The IDF says it is planning an attack by land, air and sea - but we don't know when an anticipated ground offensive will happen.

Late on Saturday, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited troops preparing for the attack.

Video footage showed him in a bullet-proof vest talking to heavily armed soldiers in settlements that had been targeted by Hamas militants' in last Saturday's attack, when they infiltrated Israel.

"Are you ready for what is coming? More is coming," he says in a video.

Intense Israeli air strikes continued overnight. Millions of Gazans have been told to evacuate the north of the region - with many fleeing by vehicle or on foot.

Image source, Martin Divisek/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Thousands of Palestinians are continuing to flee northern Gaza ahead of Israel's expected ground offensive.

In its latest update on evacuations, external, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense League (IDF) says civilians still in northern Gaza must head south between 10:00 and 13:00 local time (07:00 and 10:00 GMT).

They should use a single route running from Beit Hanoun towards Khan Yunis, it says, adding that it will not target the route during those hours.

The IDF has shifted the times for an evacuation window over the past few days.

The deadline for the original 24-hour window, announced on Friday, passed on Saturday afternoon. At the time, Israel designated two routes - one of them was the same route the IDF has mentioned today.

The World Health Organization has condemned the evacuation order, and says forcing hospital patients to relocate would be "a death sentence".

Image source, EPA

We heard a little earlier this morning from Israeli military spokesperson Jonathan Conricus in his daily briefing on X, formerly known as Twitter.

He claimed that "Hamas is actively preventing civilians from leaving" northern Gaza to the south - and accuses the group of "the lack of any value for human life".

Israel has warned 1.1m Palestinians living in north Gaza to evacuate south ahead of an expected ground offensive, and thousands have been fleeing by vehicle or on foot. Hamas has told Palestinians to ignore the order.

Conricus then showed an aerial image, which he claimed were two Hamas vehicles blocking a convoy.

Image source, EPA

Good morning to our readers in the UK and Middle East. It is 09:00 in Israel and Gaza, and 07:00 in the UK.

Here's what you need to know, if you're wanting to catch up on the conflict:

• Thousands of Gazans have been fleeing the north of the territory after Israel warned the 1.1 million inhabitants to leave ahead of an expected ground invasion. The UN's aid agency has called the mass movement of people an "exodus"
• PM Benjamin Netanyahu said the "next stage" of the conflict "is coming" and late last night the Israeli military said it plans to attack by land, air and sea, but gave no timings or specifics
• The World Health Organization has condemned the evacuation order, and says forcing hospital patients to relocate would be "a death sentence"
• As the conflict enters its eighth day, more than 3,600 people have been killed on both sides. More than 1,300 people were killed in Israel last weekend in an attack by Hamas, while more than 2,300 people have been killed in Israel's bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip launched in the aftermath, authorities say.
• The Israeli military says it is reviewing the death of a Reuters journalist who was killed on Friday in southern Lebanon while covering the conflict
• The US says it is sending a second aircraft carrier to the region "to deter hostile actions against Israel", its longtime ally

The number of people killed in Gaza has climbed above 2,300, according to authorities there.

In total, 2,329 Palestinians have been killed and 9,714 have been injured, according to the health ministry.

It is just over a week since Hamas gunmen infiltrated Israel to attack both civilians and soldiers. More than 1,300 people have been killed in Israel.

Israel has been carrying out retaliatory air strikes in Gaza ever since, and a ground offensive is expected.

Joel Gunter
in Jerusalem

Last Sunday morning, Celine Ben David Nagar should have been getting ready for her first day back at work after six happy months on maternity leave.

Instead, she was thought to be somewhere inside Gaza, in the hands of Hamas, and her family was 24 hours into a nightmare that is now a week long.

Celine, 32, had set out early on Saturday morning with two friends to attend the Nova music festival in southern Israel, but they turned back when they heard rockets ahead.

The group found their way to a public bomb shelter near Sderot and hid. It was from there, at 07:11, that Celine sent her final message to Ido, her husband and the father of their baby daughter, Ellie.

"Soldiers are coming," Celine wrote. "God, it was a mistake to come here."

Read more here.

Image source, Getty Images

In Egypt, an aid convoy has been waiting for hours to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing.

Pictures show a long queue of lorries carrying supplies from Egypt and Turkey waiting at the city of Arish, near the crossing.

In recent days the checkpoint has been closed due to Israel's aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip which has reportedly damaged the Palestinian side of the crossing.

This has prevented people from leaving or entering Gaza through the checkpoint. It also means aid has been held up at the border, and aid agencies have urged authorities to let their convoys through.

Image source, Getty Images

Hamas, Israel and Egypt all exercise degrees of control over who and what can pass through the checkpoint, meaning it is often closed and processing can be slow.

Several foreign governments, including the UK and the US, have urged their citizens in Gaza to move closer to the Rafah crossing so they can leave when the crossing reopens. They have warned any reopening would last only for a very limited time.

On Saturday US officials said they had been working to get hundreds of Palestinian-Americans to leave via Rafah, though it remains unclear whether they succeeded.

Image source, Getty Images

It is not clear at this stage just how many people are moving from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south but according to the UN relief agency which operates inside the territory, it is "an exodus".

Earlier UNRWA's director of communications, Juliette Touma, told the BBC: "This is the worst we've ever seen, This is hitting rock bottom. This is Gaza being pushed into an abyss, there is tragedy unfolding as the world is watching. This is Gaza."

She added: "According to colleagues on the ground, there is an exodus. People are leaving. Those who can, with their cars, some are walking, some are carrying mattresses.

