Israel’s top military commander said on Thursday that his country’s forces have surrounded Gaza City on three sides and that Israeli troops are operating inside the city. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also said Israeli forces had pushed further in than the outskirts of Gaza City. “We’re at the height of the battle,” he said.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said four of its schools in Gaza that are being used as shelters have been damaged in less than 24 hours. At least 20 people have reportedly been killed and five others injured on Thursday after a school that is being used as a shelter was damaged at the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, the agency said in its latest update on Thursday. The Hamas-run Gaz ministry said at least 27 people were killed in a blast near a UN school in the Jabalia camp on Thursday.
At least 15 people have been killed after a blast in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry said. A spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence said the blast took place in a residential building, and residents reported scores of people trapped beneath the rubble.
At least 9,061 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, including 3,760 children, the health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday. The current conflict began on 7 October when Hamas launched an onslaught on southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people and swept up hundreds more as hostages. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify figures from either Israeli or Palestinian authorities.
At least 195 Palestinians were killed in two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday and Wednesday, a Hamas-run government media office said. Israel claims it killed senior Hamas officials in both attacks. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said Muhammad A’sar, the commander of Hamas’s anti-tank guided missile array, was targeted in Wednesday’s airstrike. The UN human rights office said Israel’s airstrike on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday could amount to war crimes. The UN’s humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, said the airstrikes were “just the latest atrocity to befall the people of Gaza” and said the world “seems unable, or unwilling, to act”.
Eighteen Israeli soldiers have been killed amid fierce fighting in Gaza, in a series of incidents that have underlined the mounting challenges facing the IDF in their attempts to push further into built-up areas of Gaza. The heaviest loss of life occurred when a “Namer” armoured personnel carrier was hit at about noon on Tuesday by an anti-tank guided missile, killing 11 soldiers and wounding several more.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened for a second day on Thursday to allow the evacuation of some injured Palestinians requiring hospital treatment and foreign passport holders. British nationals were able to get out of Gaza on Thursday, the UK Foreign Office confirmed. The US has been able to get 74 dual citizens out of Gaza, Joe Biden said. An Australian minister confirmed that 20 Australian nationals had crossed the border at Rafah to exit Gaza on Wednesday. He went on to confirm that there are still 65 Australians stuck in Gaza that the government is “supporting” and are being provided consular assistance.
Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam brigades, said its fighters in southern Lebanon were behind the shelling of the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, where four rockets landed in an industrial area, injuring two people and damaging buildings.
Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, said it had simultaneously attacked 19 positions in Israel on Thursday evening. The strikes came hours after Hezbollah said it had used two drones packed with explosives to attack an Israeli army command position in the disputed Shebaa Farms area on the Lebanese-Israeli border earlier in the day. It is the first time Hezbollah has acknowledged carrying out an attack against Israeli forces using such drones.
Thai officials held talks with Hamas in Iran last week in an effort to secure the release of the 22 Thai people taken hostage. Officials, who held a two-hour meeting with Hamas in Tehran on 26 October, were told that the Thai hostages would be released at “the right time”, and they were being looked after, according to Areepen Uttarasin, a lead negotiator.
A group of United Nations experts have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, warning that “time is running out” as Palestinian people there find themselves at “grave risk of genocide”. In a statement, they expressed “deep frustration with Israel’s refusal to halt plans to decimate” the Gaza Strip and said they felt “deepening horror” about Israeli airstrikes against the Jabalia refugee camp.
Joe Biden called for a “pause” in the Israel-Hamas war on Wednesday and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is expected back in the region on Friday. Biden has been under pressure to call for a ceasefire or a meaningful humanitarian pause in Israel’s campaign. Israel did not immediately respond to Biden’s remarks, but Netanyahu has previously ruled out a ceasefire.