Israel-Hamas war highlights: Israel army announces 'significant' strikes in Gaza, says Strip cut in two

A senior Israeli cabinet minister on Sunday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to retract a comment he was reported to have made about the need to check if a pre-war protest among army reservists pushed Hamas to carry out its attack last month.

Israel's Channel 12 and other news outlets reported that Netanyahu said there may be a need to examine whether months of protests against his government, including by reservists who said they would no longer report for regular duty, added to Hamas' motivation to carry out the Oct. 7 rampage through southern Israel that triggered the current war.

Benny Gantz, who joined Netanyahu's war cabinet from the opposition as part of an emergency government, said Netanyahu must retract his comment.

"Avoiding responsibility and slinging mud at the time of war is a blow to the country," Gantz wrote on social media platform X.

Reuters

More than 1,000 anti-semitism acts in France since October 7: minister

AFP

The Israeli army said its land assault on the Gaza Strip had on Sunday split the Palestinian territory in two, with "significant" strikes continuing in its war against Hamas.

Israeli forces "have encircled Gaza City... Now there exists a south Gaza and a north Gaza," said army spokesman Daniel Hagari.

AFP

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid an unannounced visit to Iraq on Sunday, as he tours the Middle East attempting to tamp down tensions after war erupted between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas last month.

After an earlier visit to the occupied West Bank, Blinken landed in Baghdad on Sunday evening for his first visit to the country as the US top diplomat and held talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani.

Washington wants to prevent a wider regional conflict and has stepped up diplomacy with regional countries whose populations have been angered by Israel's assault on Gaza.

Reuters

An Israeli was killed on Sunday in an attack by the Lebanese group Hezbollah over the border, Israel's military said, as tensions have escalated between Israel and the militant group amid the war in Gaza.

Reuters

Israeli air strikes devastated parts of the Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza this week, flattening buildings in a densely populated area where, Palestinian authorities say, at least 195 civilians were killed and scores more are still missing.

Israel says the attacks successfully targeted Hamas military leaders, their fighters and the tunnel network they dug beneath civilian areas and used for operations. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has pledged to destroy Hamas - the Palestinian Islamic militant group that controls the Gaza Strip - in retaliation for its Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians.

The strikes at the Jabalia camp - the largest of several refugee settlements in Gaza - have fuelled international concern at the mounting humanitarian toll of Israel's offensive.

Reuters

Israel's UN ambassador said Sunday that he wore a yellow star at a recent Security Council hearing to "shock" the body into condemning Hamas, after his action drew rebukes even from home.

Gilad Erdan's choice a week ago to wear the badge, which has come to symbolize the oppression of Jews since its imposition in Nazi-occupied Europe, was swiftly criticized by Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial, which urged him to wear the Israeli flag instead.

"This act disgraces the victims of the Holocaust as well as the state of Israel," the memorial's chair Dani Dayan said in a Hebrew-language post on X, formerly Twitter.

Qatar's foreign ministry said on Sunday that without a "period of calm" in Gaza its mediators would not be able to secure the release of Israeli hostages held there.

"Any hostage release has to be linked to a period of calm that allows for the hostage release to work, which is something we have not seen for a while," Majed Al Ansari, Qatar's foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters.

The Israeli military said on Sunday its air defences intercepted a drone flying towards Israel from Lebanon while it was over Lebanese territory, and that an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon hit the Yiftah area of northern Israel.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the Yiftah strike.

The European Commission said the spike of antisemitic incidents across the continent in the last few days has reached “extraordinary levels” reminiscent of some of the darkest times in history.

Four Palestinians were killed Sunday during Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry and Israeli army said, as violence flared amid the Israel-Hamas war.

Two men, aged 22 and 20, were killed "in an attack by Israeli occupation forces on Abu Dis", a suburb of annexed east Jerusalem separated by the Israeli wall encircling the West Bank, the Ramallah-based ministry said.

A third Palestinian, who the Israeli army said was affiliated with the Islamic State group, was shot dead by troops in a fire exchange, the Israeli army said.

The Palestinian ministry said one man was fatally hit by a "bullet in chest" and "six others were wounded, three seriously".

The Israeli army said clashes erupted following the attempted arrest of Nabil Halbiya, "an Islamic State operative who was detained in the past for terrorist activity".

"When the forces arrived to apprehend him, he fired at them and was killed during an exchange of fire," the army said of Halbiya.

Evacuations of injured Gazans and foreign passport holders through the Rafah crossing to Egypt have been suspended since Saturday, two Egyptian security sources and one medical source told Reuters.

One of the security sources and the medical source said the evacuations were suspended after an Israeli strike on Friday on an ambulance in Gaza being used to transport injured people.

"I have no words to describe the genocide and destruction suffered by our Palestinian people in Gaza at the hands of Israel's war machine, with no regard for the principles of international law," Abbas told Blinken in Ramallah, in remarks carried by official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a surprise visit to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, meeting with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.

Read in detail: Antony Blinken meets Mahmud Abbas

PM Netanyahu suspends Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu from government meetings indefinitely.

Israel's Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu was suspended from government meetings "until further notice" on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said, after suggesting in an interview dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza.

