Civilians flee northern Gaza as US says it is working with Israel on 'safe areas'

1. Civilians are fleeing northern Gaza by car, on the back of trucks and on foot after an Israeli warning that civilians should move south
2. About 1.1 million people living in northern areas have been told to leave ahead of an expected ground offensive by Israeli forces
3. The UN described the order as horrendous, while the US urged Israel to take every precaution to avoid killing civilians
4. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said he was working with Israel to secure "safe areas" in Gaza
5. Hamas fighters kidnapped at least 150 people and took them into Gaza during brutal attacks on Israel at the weekend that killed 1,300 people
6. 1,900 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched retaliatory air strikes, authorities say
7. A total blockade is being enforced on Gaza, with fuel, food and water running out
8. Meanwhile, Reuters says one of its journalists has been killed while working in southern Lebanon

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US-Palestinian woman loses six family members in Gaza

Gary O'Donoghue

Washington Correspondent

Zarefah Baroud

Anas was 18

This week, 24-year-old US-Palestinian Zarefah Baroud who lives in Seattle, Washington, lost six members of her extended family.

They were in Khan Younis in southern Gaza during bombardments on Monday afternoon.

Five of them were under the age of 18.

"They were having a party, they had just gotten out of the celebration. My cousin Anas was 18, he had just finished high school and started his first semester at the university," she recalls.

Zarefah Baroud

Walid was 15

"My other cousin Walid, who was 15, had just finished memorizing the entire Quran. They were very intelligent and very motivated and an incredible family."

Through tears she tells of how other young relatives had to pull the bodies from the rubble.

She believes many other relatives have been killed, after losing communication with family on Wednesday. She says that phone battery life is "like gold" as there is no electricity in the areas they are in.

Baroud explains why her relatives did not want to leave Gaza City despite Israeli warnings to evacuate northern Gaza: "They believed this was either to be a trap, as they would be hit in their cars en route, or that they preferred to be murdered in their home than to live perpetually as refugees."

Zarefah Baroud

Zarefah Baroud (right) in happier times

Death toll in Gaza rises to 1,900

The number of people who have been killed in Gaza by Israeli strikes has reached 1,900, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

The number of wounded stands at 7,696, according to a spokesman for the ministry.

He added that 60% of the dead and wounded are women and children.

UK repatriation flight leaves Israel

We've just heard that a flight to bring UK citizens home from Israel has set off.

A statement from the Foreign Office says: "A UK government charter flight has now left Israel, with further flights expected to leave in the coming days while commercial options are limited."

British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, EasyJet, Ryanair, Wizz Air, Air France, Lufthansa and Emirates have all suspended flights in recent days.

A number of countries have already completed flights to get people home from Israel, including Canada, France, Italy and Poland.

• Read more: UK arranges flights for Britons stranded in Israel

Russia proposes UN resolution calling for ceasefire

Nada Tawfik

BBC News

AFP

Russia has circulated a draft resolution to members of the Security Council during their closed door meeting, calling for a humanitarian ceasefire.

The draft is quite brief with five main points on one page. It calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected humanitarian ceasefire, the secure release of all hostages, and the distribution of humanitarian assistance and the safe evacuation of civilians in need.

The Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia is expected to speak to the press after the meeting.

Members can now raise objections and negotiate, but it’s unclear if the draft will go to a formal vote.

One Western Security Council diplomat doubted Russia’s seriousness. The diplomat said Moscow never consulted other members and the fact that the draft does not mention Hamas means Russia is “clearly not serious or aligned with most council members.”

Security Council resolutions need at least nine votes from council members and no vetoes from the five permanent members, which are the US, UK, France, Russia and China.

The US has traditionally shielded its ally Israel from any criticism by exercising its veto dozens of times.

LISTEN: Your questions answered

BBC

Lyse Doucet, BBC Chief International Correspondent, and Jeremy Bowen, BBC International Editor, have got together to answer your questions on the Israel-Gaza conflict.

Hosted by Jackie Leonard, presenter of the BBC’s Global News Podcast, this is a special collaboration between The Global News Podcast and The Conflict, our new podcast on what's happening in the Middle East.

Listen now on BBC Sounds.

'There is no safe place in the Gaza Strip'

The BBC has been hearing from people trying to stay safe in Gaza as the fighting continues.

Aseel Mousa, 25, from the West of Gaza, has been fleeing from one relative's house to another over the past few days.

When she left her home, she was only able to take one bag full of necessities like her passport

Speaking to BBC OS while fleeing to another relative's house this morning with the sound of missiles hitting the buildings around her, she said still does not feel safe even though she has evacuated her house.

