Israel-Hamas War highlights: Two rockets launched from Syria toward Israeli territory, says army

Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena made an urgent plea to Israel, requesting the establishment of a humanitarian corridor to Gaza to facilitate the safe departure of people amid war with Hamas. This appeal came as Mexico worked on repatriating its citizens from the region, particularly in response to the pleas of Barbara Lango, a Mexican aid worker with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Barcena disclosed that she had reached out to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for assistance, emphasizing their efforts to secure Lango's exit through Egypt. However, she expressed frustration over Israel's reluctance to authorize a humanitarian corridor or allow individuals to leave, underlining the importance of adhering to the rules, even during times of conflict.

Mexico's foreign ministry has previously condemned Hamas attacks on Israel, while President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has expressed his intention to maintain a neutral stance in the ongoing conflict. The Mexican government revealed on Thursday that hundreds of its nationals were still awaiting evacuation from Israel.

(Reuters)

In anticipation of Israel's preparations for a potential invasion of the Gaza Strip, several thousand individuals participated in a pro-Palestinian rally in Geneva on Saturday. According to reports from both the police and event organizers, approximately 6,000 people were in attendance, as indicated by the national broadcaster RTS and the Tribune de Geneve newspaper.

During the rally, protesters marched under a banner that read "Free Palestine" and chanted slogans such as "Long live Palestine" and "Israel: assassins," with many of them waving Palestinian flags. The demonstrators were closely accompanied by a heavy police presence.

Cardboard placards were prominently displayed, conveying messages such as "What you're calling 'self-defense' is actually a genocide," "End Israeli apartheid," "Boycott Israel," and "We want peace in Palestine and not a Palestine in pieces." Among the participants, a young boy held a sign that read, "Save the children of Gaza."

(AFP)

Israel's military said on Saturday it had identified shooting from Syria that set off sirens in northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and that its artillery was striking the origin of the shooting in Syria.

The sirens sounded in Alma, near the Lebanese border, and in the Golan Heights town of Avnei Eitan. The military did not provide further details.

European Council chief Charles Michel has convened an EU leaders' video-summit for next week to address the Israel-Hamas conflict, now in its second week. In a statement, he emphasised the need for the European Council to define a unified position in line with treaties and values to address the evolving situation's complexity. The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday at 5:30 pm.

An alarm indicating a suspected terrorist infiltration has been triggered in the southern neighborhoods of Zikim and Karmia, located near the border with the Gaza Strip, as reported by Time of Israel. Further information regarding this incident is currently limited.

Over the past few days, a overwhelming majority of residents in communities near Gaza have evacuated due to the ongoing conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party announced that Avigdor Lieberman, an opposition politician, had reportedly agreed to join the security cabinet. However, Lieberman appeared to contradict this statement, expressing his desire to be part of a smaller forum responsible for managing the Gaza conflict.

In a social media post, Lieberman said, "I am willing to join the war cabinet in order to bring about the fastest possible victory. I have no interest in being 'Minister Number 38' in the cabinet and serve as a fig leaf."

An hour prior to this, Netanyahu's Likud party had declared that he had extended an invitation to Lieberman and another unidentified member of the opposition politician's nationalist party to join the security cabinet, with a statement indicating, "Lieberman accepted the invitation."

The conservative Prime Minister Netanyahu has been making efforts to expand his government's coalition as Israel readies itself for a potential ground invasion of Gaza.

(With Reuters inputs)

Israel was making preparations for a ground incursion into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Prior to this, Israeli authorities had advised Palestinians living in this densely populated area to move south towards a closed border with Egypt.

Simultaneously, Israel's national security adviser issued a stern warning to the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah, cautioning against initiating a war on a separate front to Israel's north. The adviser threatened severe consequences, including the "destruction of Lebanon," if such an action were to occur.

Israel has pledged to obliterate the Hamas militant group, which holds authority in Gaza. This retaliation follows an earlier attack by Hamas fighters, who had infiltrated Israeli towns a week ago, resulting in the killing of civilians and the abduction of numerous hostages.