"It is horrific and shameful beyond words that almost 10,000 civilians, of whom nearly 5000 are children, have been massacred, whole family lines have been finished off, hospitals and ambulances have been bombed, refugee camps targeted and yet the so-called leaders of the "free" world continue to finance and support the genocide in Palestine," Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi said in a post on X.

She added, "A ceasefire is the very least step that should be immediately enforced by the international community or it will have no moral authority left."

Israel-Hamas war LIVE: Former US President Barack Obama strongly criticized the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, describing it as a conflict rooted in historical tensions that have been amplified by social media, New York Times reported.

He condemned the October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the loss of innocent lives and expressed empathy for the suffering of civilians in Palestine. In an interview on the Pod Save America podcast, he reflected on his presidency and wondered if there was more he could have done to advance peace in the region.

Speaking on Friday to a group of his former staff members in Chicago, Obama said, "This is century-old stuff that's coming to the fore." He held social media accountable for deepening the divisions.

"What Hamas did was horrific, and there's no justification for it," Obama said, adding, "And what is also true is that the occupation and what's happening to Palestinians is unbearable."

(With ANI inputs)

Israel-Hamas war LIVE: A Palestinian news agency WAFA, on Saturday, reported the Israeli military launched an attack on a Gaza refugee camp, resulting in the deaths of 51 individuals.

As the death toll in Gaza continued to rise, pro-Palestinian demonstrators organised protests in various cities worldwide on Saturday, demanding an end to the nearly month-long conflict.

WAFA reported that the Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip was struck by an Israeli bombardment on Saturday night.

(With Reuters inputs)

Israel-Hamas war LIVE: Since Benjamin Netanyahu's return to power last year, Israelis, who have been deeply divided, have come together in unity against Hamas during the ongoing conflict. However, experts anticipate that once the conflict subsides, the veteran leader will face a formidable battle for his political survival.

The shock that swept through Israel after the October 7 attacks by Hamas led the country to solidify its support behind the military operation initiated by the 74-year-old prime minister to "crush" the Palestinian militants.

Nevertheless, experts argue that the security lapses exposed during the incursion by marauding Hamas gunmen could pose the most significant and potentially fatal challenge to Israel's longest-serving prime minister, who is already grappling with legal and political issues.

(With AFP inputs)

Israel-Hamas war LIVE: Israel claims that about 242 people were taken as hostages by Hamas militants, who launched an attack from the Gaza Strip a month ago. This attack resulted in the deaths of 1,400 individuals, primarily civilians, marking it as the deadliest assault on the nation.

In response, the Israeli military has carried out a relentless campaign involving air, land, and naval operations in the Palestinian territory. According to the Hamas-run health ministry, this military action has led to the deaths of nearly 9,500 people, most of whom are civilians.

As reported by AFP, Yoni Asher's “all sense of time stopped” on October 7 when his wife and two daughters were captured by Hamas during their unexpected assault on Israel. The 37-year-old, dressed in a black T-shirt and necklace, expressed his distress to a group of journalists, saying, "I don't work, don't sleep. I eat the minimum to survive."

On that day, Asher had chosen to remain at home in Tel Aviv while his wife Doron and their daughters, Raz and Aviv, visited his mother-in-law, Efrat, at the Nir Oz kibbutz, a community near the Gaza border. The kibbutz, which is home to around 400 residents, was severely affected by the Hamas attack.

(With AFP inputs)

Israel-Hamas war LIVE: Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant made a commitment on Saturday that their forces would “find and eliminate” Yahya Sinwar, who serves as the head of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, AFP reported.

"We will find Sinwar and will eliminate him," Gallant told a news conference, as Israeli forces continued to fight street battles with Hamas militants inside the Palestinian territory.

On Saturday, an Israeli drone fired a missile at the Gaza house of Hamas' leader Ismail Haniyeh who is currently outside the enclave, Reuters reported, citing Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa Radio.

Israel-Hamas war LIVE: More than 30 individuals lost their lives in an Israeli airstrike on a refugee camp in central Gaza late Saturday, news agency AFP reported citing the Hamas-run health ministry.

"More than 30 (dead) arrived at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the massacre committed by the occupation in Al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip," AFP quoted health ministry spokesperson as saying.

Israel-Hamas war LIVE: The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have announced that people in Gaza will be permitted to travel south along designated streets on Sunday, CNN reported. This decision comes even after IDF troops encountered hostile fire on Saturday while attempting to establish a secure path for civilian evacuation.

The primary evacuation route will be Salah Al-Deen Street, with a specified time window between 10 am and 2 pm local time, the report further said quoting an IDF spokesperson.

Israel-Hamas war LIVE: Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system has intercepted a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip on Saturday amid ongoing conflict with the Hamas militant group, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, smoke was seen rising above the Gaza Strip, which was observed from Israel's border with Gaza in the southern part of the country.

The US and its Arab allies have shown differing stances regarding Israel's military offensive in Gaza aimed at defeating Hamas. While Washington, in conjunction with Israel, has resisted immediate calls for a ceasefire saying that Hamas can again carry out similar attacks that it did in October.

During a public press conference, Arab foreign ministers pressed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to convince Israel to agree to a ceasefire, revealing a rare public division. However, Blinken dismissed the idea, arguing that such a halt would primarily benefit Hamas, allowing the militant Islamist Palestinian group to regroup and potentially launch further attacks.

(WithReuters inputs)