Israel PM’s office confirms release of mother and daughter hostages by Hamas

Summary of developments in the Israel-Hamas conflict

• Israel plans to cut links with Gaza in ‘new security reality’.
• Families of Israeli hostages split on possible ground invasion of Gaza.
• Israel has said it does not plan to take long-term control over the Gaza Strip after an expected ground offensive to root out Hamas militants that rule the territory.
• Kremlin says remarks by US president Joe Biden comparing Russian president Vladimir Putin to Hamas were ‘unacceptable’
• Israel estimates 200 people, including 30 teenagers and young children, and 20 people over the age of 60, are being held hostage in Gaza
• At least 4,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, the health ministry in Gaza says
• Delivery of aid to the Gaza Strip has been delayed by disagreements over how to ensure the supplies cannot be used by Hamas
• Israel bombards Gaza as it begins evacuating a large Israeli town in the north near the Lebanese border
• Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant has told troops to ‘get organised, be ready’ for a ground invasion of Gaza
• US president Joe Biden has sought approval for billions of dollars in military aid for both Israel and Ukraine, saying the world is at an ‘inflection point in history’

Key reads

• Tánaiste suggests Israel may be holding up Gaza aid effort as he appeals for 100 trucks to be allowed into area.
• Analysis: How much aid does Gaza need? Gaza’s hungry, dehydrated, ailing and wounded people are out of time, according to UN
• EU staff members express fury over von der Leyen stance on Israel-Hamas conflict
• Opinion: Cancelling an award ceremony for a Palestinian writer is hateful and absurd
• Opinion: President Higgins’s pronouncements on foreign policy are reckless, inappropriate and dangerous
• The view from a Dubliner in Israel: ‘I don’t want to leave,’ my friend’s mother said. ‘But I can’t go through another war’
• Initial Gaza aid deliveries set to cross from Egypt
• Thursday’s live coverage: Israel’s defence minister tells ground troops to be ready to enter Gaza Strip
• Join The Irish Times WhatsApp channel for breaking news straight to your phone

Hospitals and health care centres in the Gaza Strip are “on the brink of collapse”, the United Nations warned on Friday, with disagreements between Egypt and Israel still blocking aid from entering.

Despite a UN-led deal that laid out the groundwork for transporting food, water and medicine through the Rafah border crossing, no outside resources have been allowed in for the last 14 days because of disagreements over how often to allow convoys to cross, how to screen them and what they can include.

More than 60 per cent of primary health care centres were shut down, and hospitals were running out of power, medicines, equipment and staff, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report. Several hospitals are out of service because they ran out of fuel, the Hamas-operated Gaza health ministry said. According to UNRWA, the UN agency that aids Palestinians, it had about 15 days’ supply of medicines, with one week’s supply of insulin remaining.

The Gaza health ministry said on Friday it was “working to continue” medical procedures such as dialysis, C-sections, cancer treatment and vaccinations with “depleted resources”. But the UN warned that because hospitals were being overwhelmed by the number of patients, many lying on the floors, these vital procedures might soon be halted.

The Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, the only facility in Gaza providing chemotherapy for more than 9,000 patients, was struggling to remain operational, the UN said, relying on a single generator for electricity.

Fuel was the biggest concern, aid groups said, with the last litres remaining in the territory being relocated to hospitals to avoid having to shut them down, the UN report said. Earlier this week, the World Health Organisation, together with UNRWA, delivered 10,600 litres of fuel to the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, preventing the cessation of medical services, which would be disastrous for the northern part of the territory. Aid group Doctors Without Borders (also known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières), said on Friday that the Al-Shifa Hospital, where thousands of people were sheltering, had, “at most”, 24 hours of fuel left. – New York Times

We are signing off live coverage of events in the Israel-Hamas conflict for the evening, please join us again tomorrow Saturday for further updates.

Antisemitic offences in London have increased by over 1,000 per cent this month compared to last year, police have said.

Since the Hamas attack on Israel, Tell Mama (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks) has recorded a six-fold increase in reports compared to the same period last year.

