Israel-Hamas war highlights: Israeli forces mount new sorties in Gaza

More than two weeks after Hamas militants rampaged through a string of sleepy farming towns, many Israelis are furious at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, not just for failing to prevent the attack, but for failing to come to their aid afterward.

While the military is launching unrelenting airstrikes in Gaza that have killed thousands of Palestinians, and hundreds of thousands of Israeli troops are massing for a possible ground offensive, government infighting and lack of help for those in need have left traumatized survivors to mourn on their own and volunteers — many of whom spent the past year protesting the government — to take on recovery efforts.

“It has to be clear. The government is completely incompetent,” said Ruvi Dar, a clinical psychologist and Tel Aviv University professor who has been counseling survivors evacuated from their homes.

“Any support that the refugees are getting right now is completely grassroots. Absolutely nothing by the state,” he said, adding that even volunteers’ hotel rooms are paid for by nonprofit groups.

Paris will send an aircraft filled with humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza, including tents, medicine and emergency medical equipment, the French foreign ministry said on Thursday.

The emergency cargo will be transported on an aircraft provided by the CMA CGM Foundation from Paris to Egypt before the goods will be handed over to the Egyptian Red Crescent, the ministry said in a statement.

The shipment includes 336 tents, 28 metric tons of food supplements, 70,000 water purification tablets, 18 emergency ventilators, medication and solar lamps.

The world has plunged into a "grave crisis" and is passing through "dangerous" times, veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said on Thursday and exhorted people to take recourse to Indian philosophy for peace and prosperity.

Joshi also expressed concern over the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and the Russia-Ukraine war, saying given the emerging situations in the world, it appears that humans may not be able to survive on Earth for more than 50 years.

tating that the Palestinian people have the legitimate right to defend themselves against Israel even through "armed struggle", Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian called for an end to the ongoing Israeli actions in Gaza Strip.

"The genocide in Gaza must stop immediately, the forced displacement of the people of Gaza must stop immediately," Abdollahian said during his address at the special session of the UN General Assembly.

Referring to Hamas and the October 7 attacks, he stated that the history of the Palestinian issue is around 80 years and trying to reduce its dimensions to "just one attack and just one Palestinian liberation group" is a big lie.

"Hamas is a terrorist organization worse than ISIS. The hands of senior Hamas figures are covered with the blood of more than 1400 Israelis who were slaughtered, murdered, executed and burned, and they are responsible for the abduction of more than 220 Israelis, including babies, children, women and the elderly," the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The health ministry in Gaza issued a 212-page document on Thursday which it said contained the names and ID numbers of more than 7,000 Palestinians killed during bombing activity by Israel in Gaza.

The data was revealed after U.S. President Joe Biden and the Israeli military questioned the casualty figures issued by authorities in Gaza, which is controlled by the Islamist Hamas movement.

Condemning the recent remarks of United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres where he said Hamas's murderous October 7 onslaught "didn't occur in a vacuum", Israel President Isaac Herzog has said that he "absolutely rejects" his words and added that the problem with the conflict is terror.

"(Ezzedine) Al-Qassam Brigades estimates that the number of Zionist prisoners who were killed in the Gaza Strip as a result of Zionist strikes and massacres has reached almost 50," the group said in a statement issued on its Telegram channel.

The number of French citizens who died in Hamas' attacks on Israel has risen to 35, the French foreign ministry said on Thursday, up from 31 previously.

Israel's security services are engaging spyware companies, including the producer of the contentious Pegasus software, to assist in monitoring hostages in the Gaza Strip. Four sources within the cybersecurity industry and an Israeli government official have disclosed that NSO Group and Candiru, both of which have been blacklisted by the US, are being urged to rapidly enhance their spyware capabilities to fulfill the requirements specified by the country's security forces.

Ahead of the two-day EU summit starting Thursday in Brussels, member states wrangled over the wording of a joint statement due to be signed off by the leaders. That followed a cascade of contradictory statements in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.

