displaced, crammed hospitals lacking electricity and medicine are turning away the injured and gravediggers are running out of cemetery places.
It is also unclear whether the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has limited autonomy in parts of the occupied West Bank while Hamas rules Gaza, would be able or willing to take control. On Tuesday, Blinken held out the prospects for a “revitalised” PA, but President Mahmoud Abbas’ administration has been plagued by accusations of corruption and mismanagement.
Any entity that seeks to exert authority in post-war Gaza would also have to contend with the impression among Palestinians that it is beholden to Israel. Even if Hamas’ leadership is toppled, it would be all but impossible to eradicate pro-militant sentiment from the Gaza population, raising the threat of new attacks, including suicide bombings, against whomever assumes power.
“If the Israelis succeed in crushing Hamas, I think it’s going to be extremely difficult to get a governing structure in there that is going to be legitimate and functional,” said Aaron David Miller, a former US Middle East negotiator.
“The ‘day after’ exercises right now strike me as fantastical,” he said.
The discussions have increased as Israel expands its air, land and sea assault on Gaza, but they have also been driven by what US officials see as Israel’s failure so far to articulate an endgame.
Blinken lands in Israel
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken waves as he disembarks from an aircraft on his arrival in Tel Aviv, Israel Friday, Nov. 3, 2023. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP) Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/AP
Hezbollah leader Nasrallah to speak on Friday afternoon
On Friday afternoon, the Hezbollah secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, is to make a highly anticipated speech. The head of the influential Iran-backed Shia militant group will break weeks of silence with a broadcast from Beirut, which comes in the wake of a rise in violence on Israel’s northern border.
Hezbollah said on Thursday it had simultaneously attacked 19 positions in Israel on Thursday evening. The clashes have so far been mostly contained to the frontier, and Hezbollah has used only a fraction of the firepower that Nasrallah has been threatening with Israel for years.
According to some estimates, about 50 Hezbollah fighters have died since 7 October in exchanges in which it has tried to target Israeli positions with anti-tank missiles.
US national security spokesperson John Kirby said of Nasrallah’s speech: “I don’t believe we’ve seen any indication yet specifically that Hezbollah is ready to go in full force. So we’ll see what he has to say.”
Following Joe Biden’s stated support for a pause in fighting to allow time for hostage releases, US national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday the White House was exploring the idea of “as many pauses as might be necessary to continue to get aid out and to continue to work to get people out safely, including hostages”.
The White House has said any pauses in fighting should be temporary and localised, and insisted they would not stop Israel defending itself.
Blinken is due to meet Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, in Amman on Saturday. In a statement, Safadi said Israel must end the war on Gaza, where he said it was committing war crimes by bombing civilians and imposing a siege.
UK accused of taking eye off Israel-Palestine crisis
Patrick Wintour
Concerns that the UK Foreign Office has neglected the Israel-Palestine conflict in its tilt to the Indo-Pacific and the pursuit of trade deals across the Middle East is to be investigated by the Commons foreign affairs select committee.
Alicia Kearns, the chair of the committee, which will start holding evidence sessions on the issue in November, has been one of the most prominent MPs warning that a crisis was brewing that required greater attention and a more robust approach from the UK towards Israel’s new government.
Critics argue that the UK government, along with others, missed the danger signals and invested in an unconditional and one-sided relationship with Israel that did not acknowledge how different the government elected in November was to its predecessors:
Here is our full report on what we can expect from Blinken’s visit to Israel:
US secretary of state Antony Blinken was due in Israel on Friday and was expected to call for localised pauses in fighting to allow aid into Gaza, as Israel’s military said it had surrounded the Palestinian enclave’s biggest city and was moving further into the centre and fighting in close quarters.
As Blinken left Washington, he said he would discuss concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in Gaza when he holds talks with Benjamin Netanyahu. It is his second meeting with Israel’s prime minister since the war began nearly a month ago, when Hamas militants killed 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, and took more than 240 hostages.
Since then, Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Gaza have killed at least 9,061 people, including 3,760 children, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday, drawing warnings from independent United Nations experts that Palestinians in the territory were at “grave risk of genocide”.
Thailand said it is in touch with Iran and other governments that can make contact with Hamas for the safe release of nearly two dozen Thai nationals being held hostage, Reuters reports.