The Metropolitan Police said there had been “a significant increase in hate crime across London” and that officers had made 21 arrests for hate crime offences since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. – PA

A blast at a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday causing hundreds of deaths was not the result of an Israeli missile strike but most likely a misfiring Palestinian rocket, the French military intelligence directorate said on Friday.

Palestinian officials said 471 people were killed in the blast at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital late on Tuesday. Gaza’s health ministry blamed an Israeli air strike, while Israel said the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by militants.

“There is nothing that allows us to say that it is an Israeli strike, but the most likely (scenario) is a Palestinian rocket that had a firing incident.” – Reuters

Thirteen Americans were confirmed to be among the 203 people Israel said had been taken hostage by Hamas, with 11 now thought to remain after the release of Judith and Natalie Ranaan. It was not immediately clear why the Raanans were the first hostages released, or whether other releases might follow.

On Monday Hamas had described non-Israelis who had been kidnapped as “guests” and said it would free them “when circumstances on the ground allow”.

The UK, Thailand, Argentina, Germany, France and Portugal have also said their citizens have been held hostage in Gaza. British diplomats have reportedly asked Qatar for help negotiating for the release of kidnapped citizens.

Hamas has previously said more than 20 hostages were killed in airstrikes but has not provided more details or information. – Guardian

Judith and Natalie Ranaan had been on a trip from their home in suburban Chicago to Israel to celebrate the Jewish holidays, family said.

They were in the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, near Gaza, on October 7th – Simchat Torah, a festive Jewish holiday – when Hamas fighters stormed out of the territory into southern Israeli towns, killing hundreds and abducting 203 others.

The family heard nothing from them after the attack and were later told by US and Israeli officials that they were being held in Gaza, Natalie’s brother Ben said.

Relatives of other captives welcomed the release and appealed for the others to be freed.

“We call on world leaders and the international community to exert their full power in order to act for the release of all the hostages and missing,” a statement said. – Associated Press

The office of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has confirmed that Hamas has released hostages Judith and Natalie Raanan, a statement said. Media reports said they were a mother and daughter, and that Natalie, the daughter, is aged 18.

The statement said the two were kidnapped from Nahal Oz, near the Gaza border, on October 7th, that they were received by security forces on the Gaza border, and were now on their way to a military base in central Israel.

The pair, who also hold Israeli citizenship, were the first hostages to be released, and more than 200 are still being held. – Reuters/AP

The humanitarian lifeline into Gaza remained closed on Friday despite a personal visit by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, and an agreement to open it brokered by US president Joe Biden, as Israel continued to pummel the enclave with airstrikes.

The failure to lift the total Israeli blockade further endangered Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people, with the UN forced in many cases to reduce the water ration to one litre a person a day for all uses, compared with the minimum international standard of 15 litres. – Guardian

Further to our earlier update, it has emerged that Hamas’s armed wing the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades has released two US hostages, a mother and her daughter, “for humanitarian reasons” in response to Qatari mediation efforts, its spokesman Abu Ubaida said in a statement.

Abu Ubaida said they released the citizens “for humanitarian reasons, and to prove to the American people and the world that the claims made by [President Joe] Biden and his fascist administration are false and baseless”.

Israel has said there will be no end to its full blockade of the Gaza Strip unless Israeli hostages are freed.

Hamas says it has 200 hostages and that 50 more are held by other armed groups in the enclave. It said more than 20 hostages have been killed by Israeli air strikes, but has not given any further details. – Reuters

Israeli officials said Hamas has released two hostages, Israel’s Channel 13 News and Kan public broadcaster reported on Friday.

The source of the Israeli confirmation was not disclosed and it was not immediately clear where the hostages were released to. – Reuters

Western officials are voicing mounting concern over the risk of regional “spillover” from the conflict between Israel and Hamas, as US forces in the region come under repeated drone attack, including in Iraq.