(Reuters)

Canada's Foreign Minister Melanie Joly confirmed a fourth Canadian fatality resulting from last week's attack on Israel by Hamas and said she was striving to evacuate citizens from Gaza and the West Bank.

The family of Shir Georgy, a 22-year-old who went missing after the Hamas attack on a music festival near Kibbutz Re'im last Saturday, sadly confirmed her death via Instagram, as reported by the Canadian Broadcast Corp. Georgy's aunt, Michal Bouganim, expressed their sorrow, saying, “It is with great sadness and a broken heart that we announce the murder of our beloved Shir.”

Joly noted that this brings the Canadian death toll to four, with three individuals still missing. She further mentioned her endeavours to facilitate the safe departure of Canadians from Gaza via the Rafah border crossing into Egypt and from the West Bank by bus into Jordan.

“Canada has an agreement with Israel to get Canadians out of Gaza,” Joly emphasized during a phone call with reporters from Jordan. “Things are very volatile, obviously, in Gaza, where it is one of the worst places on earth right now to be living in.”

(Reuters)

French President Emmanuel Macron has called for Israel and Egypt to establish a humanitarian pathway leading out of the blockaded Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing, his office said on Saturday. Paris has been in touch with the relevant parties to facilitate the safe passage of French nationals from southern Gaza into Egypt. Additionally, the proposed crossing is intended to support humanitarian efforts in Gaza, as mentioned in the statement.

(AFP)

The Israeli military announced on Saturday that they had discovered the bodies of hostages who had been taken by Hamas militants. This discovery was made during operations conducted within Gaza earlier this week.

"We have found and located some bodies in the perimeter in the Gaza Strip of Israelis that were abducted," a military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, told a briefing.

(AFP)

As Israel prepared to strike Gaza City, the Israeli military spokesperson gave a clear message saying that the residents of Gaza have been instructed to head south for their safety because Hamas was stopping people from leaving. “We have told Gaza residents to move south for their own safety, as Hamas has been preventing people from leaving,” he said.

“Residents of Gaza City should leave and not go back until we say so,” he further said.

(With Reuters inputs)

The Israeli military spokesperson has said that their primary objective is to ‘completely destroy’ the governing and military capabilities of Hamas and other terrorist organisations. Furthermore, they emphasised that the ongoing operation against the Hamas is expected to be of a prolonged duration.

Thousands of demonstrators in London took to the streets on Saturday, demanding an end to Israel's military intervention in the Gaza Strip, news agency Reuters reported.

Protesters, a significant number of them brandishing Palestinian flags and holding signs reading "Free Palestine," gathered in the vicinity of Oxford Circus before marching towards Downing Street, the official residence and office of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Chants from the crowd were directed at the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States, expressing their discontent with the support provided to Israel.

A Reuters videographer killed in Israeli shelling of southern Lebanon was laid to rest in his hometown on Saturday in a funeral procession attended by hundreds of people.

Draped in a Lebanese flag, Issam Abdallah's body was carried on a stretcher through the streets of the southern town of Khiam, from his family's home to the local cemetery.

Dozens of journalists and Lebanese lawmakers attended the funeral.

As the Israel-Palestine conflict enters its eighth day, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said it is completing preparations for a "significant ground operation" in the Gaza Strip, The Times of Israel reported.

The IDF statement says it is readying to "expand the offensive" by implementing a "wide range of offensive operational plans" which it says include a "joint and coordinated attack from the air, sea and land."

The IDF said it is finalizing the draft of hundreds of thousands of reservists, as the logistics directorate is working to provide troops with all the equipment they will need for the ground offensive.

A senior Israeli official admitted Saturday "mistakes" in intelligence assessments ahead of a brutal Hamas attack last weekend that took the country by surprise.

"It's my mistake, and it reflects the mistakes of all those making (intelligence) assessments," National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told a press briefing when asked about his recent remarks predicting no Hamas aggression.

While the world is focused on the war in Gaza, tensions have risen in the occupied West Bank, where 55 Palestinians were killed over the past week in clashes with Israeli troops, arrest raids and attacks by Jewish settlers. U.N. monitors said it was the deadliest week for Palestinians in the territory since at least 2005.