Thailand’s Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara said on Friday that Iran, which is close to Hamas, had promised to help with negotiations.
UAE warns of ‘real’ risk of regional spillover
Gulf Arab power the United Arab Emirates warned on Friday that there was a real risk of a regional spillover from the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, adding that it was working “relentlessly” to secure a humanitarian ceasefire, Reuters reports.
“As we continue working to stop this war we cannot ignore the wider context and the necessity to turn down the regional temperature that is approaching a boiling point,” Noura al-Kaabi, a minister of state for foreign affairs, told a policy conference in the capital, Abu Dhabi.
“The risk of regional spillover and further escalation is real, as well as the risk that extremist groups will take advantage of the situation to advance ideologies that will keep us locked in cycles of violence.”
Rafah crossing to open for third day for limited evacuations
Reuters: The Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt is due to open for a third day on Friday for limited evacuations under a Qatari-brokered deal aimed at letting some foreign passport holders, their dependents and some wounded Gazans out of the enclave.
According to border officials, more than 700 foreign citizens left for Egypt via Rafah on the two previous days. Dozens of critically injured Palestinians were to cross too. Israel asked foreign countries to send hospital ships for them.
Blinken expected to call for pauses in fighting to allow aid into Gaza during Tel Aviv visit
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken arrives in Tel Aviv today and is expected to urge the Israeli government to agree to pauses to the fighting in Gaza, according to the White House.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the US was not advocating for a general cease-fire but a “temporary, localized” pause.
Departing the Washington, Blinken said he would discuss concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in Gaza during his visit to Israel.
Since Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October killing 1,400 Israelis, at least 9,061 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, and more than 32,000 people have been wounded, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday. The death toll is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence, the Associated Press reports.
More than 3,700 Palestinian children have been killed in 25 days of fighting – more than six times the 560 children that the UN had reported killed in 19 months of war in Ukraine as of 8 October.
Bombardment has driven more than half the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes. Food, water and fuel are running low under Israel’s siege, and overwhelmed hospitals warn they are on the verge of collapse.
Opening summary
This is the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war with me, Helen Sullivan.
The top developments this morning: the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken arrives in Tel Aviv today and is expected to urge the Israeli government to agree to pauses to the fighting in Gaza, according to the White House.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the US was not advocating for a general cease-fire but a “temporary, localized” pause.
Departing the Washington, Blinken said he would discuss concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in Gaza during his visit to Israel.
Since Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October killing 1,400 Israelis, at least 9,061 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, and more than 32,000 people have been wounded, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday. The death toll is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence, the Associated Press reports.
More than 3,700 Palestinian children have been killed in 25 days of fighting – more than six times the 560 children that the UN had reported killed in 19 months of war in Ukraine as of 8 October.
Bombardment has driven more than half the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes. Food, water and fuel are running low under Israel’s siege, and overwhelmed hospitals warn they are on the verge of collapse.
Here are the key recent developments:
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Israeli forces have “completed the encirclement of Gaza City” and are fighting “with full force”, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said. The chief of staff of the IDF, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, said troops are surrounding it from several directions and “deepening” the ground offensive inside the city. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israeli forces had pushed through 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 Hamas-run 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, mostly civilians, 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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In the US, the Republican-led lower chamber of Congress has passed a $14bn aid package for Israel, defying President Joe Biden’s request to also include more money for Ukraine and other pressing priorities. The bill, which diverts funding budgeted to the US tax collection agency, is almost certain to fail in the Democratic-controlled Senate, while Biden has also threatened to veto it.
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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 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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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. The dead include Lt Col Salman Habaka, an Israeli tank commander who was hailed a hero for his actions during Hamas’s attack on Be’eri kibbutz.
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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 in their home, the authority’s official news agency WAFA reported. He is the 36th journalist killed in the conflict, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
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Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, said it had 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 dronese.
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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 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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A Japanese military plane departed Israel late on Thursday carrying 46 passengers including 20 Japanese nationals, the Japanese foreign ministry said. Passengers aboard also included 15 South Koreans, four Vietnamese and one Taiwanese, the ministry said on Friday.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was “almost impossible” to bring humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. The WHO’s emergencies director, Michael Ryan, said the basic safety of staff could not be guaranteed at the moment. WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the situation in Gaza was “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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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.”