Amid indications of a major ground offensive into Gaza by Israeli forces, and escalating tensions on Israel’s boundary with Lebanon, Iranian proxies in particular appeared to be stepping up their threats.

The Ain al-Asad airbase, which hosts US and other international forces in western Iraq, was targeted by drones and missiles on Thursday evening, according to security sources. Multiple blasts were reportedly heard inside the base.

The Iraqi military said it had closed the area around the base and started a search operation. It was not clear yet whether the attacks had caused casualties or damages. – Guardian

Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan has called on Israel to stop its attacks on Gaza, which he said amounted to genocide, and urged the international community to work for a humanitarian ceasefire in the region.

Turkey supports Palestinians, backs a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict, and hosts members of Palestinian militant group Hamas. It has offered to mediate in the conflict and has sent humanitarian aid for Gaza that is stuck in Egypt, as borders are closed.

While initially condemning civilian deaths and calling for restraint as it sought to repair ties with Israel after years of animosity, Ankara has toughened its stance against Israel as the fighting and humanitarian crisis in Gaza has intensified. “I repeat my call for the Israeli leadership to never expand the scope of its attacks on civilians and to immediately end its operations amounting to genocide,” Mr Erdogan said on X, formerly known as Twitter. – Reuters

Residents on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border are facing upheaval as growing violence forces tens of thousands of civilians to abandon their homes and seek sanctuary elsewhere.

The borderlands have seen constant, but so far limited, clashes between the Israeli military and fighters from the Lebanese group Hizbullah since a war erupted two weeks ago around Gaza.

With friction ratcheting up, families are fleeing. Israel on Friday ordered the evacuation of more than 20,000 residents from Kiryat Shmona, one of the biggest towns on its northern border following a heavy cross-border exchange of fire in the area the day before.

“It’s a complicated and dangerous situation (but) we are strong and we hope it’s over quickly,” said Edo Goldstein as he arrived in the normally tranquil, leafy town to pick up his elderly father, a resident, and take him away. “We try to survive,” Mr Goldstein told Reuters.

Survival was also uppermost in the minds of Lebanese civilians from the Lebanese village of Dhayra, west of Israel’s Kiryat Shmona. Locals said Israeli shelling had destroyed 20 to 25 homes and they could no longer stay.

“Dhayra got damaged the most. The war erupted suddenly,” said Zahira Omar Swaid, who drove to Tyre on the Mediterranean coast, far from the shooting, and is now staying with his family in a school, awaiting more permanent lodgings. “They did not give us a warning to get out of our homes, as a precaution. We have children. We came in our cars and we fled. I was cooking. I left the gas open. I saw that the house of our neighbours was destroyed,” he told Reuters.

The Lebanese army said a journalist was killed by Israeli gunfire on Thursday across the border from Kiryat Shmona, while Israel said on Friday it had targeted three fighters from the Iran-backed Hizbullah near the border.

Hizbullah said in a statement: “The killing of civilians and the assault on the security of our country will not go without response or punishment.”

Daniel Hagari, spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said the mass evacuations along Israel’s northern border allowed the army “to expand its operational freedom to act against the Hizbullah terrorist organisation.”

Local authorities on both sides of the border are hastily seeking accommodation for the growing numbers of refugees, who leave their homes in cars crammed with suitcases. – Reuters

Israel levelled a northern Gaza district on Friday after giving families a half-hour warning to escape, and hit an Orthodox Christian church where others had been sheltering, as it made clear that a command to invade Gaza was expected soon.

In Zahra, a northern Gaza town, residents said their entire district of some 25 apartment buildings was razed to the ground.

They received Israeli warning messages on their mobile phones at breakfast, followed 10 minutes later by a small drone strike that hammered the message home. After another 20 minutes, F-16 warplanes brought the buildings down in huge explosions and clouds of dust.

The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the main Palestinian Christian denomination, said Israeli forces had struck the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, where hundreds of Christians and Muslims had sought sanctuary.

The secretary general of the United Nations, Antonio Gutteres, visited the crossing between the besieged Gaza Strip and Egypt, and said humanitarian aid must be allowed across as soon as possible.