Since Hamas’ deadly mass incursion into southern Israel, in which militants killed over 1,300 people and captured around 150, Israeli forces have held the West Bank under a tight grip, closing crossings into the territory and checkpoints between cities, measures they say are aimed at preventing attacks.

Friday was a particularly deadly day, with 16 Palestinians killed in different incidents in the West Bank.

Israel pummelled northern Gaza with fresh air strikes on Saturday, one week on from the deadliest attack in its history, as it urged Palestinians to flee the area before an expected ground offensive against Hamas commanders.

AFP reporters near the southern Israeli city of Sderot saw troops fire at the densely populated enclave, sending huge plumes of black smoke into the sky.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wearing a flak jacket, meanwhile visited troops on the border frontline, raising expectations of an imminent invasion.

The third batch of 197 Indian nationals wanting to leave Israel amidst the Israel-Hamas conflict left for home on a special flight on Saturday.

The special flights are part of 'Operation Ajay' launched on October 12 to facilitate the return of those Indian nationals who wish to return home following the brazen attacks on Israeli towns by Hamas militants from Gaza on October 7.

"#OperationAjay moves forward. 197 more passengers are coming back to India," External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar posted on X.

The Third flight carrying Indian nationals departed from Israel to New Delhi, under 'Operation Ajay', said the Indian embassy in Israel on Saturday.

Taking to X, the Indian Embassy in Israel said, "The third flight of #OperationAjay has departed from Tel Aviv to Delhi. Embassy wishes everyone on board a safe journey."

A second flight carrying 235 Indian nationals from Tel Aviv in Israel, under Operation Ajay, landed at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi on Saturday morning.

Two Lebanese civilians were killed in Israeli shelling of the southern village of Shebaa on Saturday, its mayor told AFP, the latest casualties of cross-border tensions over Israel's war with Hamas.

Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and Palestinian factions in Lebanon have exchanged cross-border fire with Israel since Hamas's shock October 7 attack on Israel ignited a war that has killed more than 1,300 people in Israel.

The Palestinian gunmen also seized an estimated 150 hostages while Israel's retaliatory air and artillery bombardment has killed more than 2,200 people in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

"A man and his wife have been killed in their home by Israeli shelling," mayor Mohammad Harb told AFP.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza, already critical, is now "fast becoming untenable," U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said in a statement on Saturday.

There is no power, water or fuel in Gaza, and food is running dangerously low, Griffiths said, urging all countries with influence to use it to ensure respect for the rules of war, and avoid further escalation.

The actions and rhetoric by Hamas militants and Israel in the past few days is "extremely alarming, unacceptable," Griffiths said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's national security adviser said on Saturday that Israel received no concrete warning, including from Egypt, of the Oct 7 onslaught by Hamas from Gaza.

The chief of Israel's Shin Bet domestic security service was summoned for an unusual 4 a.m. briefing that day - 2.5 hours before the attack began - on new intelligence information but this did not warrant mobilisation, Tzachi Hanegbi told reporters.

Israeli businessman Idan Ofer and his wife quit their board posts at Harvard University, adding to a barrage of criticism over the school’s response to the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Ofer and his wife Batia cited “the lack of clear evidence of support from the university’s leadership for the people of Israel” in stepping down from the Harvard Kennedy School Dean’s Executive Board.

“Our faith in the university’s leadership has been broken and we cannot in good faith continue to support Harvard and its committees,” the Ofers said in a statement.

Harvard President Claudine Gay, who took office in July, has struggled to placate some critics, who initially included former university president Larry Summers. Summers said he was “sickened” by Harvard’s initial silence after more than 30 student groups issued a statement blaming the violence solely on Israel. Gay released her third statement on the attacks late Thursday, condemning “the barbaric atrocities committed by Hamas” — a group that’s been designated a terrorist organization by the US and European Union — while defending freedom of expression.

Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, said in a televised speech that Palestinians will not leave Gaza or the West Bank and migrate to Egypt.

"Our decision is to remain in our land," Haniyeh added, while addressing Egypt in that part of the speech.