Israel War Day 9 Live | Gaza UN shelters run out of water as ground attack looms

SpiceJet on Sunday said it will be operating a flight from the national capital to Tel Aviv and a group of 120 Israeli nationals, among others, will be onboard the aircraft.

It will be the second flight to be operated by SpiceJet under Operation Ajay to bring back Indians from Israel where tensions are high in the wake of the conflict with the militant group Hamas.

The airline will operate a flight with an A340 aircraft from Delhi to Tel Aviv on Sunday and the flight will return on Monday morning.

“A group of 120 Israeli nationals, among others, will be travelling from Delhi to Tel Aviv on the SpiceJet flight. SpiceJet’s first evacuation flight from Israel, carrying 320 Indian passengers, touched down in Delhi at 8.10 am today,” the airline said in a statement.

Against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas conflict, Air India and SpiceJet have operated four flights to and from Tel Aviv since Friday. (PTI)

At least two Israeli women security officers of Indian origin were killed in the unprecedented attack carried out by the Palestinian militant group Hamas earlier this month, official sources and people from the community confirmed on Sunday.

Lieutenant Or Moses, 22, a commander in the Home Front Command, from Ashdod and Inspector Kim Dokraker, a Border Police officer in the police’s Central District, were killed in the attack on October 7, officials confirmed.

Both of them are said to have died on duty in combat.

According to officials, so far 286 army soldiers and 51 police officers have been killed in the conflict.

There could be more victims as Israel continues to confirm the identity of the dead and search for those missing or possibly kidnapped, several community members told PTI.

Sheeja Anand, a caregiver from Kerala who was injured in the attack, is now stable, sources said. The caregiver suffered injuries in her hands and leg in the rocket attack on October 7 in the northern Israeli city of Ashkelon. She was immediately provided treatment at a nearby hospital. (PTI)

A Nepali student who went missing after a farm in Israel was attacked by Hamas has been taken hostage by the Palestine militant group and efforts are on to find him with the help of international organisations, the Nepal government said on Sunday.

Hamas carried out a barrage of air strikes in Southern Israel on Saturday last which killed 10 Nepali students. Six students were rescued and one went missing. The 17 Nepalese students were working as interns on the farm under the “Learn and Earn” scheme.

Bipin Joshi, who saved the lives of other Nepalese students when Hamas launched a grenade attack on them, has been abducted by the militant group, Foreign Minister NP Saud told a select group of international media representatives.

“Joshi has been taken hostage by Hamas. Based on information from his colleagues, Hamas took Joshi as a hostage and a group of Thai nationals. The Nepal government has requested international organisations and diplomatic missions to assist in locating Joshi," he said.

Joshi even threw away one of the two unexploded grenades, which were hurled by the Hamas on them, Saud said.

“The Israeli government has taken control of the dead bodies of the 10 Nepalese students killed in the terrorist attack,” he said.

“I spoke with Israel's Foreign Minister (Eli Cohen) on the matter, and we are working towards bringing back the bodies at the earliest. The Nepalese ambassador to Israel has also expressed a commitment to bringing back the bodies to Nepal as soon as possible,” Saud said. (PTI)

Cross-border clashes between Lebanon and Israel intensified Sunday, with the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group firing rockets and Israeli forces responding with shelling.

The Israeli army also reported a shooting at one of its border posts. The fighting has killed at least one person on the Israeli side and wounded several on both sides of the border.

Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally of Gaza’s Hamas rulers and an archenemy of Israel, said in a statement that it had fired rockets towards an Israeli military position in the northern border town Shtula in retaliation for Israeli shelling that killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah on Friday and two Lebanese civilians on Saturday.

However, a Hezbollah spokeswoman, Rana Sahili, said Sunday’s increase in the intensity of the exchanges doesn’t indicate Hezbollah has decided to fully enter into the Hamas-Israel war. The fighting on the border is “only skirmishes” and represents a “warning,” she said. (AP)

Water has run out at UN shelters across Gaza as thousands packed into the courtyard of the besieged territory’s largest hospital as a refuge of last resort from a looming Israeli ground offensive and overwhelmed doctors struggled to care for patients they fear will die once generators run out of fuel.

Israel has cut off the flow of food, medicine, water and electricity to Gaza, pounded neighbourhoods with airstrikes and told the estimated 1 million residents of the north to flee south ahead of Israel’s planned attack.

About half a million Gaza residents have taken refuge in UN shelters across the territory and are running out of water, said Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, known by the acronym UNRWA. “Gaza is running dry,” she said, adding that UN teams have also begun to ration water.