Since October 7th, at least 4,137 Palestinians have been killed and 13,000 wounded in Gaza in Israeli strikes, the Palestinian health ministry said. The UN says more than a million have been made homeless. – Reuters

The death toll of French citizens from the Hamas attacks in Israel has risen to 30, and seven others are still missing, a French diplomatic source has said. – Reuters

Google has become the latest tech giant to withdraw from this year’s Web Summit, following comments made by chief executive Paddy Cosgrave on the Israel-Hamas conflict. The tech company was one of the event’s sponsors.

Its decision to bow out of the event was preceded by Intel and Siemens, who said yesterday they would no longer participate in the Lisbon event. “We will no longer have a presence at Web Summit” a Google spokesperson said.

Israel has said it does not plan to take long-term control over the Gaza Strip after an expected ground offensive to root out Hamas militants that rule the territory.

The Israeli military has been bombarding Gaza with air strikes, and authorities inched closer to bringing aid to desperate families and hospitals, as people across Muslim countries protested in solidarity with Palestinians.

Israel bombed areas in southern Gaza where Palestinians had been told to seek safety while it aims to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its brutal rampage in Israel two weeks ago.

Fighting between Israel and militants in neighbouring Lebanon also raged, prompting evacuations of Israeli border towns as fears of a widening conflict grew.

Speaking to legislators about Israel’s long-term plans for the Gaza Strip, defence minister Yoav Gallant laid out a three-stage plan that seemed to suggest Israel did not intend to reoccupy the territory it left in 2005.

First, he said, Israeli air strikes and “manoeuvring” – a presumed reference to a ground attack – would aim to root out Hamas. Next would come a lower intensity fight to defeat remaining pockets of resistance, and finally, “the removal of Israel’s responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip”. Mr Gallant did not say who Israel expected to run the territory if Hamas is toppled.

Israel occupied Gaza from 1967 until 2005, when it pulled up settlements and withdrew soldiers. Two years later, Hamas took over. Some Israelis blame the withdrawal from Gaza for the sporadic violence that has persisted since then.

As the humanitarian crisis worsened for Gaza’s 2.3 million civilians, workers along its border with Egypt began work to repair the border crossing in a first step to getting aid to besieged Palestinians, who were running out of fuel, food, water and medicine.

More than a million people have been displaced in Gaza. Many heeded Israel’s orders to evacuate the northern part of the sealed-off enclave on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Though prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu called areas in southern Gaza “safe zones” earlier this week, Israeli military spokesman Nir Dinar said on Friday: “There are no safe zones.”

UN officials said that with the bombings across all of Gaza, some Palestinians who had fled the north appeared to be returning to the region. – AP

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has directly appealed to Israeli authorities to accelerate the opening of the Rafah border crossing into Gaza and also allow a five-fold increase in the number of aid trucks to be sent into the area in coming days, writes Mark Paul.

“The situation is a crisis. We need to move faster,” he said.

Deadly violence is surging across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where 13 Palestinians and one Israeli officer were killed in clashes on Thursday, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials.

The worst clashes broke out in the Nur Shams refugee camp, a densely populated residential area that Israeli forces raided Thursday morning. The forces have been “detaining wanted persons, thwarting terrorist infrastructure and confiscating weapons,” the Israeli military said. But Palestinians in the camp fought back, shooting at Israeli soldiers and throwing improvised bombs at them, killing one officer, the Israeli military said.

Palestinian health authorities said that 13 Palestinians, including five children, were killed in the clashes in Nur Shams. The Israeli military reported that one of its officers was killed. Israel also carried out a rare drone strike during the raid, saying that it had attacked “an armed terrorist squad that endangered our forces”.

The Nur Shams refugee camp was not the only hotspot. Since the devastating attack on Israel on October 7th and Israel’s retaliatory strikes on the Gaza Strip, Palestinians have been protesting in many towns in the West Bank and clashing with Israeli soldiers.