7,028 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct 7, Gaza's health ministry said on Thursday.

Israel's envoy in Taipei said on Thursday that Taiwan has been a "good friend" to Israel. She further denounced China's response to the attack by Hamas militants and called it "disturbing". "Taiwan is really a good friend for Israel and we truly appreciate everything that we receive. I'm in close touch with the foreign minister, I think people are very concerned," said Maya Yaron, Israeli Ambassador to Taipei.

UK opposition leader Keir Starmer is facing increasing pressure over his stance on the Israel-Hamas war, testing the leadership mettle of the favourite to become Britain's next prime minister.

The 61-year-old is battling to dampen tensions within Labour's ranks over remarks he made about the Israeli response to Hamas's October 7 attack and his ongoing refusal to call for a ceasefire in the conflict.

Amid the war in Israel, politican Gantz said on Thursday, ‘We will not be destroyed, but our enemies may face such fate.’

The war between Israel and Hamas militant group has crossed two weeks. Kremlin said on Thursday that efforts to agree on what it called a balanced U.N. resolution on the Israel-Hamas conflict should continue, but said it was wrong for any such resolution to only condemn one side.

Israeli forces conducted a significant ground raid in northern Gaza overnight, as per the military's announcement. The operation aimed to target several militant sites, with the intention of "preparing the battlefield" in anticipation of a probable ground invasion. This action follows more than two weeks of intense airstrikes, which have caused significant damage and casualties.

European Union leaders are expected to call for the establishment of "humanitarian corridors and pauses" to get aid into Gaza. "The European Council expresses its gravest concern for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and calls for continued, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need through all necessary measures including humanitarian corridors and pauses," the text says.

The Israeli military said on Thursday that the number of people confirmed held hostage in the Gaza Strip since the Oct 7 cross-border raids by Hamas had reached 224, and could rise further.

European Union leaders will voice for the establishment of "humanitarian corridors and pauses" to get aid into Gaza, according to the final draft of a text to be approved at a summit in Brussels on Thursday, reports Reuters.

"The European Council expresses its gravest concern for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and calls for continued, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need through all necessary measures including humanitarian corridors and pauses," the text says.

The United Nations warned Thursday that "nowhere is safe" in Gaza amid Israeli air raids ahead of a widely expected ground offensive.

With Israel retaliating after Hamas's shock October 7 attacks with strikes on nearly every part of the Palestinian enclave, "people are left with nothing but impossible choices. Nowhere is safe in Gaza," Lynne Hastings, UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a statement.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday rejected "misrepresentations" of his remarks saying Hamas' attacks "didn't happen in a vacuum," decried by Israel as justifying terror, The Times of Israel reported.

The Times of Israel reported quoting Guterres, "I am shocked by misrepresentations by some of my statement yesterday in the Security Council -- as if I was justifying acts of terror by Hamas."

US President Joe Biden has said that one of the reasons why Hamas attacked Israel was because of the announcement on the ambitious India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor during the G20 Summit in New Delhi that integrates the entire region with a network of railroad.

Israel has launched a massive counter-offensive against Hamas after unprecedented attacks by the militant group on October 7 killed more than 1,400 people.

UK will convene a meeting of the government's COBRA emergency response committee on Thursday to consider its strategy over the ongoing Gaza and the Israeli-Hamas conflict, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden told Times Radio, reported Reuters .

Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal Thursday said India must call for an immediate ceasefire in view of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and asserted that there is no space for being partisan in the unveiling tragedy.

“Gaza Tragedy -- The humanitarian crisis in Gaza with images of innocent children being maimed, decapitated and along with civilians being killed is heart-rending and unacceptable.” he said on X.

Amid the Isreal-Hamas war, economic crises are rippling through the nations bordering the war-torn state, raising the possibility of a chain reaction from the war with Hamas that further worsens the financial health and political stability of Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon and creates problems well beyond, reports AP.

Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon are tackling differing economic pressures that led the International Monetary Fund to warn in a September report that they could lose their “sociopolitical stability.”