Across Gaza, families rationed dwindling water supplies, with many forced to drink dirty or brackish water. Relief groups called for the protection of the over 2 million civilians in Gaza urging an emergency corridor be established for the transfer of humanitarian aid.

Doctors in the evacuation zone said they couldn’t relocate their patients safely, so they decided to stay as well to care for them.

“We shall not evacuate the hospital even if it costs us our lives,” said Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the head of paediatrics at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia. If they left, the seven newborns in the intensive care unit would die, he said. And even if they could move them, there is nowhere for them to go in the 40-km-long coastal territory.

Other doctors feared for the lives of patients dependent on ventilators and those suffering from complex blast wounds needing around-the-clock care. Doctors worried entire hospital facilities would be shut down and many would die as the last of fuel stocks powering their generators came close to running out. UN humanitarian monitors estimated this could happen by Monday. (AP)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will return to Israel this week after completing a frantic six-country rush through Arab nations aimed at preventing the Israel-Hamas war from igniting a broader regional conflict.

The US State Department announced Blinken’s plan to travel Monday to Israel — his second visit in five days — as America’s top diplomat arrived in Cairo for talks Sunday with Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. It was the last of Blinken’s meetings with Arab leaders amid increasing fears that an impending Israeli ground offensive into Gaza could spark a wider war with devastating humanitarian consequences.

Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters travelling with Blinken that the secretary was returning to Tel Aviv “for further consultations with Israeli officials.” Miller did not elaborate. (AP)

Pope Francis on Sunday renewed his call for the release of Israeli hostages held by Gaza's militant Hamas rulers and called for humanitarian corridors to help those under siege in Gaza.

“I continue to follow with much sorrow what is happening in Israel and Palestine,” Francis said during his Sunday’s Angelus prayer in St Peter’s Square. “I think back to the many people, especially the little ones and the elderly.” The Pope reiterated his appeal for the release of scores of Israeli hostages snatched during Hamas' deadly incursion into southern Israel last weekend and taken to Gaza.

“I strongly ask that the children, the elderly, women and all civilians don't become victims of the conflict,” Francis said. He added that humanitarian law must be respected, “especially in Gaza where there is an urgent need to guarantee humanitarian corridors and to rescue the entire population”.

The Pope appealed for the world not to “shed any more innocent blood, neither in the Holy Land, nor in Ukraine, nor anywhere else. Enough! Wars are always a defeat, always”. (AP)

Thousands took the streets of the Moroccan capital on Sunday to rally in support of Palestinians in Gaza and denounce Israel’s actions in the latest war with Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers.

Waving Palestinian flags, the rally also marked a major showing for the banned Islamist movement Al Adl Wa Ihssane, which supports Hamas. After Hamas's unprecedented and deadly Oct 7 incursion into Israel, Morocco issued a statement condemning the violence. Royal Air Maroc, temporarily cancelled flights from Casablanca to Tel Aviv — a route that began in 2021.

Demonstrators marched in central Rabat and threw smoke bombs and fireworks as riot police stood between them and the Parliament building and other landmarks. (AP)

With the three-hour deadline for citizens to evacuate north Gaza long over, the Israeli Defence Forces are now waiting for a political green signal for a ground offensive, according to news agency AFP.

Israel had told 1.1 million citizens of north Gaza to leave via the designated safe routes. Military spokesmen Lieutenant Richard Hecht and Daniel Hagari told the media that “a political decision” will set off any action against Hamas, reported AFP.

However, Israel has been under pressure from the UN and some allies to put on hold any ground offensive until all civilians have left. The UN insists that evacuating north Gaza is near impossible, given the population density and the large number of seriously injured patients in the hospitals.

A ground invasion also poses questions about the safety of the 150 hostages held by Hamas.

Tens of thousands of Israeli troops are currently surrounding Gaza.

Residents of the southern Israeli city of Sderot boarded buses for other parts of the country on Sunday to escape the rocket barrages from the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian Hamas militants who infiltrated Israel on a rampage that killed more than 1,300 people more than a week ago have also bombarded the country with thousands of rockets. Sderot, a city of about 34,000 people located about a mile from the Gaza border, has been a frequent target.

One of the residents, Yossi Edri, told Channel 13 before boarding a bus that "children are traumatised, they can't sleep at night”.

Thousands already left the city last week under a state-sponsored programme that puts them up in hotels elsewhere as a respite from the violence. The programme in Sderot was expanded Sunday.

“There is no reason to return to Sderot,” Mayor Alon Davidi told Army Radio. “It's on the front line.” (AP)