On Thursday, Israeli forces staged simultaneous raids in Bethlehem, Hebron, Jericho, Nablus and Ramallah, searching for militants connected to Hamas.

Since then, Palestinian human rights groups say that more than 70 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in clashes with Israeli forces and armed Israeli settlers, by far the most in any consecutive two weeks this year. Israeli officers have arrested hundreds of people, according to Palestinian and Israeli accounts; the Israeli military said Friday that more than 375 people of those arrested are members of Hamas. – New York Times

An estimated 200 people, including 30 teenagers and young children and 20 people over the age of 60, are being held hostage in Gaza, Israel’s public broadcaster Kan has said, citing military sources.

Hamas says it has 200 hostages and that 50 more are held by other armed groups in the enclave. It said more than 20 hostages have been killed by Israeli air strikes, but has not given any further details. – Reuters

Israel’s defence minister has said that after the country destroys the Hamas militant group, the military does not plan to control “life in the Gaza Strip”.

Yoav Gallant’s comments to politicians were the first time an Israeli leader discussed its long-term plans for Gaza.

Mr Gallant said Israel expected there to be three phases to its war with Hamas.

He said it first would attack the group in Gaza with air strikes and ground manoeuvres, then it would defeat pockets of resistance and finally it would cease its “responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip”. – PA

At least 4,137 Palestinians have been killed and 13,000 wounded in Gaza in Israeli strikes since October 7th, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday in a statement. – Reuters

The Kremlin said on Friday that remarks by US president Joe Biden comparing Russian president Vladimir Putin to the Palestinian militant group Hamas were “unacceptable”, Reuters reports.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters the current moment was a potentially dangerous one, and that the threat to Russian citizens would grow exponentially once Israel started its expected ground operation in Gaza.

In remarks on Thursday, Mr Biden sought to compare Hamas’s actions to those of Mr Putin, whose forces launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to annihilate a neighbouring democracy,” he said.

Mr Peskov said that “such rhetoric is hardly suitable for responsible heads of state, and such rhetoric can hardly be acceptable for us; we do not accept such a tone towards the Russian Federation and towards our president”.

A Greek Orthodox church in the Gaza Strip which was sheltering hundreds of displaced Palestinians was hit overnight by an Israeli air strike, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and Palestinian health officials said.

Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office said 18 Christian Palestinians were killed. There was no word from the church on any final death toll.

The Israeli military said a part of the church was damaged in a strike on a militant command centre and it was reviewing the incident.

Palestinian officials said at least 500 Muslims and Christians had taken shelter in the church from Israeli bombardments.

The Orthodox Church said in a statement: “The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem expresses its strongest condemnation of the Israeli air strike that has struck its church compound in the city of Gaza.”

Video from the scene at the church compound showed a wounded boy being carried from rubble in the night-time. A civil defence worker said two people on upper floors had survived. Those on lower floors had been killed and were still in the rubble, the worker said.

Gaza’s 2.3 million population comprises an estimated 1,000 Christians, most of whom are Greek Orthodox.

The Israeli military said its fighter jets had hit a nearby command and control centre that was used to carry out attacks against Israel.

“As a result of the IDF strike, a wall of a church in the area was damaged. We are aware of reports on casualties. The incident is under review,” it said. – Reuters

Aid trucks need to move to Gaza as quickly as possible, United Nations secretary general António Guterres said at the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

He called for a meaningful number of trucks to enter Gaza every day and for verifications of aid to be done in a way that is practical and expedited.

“We are actively engaging with all parties to make sure conditions for delivering aid are lifted,” he said.

Mr Guterres flew to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on Friday in a push to get aid flowing into the besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza but it was unclear when delivery of relief materials stockpiled in Egypt would start.

In Geneva, the UN humanitarian office said it was in advanced talks with all parties in the Israel-Hamas conflict to ensure an aid operation can soon be conducted in Gaza.

The United States said details of a deal to send aid through the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza were still being hammered out.

