LIVE | Israel-Hamas War Day 26: Rafah border opens; Gaza links cut off again
Israeli military claims large number of militants killed in Jabaliya camp airstrikes, including the commander overseeing Hamas operations in northern Gaza
A barrage of Israeli airstrikes levelled apartment buildings in a refugee camp near Gaza City on Tuesday (October 31), and footage showed rescuers pulling men, women, and children out of the rubble. Israel said the strike destroyed a Hamas command centre set up in civilian houses and a network of tunnels underneath.
The toll from the strikes in the Jabaliya camp was not immediately known. The Israeli military said a large number of militants were killed, including the commander overseeing Hamas operations in northern Gaza.
The director of the nearby hospital where casualties were taken, Dr Atef Al-Kahlot, said hundreds were wounded or killed, but he did not provide exact figures. Neither side’s account could be independently confirmed by news agency The Associated Press.
Several hundred thousand Palestinians remain in northern Gaza in the path of the ground assault. They have crowded into homes or are packed by the thousands into hospitals that are already overwhelmed with patients and running low on supplies.
Some 800,000 Palestinians have reportedly fled to the south, but many have not, in part because they say nowhere is safe as Israeli airstrikes in the south have continued to cause civilian deaths. The window to flee may be closing, as Israeli forces reached Gaza’s main north-south highway this week.
More than 8,500 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, the Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday, without providing a breakdown between civilians and fighters. The figure is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’s initial attack, also an unprecedented figure. Palestinian militants also abducted around 240 people during their incursion and have continued firing rockets into Israel.
More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians have fled their homes, with hundreds of thousands sheltering in packed UN-run schools-turned-shelters or in hospitals alongside thousands of wounded patients.
(With agency inputs)Live Updates
- 1 Nov 2023 3:44 AM GMT
Bolivia severs diplomatic ties with Israel
Bolivia’s government severed diplomatic relations with Israel on Tuesday while calling for an end to the Israeli military offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
“Bolivia decided to break diplomatic relations with the state of Israel in repudiation and condemnation of the aggressive and disproportionate Israeli military offensive taking place in the Gaza Strip,” Freddy Mamani, Bolivia's deputy foreign minister, said at a news conference.
The Andean nation of 12 million, which is led by leftist President Luis Arce, has long been critical of Israel and previously severed diplomatic ties with Israel in 2009 over fighting involving Gaza. Diplomatic relations were reestablished in 2020.
María Nela Prada, the minister of the presidency, called on Israel to “cease attacks in the Gaza Strip that have already resulted in thousands of civilian casualties and the forced displacement of Palestinians.” Earlier in the day, Arce held a meeting with Palestinian Ambassador Mahmoud Elalwani. (AP)
