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
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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Live Updates
- 5 Nov 2023 8:04 AM GMT
'Nuking' Gaza is a possible option: Israeli Minister
Amihai Eliyahu, a member of the extremist Otzma Yehudit party, suggested dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza as one of Israel's options in the ongoing conflict. However, it's important to note that he is not part of the security cabinet responsible for making wartime decisions, and he lacks the influence to direct actions against Hamas. Israel one of four nuclear-armed countries not recognised as a Nuclear Weapons State by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The country has never officially accepted that it has nuclear weapons in its possesion.
- 5 Nov 2023 7:46 AM GMT
Three Palestinians killed in Israeli occupied West Bank
In the occupied West Bank town of Abu Dis, Israeli forces have killed three Palestinians and injured six, as reported by the Palestinian Wafa news agency. A large group of Israeli soldiers surrounded a house, claiming it belonged to a suspected Palestinian fighter. Despite calls for the suspect to surrender, he refused, leading the army to launch an antitank missile at the building, resulting in the death of the 20-year-old man inside, identified as Nabil Halabia. Later, two other men, Musa Diaa Zarour, 22, and Muhannad Affana, 20, succumbed to their injuries after clashing with Israeli soldiers in the area.
- 5 Nov 2023 7:41 AM GMT
Struck 2500 targets in Gaza: IDF
The IDF said that its forces are engaged in face-to-face battles and direct air attacks to eliminate militants in the Gaza Strip. These operations targeted militant infrastructure, weapons warehouses, observation posts, and operational headquarters of the Hamas organisation.
- 5 Nov 2023 7:09 AM GMT
Israel provides 3-hour window for Gazans to move south, but no compliance
Israel has persistently called for the 1.1 million residents of northern Gaza to move south. On Saturday, a three-hour window was provided for residents to do so. Despite this, an Associated Press journalist observed that no one complied. According to Salama Maarouf, the head of the government media office in Gaza, residents refrained from heading south due to the road being damaged by the Israeli military.
- 5 Nov 2023 6:21 AM GMT
Enforce immediate ceasefire in Palestine: Priyanka to international community
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Sunday accused the leaders of the "free world" of financing the "genocide" of thousands in Palestine and demanded that the international community should enforce an immediate ceasefire there.
Without naming Israel or specifying any country of the free world, she described the situation as horrific and said that around 10,000 civilians have been massacred.
"It is horrific and shameful beyond words that almost 10,000 civilians of which nearly 5000 are children have been massacred, whole family lines have been finished off, hospitals and ambulances have been bombed, refugee camps targeted and yet the so-called leaders of the 'free' world continue to finance and support the genocide in Palestine," she said in a post on X. "A ceasefire is the very least step that should be immediately enforced by the international community or it will have no moral authority left," the Congress leader also said.
It is horrific and shameful beyond words that almost 10,000 civilians of which nearly 5000 are children have been massacred, whole family lines have been finished off, hospitals and ambulances have been bombed, refugee camps targeted and yet the so-called leaders of the “free”…
— Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) November 5, 2023 - 5 Nov 2023 6:05 AM GMT
Pro-Palestine supporters protest in Indonesia
Indonesians staged a big demonstration in Jakarta to express their support for Palestine. This protest coincided with ongoing challenges faced by the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza, backed by Indonesian volunteers, due to critical supply shortages caused by Israeli attacks.
- 5 Nov 2023 5:51 AM GMT
What Hamas did was horrific…what is happening to Palestinians is unbearable: Obama
Former US president Barack Obama has condemned the Israel-Hamas war in which thousands have been killed and said the conflict is the “century-old stuff” that has come to the fore.
“I look at this, and I think back, ‘What could I have done during my presidency to move this forward, as hard as I tried?’ But there’s a part of me that’s still saying, ‘Well, was there something else I could have done’,” he was quoted as saying at an interview by the New York Times.
He said social media was largely responsible for worsening the animosity within the two sides.
“What Hamas did was horrific, and there’s no justification for it…And what is also true is that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable,” he added.
- 5 Nov 2023 5:06 AM GMT
IDF says its troops have discovered multiple access points in Hamas tunnels
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has said that during its operational activity in Northern Gaza its troops have uncovered multiple access points to the intricate tunnels that are being used by Hamas militants to hide and operate.
- 5 Nov 2023 3:10 AM GMT
Protest marches by thousands in Europe demand halt to Israeli bombing of Gaza
Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators demanding a halt to Israel's bombardment of Gaza marched in Paris, Berlin and other European cities on Saturday.
The marches reflected growing disquiet in Europe about the mounting civilian casualty toll and suffering from the Israel-Hamas war, particularly in countries with large Muslim populations, including France.
At a Paris rally that drew several thousand protesters, demonstrators called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and some shouted “Israel, assassin!”
In central London, streets were blocked by protesters chanting, “Cease-fire now” and “I believe that we will win.” Banners on a sound-system truck at the Paris march through rain-dampened streets read: “Stop the massacre in Gaza.” Demonstrators, many carrying Palestinian flags, chanted "Palestine will live, Palestine will win.”
Some demonstrators also took aim at French President Emmanuel Macron, chanting “Macron, accomplice.” Paris' police chief authorised the march from République to Nation, two large plazas in eastern Paris, but vowed that any behaviour deemed anti-semitic or sympathetic to terrorism would not be tolerated.
- 5 Nov 2023 2:53 AM GMT
Arab leaders push for an Israel-Hamas cease-fire now; Blinken says counterproductive
Arab leaders decrying the deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians in the Israel-Hamas war pushed for an immediate ceasefire on Saturday even as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that such a move would be counterproductive and could encourage more violence by the militant group.
After an afternoon of talks with Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi, Qatari and Emirati diplomats and a senior Palestinian official, Blinken stood side by side at a line of podiums with his counterparts from Jordan and Egypt to discuss what he said was their shared desire to protect civilians in Gaza and improve aid flows to the besieged territory.
The dissonance in the messages was evident. Nonetheless, the joint news conference between ministers from the Arab world and the top diplomat from Israel's closest ally and numerous photo opportunities contrasted with Blinken's time in Tel Aviv on Friday, when he met alone with reporters after closed-door talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Arab ministers repeatedly called for the fighting to stop now and condemned Israel's war tactics.
"We cannot accept the justification as considered as the right of self-defense, collective punishment" of Palestinians in Gaza, Egypt's Sameh Shoukry said. "This cannot be a legitimate self-defence at all."
