Israel-Hamas war live: Israeli military moves deeper into southern Gaza as the UN says ‘nowhere is safe’ | Israel-Hamas war

Here are some of the latest images coming out of Gaza, as Palestinians flee the fighting in Khan Yunis.

Several thousand people gathered on Parliament Hill in the Canadian capital on Monday, demonstrating in support of Israel and calling for an end to antisemitic violence.

“It’s so important that diverse parts of our country come together and stand up for the Jewish people … and stand together against hatred of Jews,” Sara Lefton of United Jewish Appeal, one of the groups sponsoring the rally, told Agence France-Presse.

Jewish schools, synagogues and a Jewish community center have been the target of gunfire and molotov cocktails in Montreal in recent weeks.

Israel has changed the threat level for multiple countries as the Israel-Hamas war continues.

Israel’s national security council says in an online statement:

The threat level for many countries in Western Europe (including the UK, France and Germany), South America (including Brazil and Argentina), as well as Australia and Russia, has been raised to level 2, with the recommendation to exercise increased precaution.

The threat level for countries in Africa (including South Africa and Eritrea) and Central Asia (including Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan) has been raised to level 3, with the recommendation to reconsider non-essential travel to these countries.

The statement also warns Israeli citizens to stay “away from demonstrations and protests” and to avoid “openly displaying your Israeli and Jewish identities and any relevant symbols and, and staying away from Israeli and Jewish gatherings.”

Israel has been urged by UN and US officials to avoid a repeat of the devastating impact that its operations in northern Gaza had on civilians as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) expanded its ground offensive against Hamas further south to the city of Khan Younis.

Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza (UNRWA), said on Monday the expansion of military operations in southern Gaza was “repeating horrors from past weeks” by displacing people who had already been displaced, overcrowding hospitals and further “strangling the humanitarian operation” due to limited supplies.

The United Nations office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) gave an update Monday on aid coming into Gaza. The organisation said that 100 aid trucks carrying humanitarian supplies and 69,000 litres of fuel entered from Egypt into Gaza on Monday. “About the same as the previous day. This is well below the daily average of 170 trucks and 110,000 litres of fuel that had entered during the humanitarian pause implemented between 24 and 30 November.”

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The IDF has said in two posts on Telegram this hour that “Sirens [have] sounded in the city of Be-er Sheva, southern Israel” and “in communities near the Gaza Strip”. The Times of Israel reports the rocket warning sirens were near a kibbutz and an airbase.

The White House said Monday that the US might establish a naval taskforce to escort commercial ships in the Red Sea.

It’s a day after three vessels were struck by missiles fired by Iranian-back Houthis in Yemen.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US has been in active conversations with allies about setting up the escorts though nothing is finalised, describing it as a “natural” response to that sort of incident, Associated Press reports.

On Sunday, ballistic missiles fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck three commercial ships, while a U.S. warship shot down three drones in self-defence during an hours-long assault, the U.S. military said. It marked an escalation in a series of maritime attacks in the Mideast linked to the Israel-Hamas war. Jake Sullivan told reporters:

We are in talks with other countries about a maritime taskforce of sorts involving the ships from partner nations alongside the United States in ensuring safe passage

He noted similar task forces are used to protect commercial shipping elsewhere, including off the coast of Somalia.

Israeli tanks, armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers have entered the southern part of the Gaza Strip near Khan Younis, as an Israeli commander claimed the army had almost completed its mission in the north.

Israeli military vehicles were on the southern section of the main north-to-south road in Gaza, “firing bullets and tank shells at cars and people trying to move through the area”, a witness, Moaz Mohammed, told the AFP news agency.

Israel largely captured the northern half of Gaza in November. Since a week-long truce collapsed on Friday they have swiftly pushed deep into the southern half. Hamas ally Islamic Jihad’s armed wing told Reuters its fighters engaged in fierce clashes with Israeli soldiers north and east of Khan Younis, Gaza’s main southern city.

Israeli tanks have driven into Gaza across the border and cut off the main north-south route, residents told Reuters. The Israeli military said the central road out of Khan Younis to the north “constitutes a battlefield” and was now shut.

It’s as the UN expresses fears of what lies ahead for Gaza. Lynn Hastings, UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories said that “an even more hellish scenario” looms in Gaza in which humanitarian aid simply grinds to a halt.

“The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist,” Hastings said. “Nowhere is safe in Gaza and there is nowhere left to go.”

At the United Nations, Secretary-General António Guterres appealed to Israel to avoid further action that would make the already dire humanitarian situation in Hamas-run Gaza worse, and to spare civilians from more suffering.

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