LIVE | Israel-Hamas War Day 27: Israeli troops advance as diplomatic efforts aim to pause Gaza fighting
Israeli airstrikes destroy apartments in Jabaliya refugee camp for second straight day as dual passport holders and seriously injured Palestinians leave Gaza
Israel’s ground troops were advancing toward Gaza City as diplomatic efforts intensified for at least a brief pause in the fighting in Gaza's deadliest war.
US President Joe Biden suggested a humanitarian “pause” and Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected back in the region on Friday. Arab countries, including those allied with the US and at peace with Israel, have expressed mounting unease with the war.
The opening of the Rafah border crossing, allowing hundreds of foreign passport holders and wounded Palestinians to leave Gaza, followed weeks of talks among Egypt, Israel, the US and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas.
The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war has reached 9,061, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, more than 130 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids.
Meanwhile, UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said it is proving very difficult to bring about a pause in the Israel-Hamas war to allow humanitarian aid to reach people in Gaza.
Cleverly said that “pretty much the whole world has been agreed that we need to get increased volumes of humanitarian aid into Gaza.”
“We, the US, voices all over the world have been pushing for, you know, these humanitarian pauses -- temporary, localized, specifically for humanitarian purposes. They've proven to be very, very difficult to achieve,” he told reporters at an AI Safety Summit in England.
Cleverly, who has made several trips to the Middle East since the war began, said “we will keep pushing to get those humanitarian pauses … for as long as it takes.” He said the UK position remains that “calls for a broad ceasefire are premature.”
Injured allowed to leave
Hundreds of dual passport holders and dozens of seriously injured Palestinians were allowed to leave Gaza on Wednesday (November 1) after more than three weeks under siege, while Israeli airstrikes destroyed apartments in a densely populated area for the second straight day.
The group were the first people to leave Gaza — other than four hostages released by Hamas and another rescued by Israeli forces — even as bombings have driven hundreds of thousands from their homes, and food, water and fuel run low.
It remained unclear whether more people would be allowed to leave Gaza in the coming days.
The latest strikes in the densely populated Jabaliya refugee camp near Gaza City demolished multi-story apartment buildings, and dozens of men later dug through the rubble, searching for survivors, according to footage from Al-Jazeera television, one of the few media outlets still reporting from northern Gaza. It showed several wounded people, including children, being brought to a nearby hospital.
The Hamas-run government said the strikes killed and wounded many people, but the exact toll was not yet known.
The toll was also unknown from Tuesday’s strikes on buildings in the same camp, though the director of a nearby hospital said hundreds were killed or wounded. Israel said those strikes destroyed military tunnels beneath the buildings and killed dozens of Hamas fighters, including a senior commander involved in the militants’ bloody October 7 rampage that ignited the war.
In a sign of increasing alarm over the war among Arab countries, Jordan on Wednesday recalled its ambassador from Israel and told Israel’s ambassador to remain out of the country. Jordan, a key US ally, signed a peace deal with Israel in 1994.
Jordan’s deputy prime minister, Ayman al-Safadi, said the return of the ambassadors is linked to Israel “stopping its war on Gaza … and the humanitarian catastrophe it is causing”. He warned that the conflict could spread and threaten “the security of the entire region”.Live Updates
- 2 Nov 2023 7:35 AM IST
Death toll keeps rising
More than 8,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, and more than 22,000 people have been wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Wednesday, 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' initial attack, also an unprecedented figure. Palestinian militants also abducted around 240 people during their incursion and have continued firing rockets into Israel.
Sixteen Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground operation.
Israel has been vague about its operations in Gaza. But its forces appear to be moving in from the north and east of Gaza City as well as trying to take control of the territory's two main north-south roads, according to residents and spokesmen for militant groups battling the troops.
An estimated 800,000 Palestinians have fled south from northern Gaza following Israeli evacuation orders, but hundreds of thousands remain.
Israel has allowed more than 260 trucks carrying food and medicine to enter from Egypt over the past 10 days, but aid workers say it's not nearly enough. (AP) - 2 Nov 2023 7:34 AM IST
Hospitals warn of depleting fuel
Hospitals in Gaza expressed increasing alarm that their generators running life-saving equipment were on the verge of going dead after weeks of Israel barring entry of fuel.
Only hours of electricity remained at Gaza City's largest hospital, Shifa, according to its director, Mohammed Abu Salmia, who pleaded for “whoever has a litre of diesel in his home” to donate it.
The Turkish-Palestinian Hospital, Gaza's only facility offering specialized treatment for cancer patients, was forced to shut down because of lack of fuel, leaving 70 cancer patients in a critical situation, the Health Ministry said.
The World Health Organization said the lack of fuel puts at risk 1,000 patients on kidney dialysis, 130 premature babies in incubators, as well as cancer patients and patients on ventilators.
The communications blackout for hours Wednesday caused further turmoil, though the Palestinian telecom company Paltel said internet and mobile phone services were gradually being restored. The International Committee of the Red Cross said such blackouts make “even the potentially life-saving act of calling an ambulance” impossible. (AP) - 2 Nov 2023 7:34 AM IST
Border opens to allow some people out
By mid-afternoon Wednesday, 335 foreign passport holders had left Gaza through the Rafah crossing into Egypt, according to Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian Crossings Authority.
He said 76 Palestinian patients, along with their companions, have been evacuated for treatment in Egypt. Ten other patients set to be brought out died before they could be evacuated, Dr Mohamed Zaqout, a Health Ministry official in Gaza, told AP. The criteria for medical evacuation were not immediately clear.
The authority said the plan was for more than 400 foreign passport holders to leave for Egypt. The White House said it expected a “handful” of American citizens to be among them.
Hundreds more remain in Gaza, and talks on further evacuations were reportedly continuing among Egypt, Israel and Qatar, which has been mediating with Hamas. The US has said it is trying to get out 400 Americans with their families.
Egypt has said it will not accept an influx of Palestinian refugees because of fears Israel will not allow them to return to Gaza after the war. (AP) - 2 Nov 2023 7:33 AM IST
Israeli army advances deeper into Gaza
The strikes in Jabaliya underline the anticipated surge in casualties on both sides as Israeli troops advance toward the outskirts of Gaza City and its dense residential neighbourhoods. Israeli officials say Hamas’s military infrastructure, including hundreds of kilometres of underground tunnels, is concentrated in the city, which was home to some 650,000 people before the war.
Internet and phone service was cut for several hours on Wednesday in a replay of the temporary communications blackout when Israeli ground troops first advanced in large numbers into Gaza over the weekend.
Over half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, and supplies of food, medicine, water and fuel are running low. A territory-wide blackout has left hospitals reliant on generators that could soon be forced to shut down. (AP)