"We escaped from death to death. There is no safe place in the Gaza Strip.

"We have relatives in the north, they just moved to some school and some of them decided to stay and be killed in their homes, as there are no shelters, there is no place they can go to," Aseel said.

WATCH: We don't know what is next, say people in Gaza

Voices from across Gaza: We don't know where we can go

With more than a million people told to leave their homes, three people in different parts of Gaza share their fears.

Mohamed Ghazi Hamid says so many families are crowded into houses in the south of the enclave, that if even one home gets hit in a strike it will mean a massacre.

Hamas attack captured by mothers' WhatsApp group

BBC

Messages in a mothers' WhatsApp group reveal how trapped families called for help and shared words of comfort as Hamas gunmen killed 100 people in Be'eri kibbutz in southern Israel.

Hiding in their safe rooms some 200 women in the Be'eri mothers' WhatsApp group described the shouts and explosions they heard outside, told each other where gunmen were, shared tips on coping with smoke that filled their rooms, and repeatedly called for help. In some cases, that help never came.

• Read the full story here

'Nine-month-old baby can't be part of this conflict or its resolution'

Reuters

Noam Sagi views a recent family-taken photograph of himself with his mother Ada, who was kidnapped last week from a Kibbutz

Noam Sagi, whose mother was kidnapped from a Kibbutz by Hamas last week, is appealing to the international community and Arab leaders to intervene in the conflict.

“I am not sure that Hamas and the Israeli government are the people that I would have liked to deal with the situation right now. I really urge the international community, the Arab leaders, our neighbours, to get involved as soon as possible,” Sagi tells the BBC.

He urges them to define lines that shouldn’t be crossed, as right now, he says that what's going on "is not human".

He says he never imagined anything like that could ever happen anywhere in the world and that the whole world should agree that a 9-month-old baby and a 93-year-old cannot be part of this conflict or its resolution.

Talking about the people from the Kibbutz, he says they believe there is a way forward.

"They don’t believe that any ground offensive or any massacre will create anything good. Nothing good will come out of this we know that," Sagi says.

Arab group meeting warns Palestinians in extreme danger

Nada Tawfik

Reporting from the UN in New York

BBC

The Arab Group held a meeting at the United Nations and is due to meet with Secretary General Antonio Guterres later today.

The Palestinian Ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, is demanding that the international community put pressure on Israel to stop its aerial bombardment and to work to allow humanitarian convoys to enter the Gaza strip, where he says Palestinians are in danger of either being killed by bombardment or starvation.

He says he hopes the UN security council calls for a ceasefire and despatches convoys of food, water, medicine and fuel. But this is a divided council and the US, Israel's closest ally, and others will almost certainly shield Israel’s government from any outside pressure.

Ambassador Mansour also says Guterres needs to do more. He says it is the collective responsibility of humanity to stop what he says are war crimes happening against the Palestinian people. Mansour says it amounts to the ethnic cleansing of more than two million people from the Gaza Strip in the direction of Egypt.

Already, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry says there is clear evidence that war crimes may have been committed in Israel and Gaza.

'We're going to go inside Gaza and take down Hamas'

Dan Johnson

Reporting from Tel Aviv

"The Gaza Strip won't stay the same after this war," says an Israeli soldier preparing to enter the enclave.

His name is Michael, a major in the special forces so we can't give further details.

When we speak on a WhatsApp call he won’t even say where he is currently located.

What are his orders?

"I think everybody knows what’s going it happen. We're going to take down Hamas. I think we’re going to go inside [Gaza] and take down Hamas people.”

Three of Michael’s friends are being held hostage, so this is personal as well as about restoring Israeli pride and national security.

"Now we are licking our wounds, but it's not a time for us to cry. We're going to have time to cry about our friends and families but now we have to go inside and stop it. We have to."

I ask what of the civilians trapped in Gaza with nowhere to go? More than a million have been told to clear an area covering a third of the territory.

“We’re telling the people to get out, whoever’s not involved. Get out from their houses. Get out, OK, because we’re going to go in. And we're going to go in hard and strong, the strongest they ever saw."

IDF 'gathering evidence to aid locating hostages'

Earlier we reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has carried out "local raids" in the territory of the Gaza Strip to "cleanse the area of ​​terrorists and weapons".

In an update on X, formerly Twitter, this evening, the IDF has now shared more information that the "soldiers were gathering evidence that will aid in locating hostages".

We're not going to stop until we bring the hostages home - Biden

Reuters

US President Joe Biden says he has spoken today with family members of all those Americans who are unaccounted for after the Hamas attack in Israel last Saturday.

He says the families are going through "agony" not knowing what happened to their loved ones.

