Israel-Palestine latest news: Up to 10 British hostages taken by Hamas
Israel-Palestine latest news: Up to 10 British hostages taken by Hamas
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has said that it is not “unreasonable” to estimate that up to 10 civilians were taken hostage by Hamas in last week’s bloody assault on Israel.
Speaking on Sky News this morning, Clevery added: “It is in Israel’s interest to avoid civilian casualties and Palestinian casualties because Hamas clearly wants to turn this into a wider Arab-Israeli war or indeed a war between the Muslim world and the wider world.”
The Gaza Health Ministry said 2,329 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting erupted, already making it the deadliest of the five Gaza wars.
“I have received regular commitments from the Israeli leadership, both military and civilian, that they are all conscious that the people of Palestinian are being used by Hamas,” he said. “They recognise that and they’re very conscious of their responsibilities.”
A spokesman for the Israeli army told CNN that the top priority in the military operation will be to rescue the hostages, who are “most likely” being held underground in an “elaborate network of tunnels”. There are 126 confirmed hostages according to their latest numbers.
Israel kills Hamas kibbutz attack mastermind
The Israeli Defence Forces claim they have killed another commander in Hamas’ elite Nukhba forces who they believe was behind the Kibbutz Nirim and Nir Oz massacres last weekend.
In a statement the IDF said that “as part of the extensive IDF strikes of senior operatives and terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip” they killed the commander Bilal al Kedra as well as other Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives.
The IDF carried out more than 100 air strikes across the Gaza Strip last night as preparations for the ground incursion continue. The US announced overnight that it would send a second carrier group to the eastern Mediterranean to act as a deterrence as the possibility of the conflict broadening into regional war increases.
A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces told CNN that the top priority in the military operation is to rescue the hostages, who are “most likely” being held underground in an “elaborate network of tunnels”.
Germany advises citizens against all travel to Lebanon, Israel and Occupied Palestine
The German government on Sunday urged its nationals not to travel to Israel, the Palestinian territories or Lebanon because of “an escalation of violence”.
“Due to the escalation of violence in the region in connection with the massive terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7, we warn against travelling to the countries and areas mentioned,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“A travel warning is usually only issued if there is a risk to life and limb,” the ministry added in a thread on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The warning is an upgrade from the previous warning against travel to the Gaza Strip and some areas of Lebanon.
Tensions heat up as West Bank Palestinians suffer deadliest month on record, in just a week
Israel will evacuate civilians from the southern town as preparations for a ground offensive gather pace.
Residents of Sderot, which lies just a mile from the northeast corner of the Gaza strip, will be evacuated from 11:00 local time today, local authorities announced. Israeli media said the evacuation is not mandatory, although municipal authorities have urged people to leave.
Sderot has always been a prime target for Hamas missiles because of its proximity to the Gaza strip, and it has been one of the hardest hit by rocket barrages since war broke out on October 7.
It follows the mandatory evacuation last week of the survivors of massacres in villages and kibbutzes along the 232 highway, which runs south from Sdetot parallel to the Gaza border.
Israel tells residents not to go within 2 miles of Lebanon's borders
One person has died and three were injured in the attack on the Israeli village of Shtula that was launched from Lebanon, Reuters has reported.
The Israeli military has ordered residents not to go within two miles of the border.
Hizbollah issued a statement saying that the attack on Shtula was a response to Israeli strikes that have killed four people this week, including a journalist.
Israel declared the four kilometre area around the border a military zone and jammed GPS, warning residents that they may face glitches with location-based apps.
Israeli military striking in Lebanon after reports of casualties
The Israeli army is currently in another back and forth across the increasingly tense Lebanese border.
Around 45 minutes ago the IDF said it was striking in Lebanon following an attack on the northern Israeli border village of Shtula.
Israel’s army radio says there were at least four casualties, though the IDF is yet to confirm that.
In an update five minutes ago the fighting was ongoing. An additional anti-tank missile targeted an IDF military post on the Lebanese border, it said, adding that they were striking back in Lebanese territory.
In a briefing with reporters just now the IDF spokesperson Richard Hecht said that Hizbollah should be “very careful” not to escalate the conflict. The timing would be “problematic,” Hecht said adding that it would bring “catastrophe” to Lebanon.
Pictured: Devastation in Gazan refugee camps
IDF sets another period for evacuations
People in the north of the Gaza Strip and Gaza City have been given another evacuation period by the IDF today.
Avichay Adraee, the IDF spokesperson for Arab media posted on X that the IDF “will refrain from targeting” the route between 10am and 1pm (8am to 11am UK time).
A ground invasion has seemed imminent over the past few days but the IDF will not confirm how many days the evacuation routes will continue for.
Some hospitals have refused to evacuate, citing the impossibility of moving the injured without them dying. Some civilians have also decided to stay put, some because they have nowhere to go, and others because they refuse to be displaced from their land again.
Israel's war with Hamas appeared set to escalate as the country's military renewed a warning Saturday for civilians in the densely populated northern half of the Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south "to preserve your safety," ahead of a widely expected ground offensive. Missiles have rained down on the Palestinian territory since Hamas militants launched a brutal terror attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, firing thousand of rockets and storming into the Jewish state on a murderous rampage.
The warning from Israel sparked a desperate mass-exodus of civilians heading south through Gaza amid the ongoing airstrikes and dire humanitarian circumstances. Israel on Sunday offered an additional three-hour window ending 6 a.m. EDT for Gazans to flee to the south.
The combined death toll on both sides of the war climbed to more than 3,600, rising precipitously in Gaza as the Israel Defense Forces hammered the region with missiles that it insists have all targeted Hamas.
Israel's military said Hamas' attack and ongoing rocket fire from Gaza had killed more than 1,300 people, at least 276 of them troops, and left at least 3,200 people wounded. At least 29 Americans are known to be among the dead, a State Department spokesperson confirmed Saturday. In Gaza, the Health Ministry said Sunday that the Israeli airstrikes had killed 2,329 people, including 724 children, and left 9,714 others wounded.
The Israeli military said Sunday that at least 126 people were taken captive by Hamas to Gaza. The State Department spokesperson said Saturday that 15 Americans remain unaccounted for, along with one U.S. permanent resident.
The U.S. government says, meanwhile, that it's working with Israel and Egypt to get the only border crossing out of Gaza not sealed off by Israel — the Rafah crossing into northeast Egypt — opened for a limited time window to enable U.S. nationals to escape the Palestinian territory. The State Department said it was in contact with some of the estimated 500-600 U.S. nationals in the enclave and urged them to move toward Rafah if they believed they could do so safely.
The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem announced Sunday that it had arranged for a ship to evacuate an unspecified number of Americans and immediate family members from the Israeli port of Haifa to Cyprus on Monday.
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