What started with Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, has now claimed thousands of lives. While Israel continues its aggression, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the calls from the United States for a humanitarian pause in the war, saying “we are going full steam ahead”. He insisted that there would be no pause until Hamas releases the hostages it had captured earlier.
Concerns have been raised on the growing deaths in Gaza in the wake of Israel’s strikes in the area. Hospitals in Gaza have been overwhelmed and said they are on the brink of collapsing with medicine and fuel running low under the Israeli siege.
Here are some of the top updates from the war zone
- As the fear of the conflict getting regionalised looms, the leader of Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a public speech that they were undeterred by U.S. warnings to stay out of the war.
- The family home of the exiled leader of Hamas on the outskirts of Gaza City was hit by the Israeli military with an airstrike on Saturday.
- People in Palestine reported overnight strikes by Israel overnight into Saturday, including explosions reported in the Southern area where Palestinians were asked to seek refuge by Israel amid its operations in Gaza.
- The United Nations on Friday said that about 1.5 million people in Gaza, about 70% of the population, have fled their homes.
- The death toll from the conflict on the Palestinian side has reached 9,227, as per the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, over 140 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli raids-linked violence. The United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said that 72 of its staff members have been killed.
- The UNRWA has said that the people in Gaza are surviving on two pieces of bread a day and have only one of three water supply lines from Israel in operation.
- France’s foreign ministry said on Saturday that the number of French citizens killed due to Hamas’ attacks in Israel has risen to 39, with nine other French nationals still missing.
- Under an agreement among the US, Egypt, Israel and Qatar, around 1,100 people have left Gaza through the Rafah crossing since Wednesday.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had earlier warned Israel that it risked losing any hope of an eventual peace deal in the future unless it eased the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
- Blinken has met with senior Jordanian and other Arab officials, who have expressed their anger towards Israel and remain deeply suspicious of it.
- Amid all this, Israel has deported thousands of Palestinian workers back to Gaza’s war zone.
- Honduras has become the latest Latin American country to recall its ambassador to Israel.
- Meanwhile, British foreign minister James Cleverly has urged Iran to help prevent an escalation of the conflict with the use of its influence with groups in the Middle East region.
(With AP inputs)