Biden says he has given his personal commitment to the families to do "everything possible to return the missing Americans to their families".

"We are working around the clock to secure the release of Americans held by Hamas... we are not going to stop until we bring them home."

Hamas bears responsibility for what happens in Gaza - Israel's UN envoy

At a UN briefing, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, called on the UN to support Israel's order to evacuate Gaza.

"Hamas was democratically elected by the people of Gaza, we shouldn't forget this, don't look away," Erdan said.

He continued:

Hamas the genocidal jihadist terror group bears the sole responsibility for everything that happens in Gaza. I will conclude with a very clear message: the UN and the security council are facing one of their most pivotal moments."

Will they remain true to their founding values or will they empower genocidal terrorists. This shouldn't be a question. It is good against evil, light against darkness, life against death. And the choice should be crystal clear."

Families of Israeli hostages met in the UN

Nada Tawfik

Reporting from the UN in New York

Families of Israeli hostages have come to the UN, and during an event hosted by the Israeli UN mission, they pleaded with the international community to help bring back their loved ones.

Alana Zeitchik says six family members, including her cousins and their young children, were kidnapped by Hamas at Kibbutz Oz.

She said they hid in a bomb shelter for hours until it filled with smoke and they couldn’t hide any longer. They sent a note to her aunt, saying “we aren’t going to make it, we love you.”

As of this morning, she says they know that their family is alive. She told those assembled, “we don't want more rockets or blood or tears, we want our family back immediately and we want peace”.

Rabbi Burton Visotzky spoke of his cousin Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose mother met with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The family has said that they heard from eye-witnesses that Hersh, who was at a desert rave, had to tourniquet his own arm after it was blown off during the gunfire.

Rabbi Visotzky says his cousin is in captivity, most likely in Gaza, and in dire need of medical care. He, too, pleaded with the UN and the international community to do everything to bring hostages home.

Guterres says all hostages must be released and even wars have rules

Getty Images

The United Nations (UN) Secretary General Antonio Guterres says "the situation in Gaza has reached a dangerous new low."

"The entire territory faces a water crisis. There is no electrictiy. Our UN staff and our partners are working around the clock to support people in Gaza," he adds during a short press conference.

He also says that "all hostages must be released and international law and human rights law must be respected and upheld, civilians must be protected and never used as shields".

Hamas captured up to 150 people during the attack on Israel last Saturday and are believed to be holding them hostage in Gaza.

As we reported earlier, Hamas militants try to hide themselves among civilian populations.

Guterres also calls for immediate humatiarian aid access to Gaza and says that "even wars have rules."

In conclusion, he calls on the leaders around the world to speak out against hate speech, antisemitism, anti-Muslim bigotry, and dehumanizing language, "which is never accepted".

Pro-Palestinian protests held around the world

Pro-Palestinian demonstrations have continued across the world since Hamas attacked Israel last Saturday.

Gatherings have been reported in countries including Iraq, Pakistan, Indonesia, Turkey, Malaysia and Bangladesh.

In Jordan, security forces reportedly clashed with protesters attempting to approach the border with Israel and the occupied territories.

Reuters

A large demonstration has been held in Amman, the capital of Jordan, and protesters have reportedly attempted to make their way to the border with Israel

Reuters

An Israeli flag was burned by pro-Palestinian protesters at a demonstration in Baghdad, Iraq

EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Pro-Palestinian protesters marched on the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia

Israeli army denies using white phosphorus in Gaza

Getty Images

Palestinian Foreign Ministry, too, claims that Israel used phosphorus bombs on populated areas in Gaza City

We reported earlier that Israel was accused of using white phosphorus munitions in its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The Israeli military released a statement hours after the accusations, saying: "The current accusation made against the IDF regarding the use of white phosphorus in Gaza is unequivocally false."

It did not give any details whether the statement also applied to Lebanon.

Israel previously confirmed that it used white phosphorus smokescreen munitions during its 2008-2009 attacks in Gaza, and said in 2013 that they were phasing them out.

White phosphorus munitions can legally be used on battlefields to make smoke screens, generate illumination, mark targets or burn bunkers and buildings.

But it can cause serious burns and start fires.

'We’re fighting for the homeland, and we’re fighting like lions'

Here's a bit more from what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in his short statement a few minutes ago.

"Today, everyone knows that we’re fighting for the homeland, and we’re fighting like lions,” he said, according to the Times of Israel.

“We’ll never forget the Hamas onslaught. We are striking our enemies with unprecedented might,” Netanyahu continued.

“We will destroy Hamas, and we will win, but it will take time,” he added during his speech which was televised after the Jewish sabbath had begun.