LIVE | Israel-Hamas war Day 30: US steps up diplomacy as Israel bombs refugee camp

The escalation of the Gaza war has prompted the United States to intensify its diplomacy efforts in the Middle East

Update: 2023-11-05 01:48 GMT
Palestinians look for survivors of the Israeli bombardment in the Maghazi refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on November 5 | AP/PTI

Israeli airstrikes hit a refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip early Sunday, killing dozens of people, health officials said.

The strikes came as the US is urging Israel to take a humanitarian pause from its relentless bombardment of Gaza and rising civilian deaths.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken travelled to Ramallah in the West Bank for a previously unannounced meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Blinken on Saturday met with Arab foreign ministers in Jordan, after holding talks in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who insisted there could be no temporary cease-fire until all hostages held by Hamas are released. President Joe Biden suggested Saturday that progress was being made on the humanitarian pause.

The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war reached 9,448, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, more than 140 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them in the October 7 Hamas attack that started the fighting, and 242 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by the militant group.

Roughly 1,100 people have left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing since Wednesday under an apparent agreement among the United States, Egypt, Israel and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas. (AP)

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2023-11-05 13:14 GMT

The airstrikes that hit the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza overnight killed at least 40 people and wounding 34 others, the Health Ministry said. It said first responders and residents were still digging through the rubble, hoping to find survivors.

An AP reporter at a nearby hospital saw eight dead children, including a baby, who had been brought in after the strike. A surviving child was led down the hospital corridor by an adult holding her hand, her clothes caked in dust, an expression of shock on her face.

Arafat Abu Mashaia, who lives in the camp, said the Israeli airstrike flattened several multi-story homes where people forced out of other parts of Gaza were sheltering.

“It was a true massacre,” he said early Sunday while standing on the wreckage of destroyed homes. “All here are peaceful people. I challenge anyone who says there were resistance (fighters) here.” There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The camp, a built-up residential area, is located in the evacuation zone where Israel’s military had urged Palestinian civilians in Gaza to seek refuge as it focuses its military offensive on the north.

Despite such appeals, Israel has continued its bombardment across Gaza, saying it is targeting Hamas fighters and assets everywhere and accusing it of using civilians as human shields. Critics say Israel’s strikes are often disproportionate, considering the large number of women and children killed. (AP)

2023-11-05 13:07 GMT

An Israeli minister from the far-right Otzma Yehudit party on Sunday said that dropping an atomic bomb on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip was “an option”, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to suspend him from government meetings indefinitely.

In a radio interview, Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said that “there are no non-combatants in Gaza” and providing humanitarian aid to the Strip would constitute “a failure”.

When asked if there are no non-combatants in Gaza in his view then if a nuclear attack on the Gaza Strip is “an option”, Eliyahu responded, “That’s one way.” His remarks infuriated members of both the ruling coalition and the Opposition, evoking calls to fire him from the government.

Following the uproar, Eliyahu backtracked from his statement, calling it a “metaphorical” remark.

“It’s clear to anyone with a brain that the remark about the atom was metaphorical. We indeed must display a forceful and disproportional response to terror, which will clarify to the Nazis and their supporters that terrorism isn’t worthwhile. This is the only formula with which democracies can deal with terror,” he said.

“Simultaneously, it is clear that the State of Israel is obligated to do everything to return the captives alive and in good health,” Eliyahu wrote in a bid to defuse tensions.

However, Prime Minister Netanyahu suspended Eliyahu from government meetings indefinitely, the PMO said.

Eliyahu is not a part of the security cabinet involved in the wartime decision-making, nor does he hold sway over the war cabinet directing the war against Islamist Hamas, it said.

Netanyahu called the remark “detached from reality”.

“Israel and the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) are acting in accordance with the highest standards of international law in order to prevent harm to uninvolved people, and we will continue to do that all the way to victory,” the prime minister said. (PTI)

2023-11-05 13:06 GMT

An Israeli drone struck near two ambulances on their way to pick up casualties from overnight strikes in southern Lebanon, wounding four paramedics, local officials told The Associated Press.

The civil defence unit of a scouts group affiliated with Lebanon's Amal Movement, a political party allied with Hezbollah, said that the drone “directly targeted” their two ambulances. They were heading south to save several people wounded in an Israeli strike that hit a house overnight.

Local and medical officials told AP that the Lebanese army and the Red Cross transported the wounded paramedics to a hospital in Tyre, as Israeli strikes reportedly did not stop. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.

There were reports that the paramedics were on their way to collect two slain Hezbollah militants.

Israeli army Arabic language spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that Israeli forces had launched strikes on a “terrorist cell” that was attempting to fire missiles toward Israel from the Ras Naqoura area in south Lebanon. He said two cars had arrived at the scene during the strikes but that the cars were not the intended target.

Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants and their allies along the tense Lebanon-Israel border have been clashing for almost a month since the start of the Hamas-Israel war. While clashes remain largely contained to areas near the border, they have increased in intensity as Israel continues its ground incursion into Gaza. (AP)

2023-11-05 13:06 GMT

The head of the UN food agency has pleaded for expanded humanitarian access to the besieged Gaza Strip as food supplies are running low.

“Right now, parents in Gaza do not know whether they can feed their children today and whether they will even survive to see tomorrow,” said Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program. She called for scaling up the delivery of aid to Gaza to align with “the catastrophic conditions facing families there.” “The crisis in Gaza is not just a local tragedy, it's a stark reminder that our global food crisis is worsening. Not only does this crisis threaten regional peace and stability, it undermines our collective efforts to combat hunger worldwide,” she said.

McCain visited Saturday the Egyptian side of Rafah crossing point, the sole entry of aid to Gaza, and met with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo. (AP)

2023-11-05 11:29 GMT

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a surprise visit to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where he met with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah. The meeting took place amidst growing global concern over escalating violence in the occupied territory, in conjunction with the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza since October 7. Photographs released by the Palestinian Authority documented the high-security encounter.

2023-11-05 11:28 GMT

New York County Public Defender Victoria Ruiz is facing criticism after being recorded removing posters depicting Israeli children kidnapped by Hamas terrorists. The videos of her actions have gone viral on social media platforms. In the footage, Ruiz can be seen walking away from the person recording the video, who repeatedly asks her, "Why are you taking down pictures of innocent children?" Despite the questions, Ruiz does not respond, leading to frustration from the person recording, who remarks, "Why are you taking down pictures of babies?" Netizens are expressing outrage and calling for her immediate resignation.

2023-11-05 11:20 GMT

Four police officers were injured after pro-Palestinian protesters set off fireworks into crowds in central London, with 29 arrests made on suspicion of racially motivated crimes. The Metropolitan Police said more than 1,300 officers were on duty on Saturday as tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the Israel-Gaza conflict, adding that it had adopted a more “sharpened and proactive” intervention approach to the protests.

2023-11-05 09:12 GMT

2023-11-05 08:30 GMT


U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, front left, attends a meeting with Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Qatar's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Hussein al-Sheikh, during a day of meetings about the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Amman, Jordan on Saturday | PTI


 


2023-11-05 08:22 GMT


U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, front, attends a meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, right, and Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Hussein al-Sheikh, left, during a day of meetings about the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Amman, Jordan on Saturday | PTI


 


 


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