Earlier, Washington said agreement had been reached for the passage of the first 20 trucks, but UN officials say that any delivery of aid needs to be done at scale and in a sustained way.

Before the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, which rules Gaza, about 450 aid trucks were arriving there daily. – Reuters

The long-awaited delivery of aid to the besieged Gaza Strip has been delayed by disagreements over how to ensure the supplies cannot be used by Hamas, according to three people familiar with the matter, the Financial Times reports.

US president Joe Biden on Wednesday secured an agreement with Israel to let water, food and medicine into Gaza, which has been subjected to an Israeli siege since the militant group’s deadly assault on the country on October 7th.

However, people familiar with the matter said aid may not enter Gaza on Friday as had been hoped because a process for verifying the supplies had not yet been agreed.

Israel has demanded the UN inspect aid entering Gaza to ensure it cannot be used for military purposes by Hamas, according to a senior UN official.

The people added that another concern was that UN officials wanted to ensure a steady flow of aid, rather than a one-off delivery of 20 truck loads.

Before the war, about 450 trucks entered the strip from Egypt on a daily basis, according to a UN official. There are currently about 100 trucks from UN agencies and other donors ready to cross into Gaza, according to people familiar with the matter.

Israel has bombarded Gaza, hitting areas in the south where Palestinians had been told to seek safety, as it began evacuating a large Israeli town in the north near the Lebanese border.

The move is the latest sign of a potential ground invasion of Gaza that could trigger even more regional turmoil.

Palestinians in Gaza reported heavy air strikes in Khan Younis in the south, and ambulances carrying men, women and children streamed into the town’s Nasser Hospital, Gaza’s second-largest, which is already overflowing with patients and people seeking shelter.

On Thursday, Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant ordered ground troops to prepare to see Gaza “from the inside”, hinting at a ground offensive aimed at crushing Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers nearly two weeks after their incursion into Israel.

Officials have given no timetable for such an operation.

More than a million people have been displaced in Gaza, with many heeding Israel’s orders to evacuate the northern part of the sealed-off coastal enclave.

Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals are rationing their dwindling medical supplies and fuel for generators, as authorities worked out logistics for a desperately needed aid delivery from Egypt that has yet to enter.

Doctors in darkened wards across Gaza have performed surgeries by the light of mobile phones and used vinegar to treat infected wounds.

The deal to get aid into Gaza through Rafah, the territory’s only crossing not controlled by Israel, remains fragile.

Israel said the supplies could only go to civilians and that it would “thwart” any diversions by Hamas.

More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tonnes of aid were positioned at or near Rafah, but work has not yet begun on repairing a road on the Gaza side that was damaged by air strikes.

Israel has evacuated its own communities near Gaza and Lebanon, putting residents up in hotels elsewhere in the country in a state-funded programme.

On Friday, the defence ministry announced evacuation plans for Kiryat Shmona, a town of more than 20,000 residents near the Lebanese border.

Lebanon’s Hizbullah militant group, which has a massive arsenal of long-range rockets, has traded fire with Israel along the border on a near-daily basis and hinted it might join the war if Israel seeks to annihilate Hamas.

Meanwhile, an unclassified US intelligence assessment delivered to Congress estimated casualties in an explosion at a Gaza City hospital this week on the “low end” of 100 to 300 deaths.

The death toll “still reflects a staggering loss of life”, said the report, seen by the Associated Press.

It said intelligence officials are still assessing the evidence and their casualty estimate may evolve.

The report echoed earlier assessments by US officials that the blast at the al-Ahli Baptist hospital was not caused by an Israeli air strike, as the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza initially reported.

Israel has presented video, audio and other evidence it says proves the blast was caused by a rocket misfired by Palestinian militants.

The AP has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence released by the parties.

The Israeli military has attacked Gaza in retaliation for the October 7th Hamas attack. Even after Israel ordered a mass evacuation to the south, strikes extended across the territory, heightening fears among the territory’s 2.3 million people that nowhere is safe.

Palestinian militants have meanwhile fired daily rocket barrages into Israel from Gaza, and tensions have flared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where 13 Palestinians, including five minors, were killed on Thursday during a battle with Israeli troops in which Israel called in an air strike, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The Gaza health ministry said 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority women, children and older adults. Nearly 12,500 were injured, and another 1,300 people were believed buried under rubble, authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians killed during Hamas’ incursion. About 200 others were abducted. The Israeli military said on Thursday it had notified the families of 203 captives.

In a speech to Israeli infantry soldiers on the Gaza border, Mr Gallant, the defence minister, urged the forces to “be ready” to move in. Israel has massed tens of thousands of troops along the border.

“Whoever sees Gaza from afar now, will see it from the inside,” he said. “It might take a week, a month, two months until we destroy them,” he added, referring to Hamas.

With supplies running low because of a complete Israeli siege, some Gaza residents are down to one meal a day and drinking dirty water. – AP

Two large multinational companies, Intel and Siemens, have pulled out of this year’s Web Summit following comments made by the tech conference’s founder Paddy Cosgrave on the Israel-Hamas conflict, writes Jack Power.

In a previous post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr Cosgrave said: “War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies, and should be called out for what they are.”

He said he was “shocked at the rhetoric and actions of so many western leaders & governments, with the exception in particular of Ireland’s Government, who for once are doing the right thing”.

The post was widely criticised by supporters of Israel, leading Mr Cosgrave to issue a lengthy apology in recent days.

Read the full story here.

British prime minister Rishi Sunak will travel to Egypt on Friday, as part of a trip to the Middle East where he hopes to press his message that there should be no escalation of violence in the region after the Hamas attack on Israel.

Mr Sunak was the latest western leader to visit Jerusalem on Thursday to show support for Israel and to try to negotiate a way to secure the release of hostages taken by Hamas and ease the provision of humanitarian aid to people in Gaza.

Later on Thursday, he met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, where he encouraged the leader to use Saudi’s leadership in the region to support stability, underlining the fear that the Hamas attack and Israel’s response could ignite regional unrest.

In the talks in Egypt, Mr Sunak will stress “the imperative of avoiding regional escalation and preventing the further unnecessary loss of civilian life”, his office said. – Reuters

The Palestinian health ministry said on Friday that 13 people were killed, including five children, after Israeli forces raided and carried out an air strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, Reuters reports.

The raid was conducted on the Nur Shams refugee camp, adjacent to the city of Tulkarm near the territory’s border with Israel.

It is vital for the national security of the United States that both Ukraine and Israel succeed in their current conflicts, president Joe Biden has told Americans in an address to the nation, reports Martin Wall from Washington.

Speaking from the White House on Thursday night as he prepared to seek the US Congress to authorise billions of dollars in military aid for both countries, he said the world was facing an “inflection point in history”.

The president in his speech did not specify the exact amount of money involved. However, he is expected to look for about $100 billion (€94 billion) in emergency funding over the next year for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan as well as for security along the border with Mexico. He described his request for aid as “a smart investment that’s going to pay dividends for American security for generations”.

Mr Biden sought to tie together the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel and to persuade the US public that it was in their interests to support both.

Deliveries of aid from Egypt are expected to cross into the southern Gaza Strip on Friday as the coastal enclave’s residents continue to suffer under intense Israeli bombardment and a siege imposed in the wake of the Hamas attack of October 7th, writes Mark Weiss in Jerusalem.

Aid groups warned on Thursday night, however, that the planned initial delivery of food, water and medical supplies in some 20 trucks is only a fraction of what is required to alleviate the worsening humanitarian crisis for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.

World Health Organisation regional representative Richard Brennan said the goal was to get up to 100 trucks of aid distributed every day.

Underlining the increasingly dire conditions in Gaza and urgency of the need for aid, he said: “We’re hearing ... that suddenly people only have three litres of clean water per person per day. At an absolute minimum people need 15 litres for drinking, cooking and basic hygiene.”