"People are terrified," she said. "Terrified."

It's now 6am in Israel and Gaza. Here's a quick look at how Saturday unfolded on the ground, as Israeli airstrikes on Gaza continued.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, EPA

A young British-Palestinian girl has spoken of her fears of being killed, as she waited to cross the border into Egypt at Rafah, in southern Gaza.

Mariam went to visit her family in Gaza before Saturday's surprise attack on Israel by Hamas.

War rekindles resonant themes for both sidespublished at 03:09 British Summer Time 15 October 2023

03:09 BST 15 October 2023

Jeremy Bowen
International Editor

For Palestinians it’s what they call the Naqba – the Catastrophe – their name for Israel’s victory in its independence war in 1948.

It resulted in up to something like 900,000 people becoming refugees after they fled the war or were forced out at gunpoint by Israeli forces.

Many Palestinians living in Gaza now are from those families and still registered by the UN as refugees.

They’ve heard statements by nationalist extremists, some in the Israeli government, who say Israel should have thrown out all the Arabs in 1948. The idea of "transfer" of Palestinians to neighbouring Arab countries has been much discussed since the early days of Zionism a century ago.

Palestinians in Gaza are now saying things like “It’s all happening again. This happened to my great-grandfather, this happened to my father, and it’s happening to me.”

As for the Israelis, their state was founded to protect the Jewish people. And what is also significant is that, on the Israeli side, politicians - and ordinary people too - are talking about the Holocaust.

A leading Israeli journalist after a visit to one of the border communities attacked by Hamas wrote that he realised he was seeing the worst massacre of Jews anywhere in the world since the Holocaust and the worst in what he called "the historic land of Israel" since the Middle Ages.

For both sides these are immensely powerful and resonant themes.

Deadly strike on convoy fleeing northern Gazapublished at 02:48 British Summer Time 15 October 2023

02:48 BST 15 October 2023

As we reported earlier, the BBC has verified footage of a strike on a convoy of civilians fleeing northern Gaza.

This is footage that was filmed close to the scene of the strike where some civilians, including young children, are known to have died.

The truck that was hit is not in shot but several damaged and burning vehicles are seen in the vicinity.

The incident took place a few kilometres south of the outskirts of Gaza City.

Read more here.

Aleem Maqbool
Religion editor, BBC News

Image source, Reuters

The Israel-Gaza war is reverberating around the world. In Manchester - a diverse city with large Jewish and Muslim populations - people are anxious about what it could mean for their communities.

As well as the profound sense of connection that comes with shared history and trauma, a relatively small global community of 16 million Jews means that many in the UK know people in Israel.

"We believe that every single Jew shares a bit of the same soul," said Eli Dresner on Wednesday at a vigil in Manchester. "We're all family, we all come from the same place. Even if I don't know them, if I see another Jew, they are family.

"I've got family in Israel who have all been called up to serve, and almost everyone here will know someone who is stuck," he adds.

Read more here.

Some 300 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours, according to Palestinian health ministry figures reported by Reuters news agency.

Those killed were mostly children and women, the ministry said.

Another 800 people were injured, it added.

Image source, Reuters

The Israeli military has been responding to a Reuters statement on the death of one of his journalists, Issam Abdallah, who was killed on Friday in southern Lebanon.

It says the Israel-Lebanon border was under fire from Lebanese militant group Hezbollah at the time of his death.

According to the Israeli military, Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles that hit the Israeli border fence. Israeli soldiers then suspected an "infiltration" into Israeli territory and used tank and artillery fire to prevent it, it said.

Some hours later, it received a report that journalists had been injured during the incident. The incident is now under review, it added.

Russia has asked the United Nations' Security Council to vote on Monday on a draft resolution on the Israel-Hamas conflict that calls for a humanitarian ceasefire and condemns violence against civilians and all acts of terrorism, Reuters news agency reports.

Russia's Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said no changes had been made to the text since it was given to the 15-member body on Friday and that he expected the vote to be scheduled on Monday afternoon.

The draft resolution circulated last week 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.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is reported to have met Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Qatar.

Amir-Abdollahian agreed to continue co-operation with the group to achieve its goals, according to a Hamas statement quoted by Reuters news agency.

During their meeting in Qatar's capital Doha, Amir-Abdollahian praised Hamas's attack on Israeli targets a week ago as a "historic victory" that had dealt a setback to what he said was Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory.

The US has announced it is sending a second aircraft carrier to the region in order "to deter hostile actions against Israel", according to a statement , externalfrom the Pentagon.

The USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier is being despatched to the eastern Mediterranean to support the USS Gerald R Ford and its accompanying warships, which are already in the region, it says.

It's just after midnight here in London. The Israel-Hamas conflict is now entering its eighth day, here's what we know:

• It's been a week since Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,300 people and taking hostages
• More than 2,200 people have been killed in Israel's bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip launched in response, according to Palestinian figures
• Israel has told some 1.1 million Palestinians living in north Gaza to evacuate to the south of the strip
• The evacuation order was given as the Israeli military plans a ground offensive into Gaza by land, air and sea, it says in a statement - but gives no timings or specifics

• Hospitals in the north of Gaza have been told to evacuate. The World Health Organization has said forcing some patients to relocate "could be tantamount to a death sentence"
• Earlier, US President Joe Biden spoke to both Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas about the current crisis

A retired US lieutenant general has told the BBC an Israeli ground invasion into Gaza is unlikely to be imminent because of the degree of preparation required for such an operation.

Lt Gen Mark Schwarz, who is also the former US security co-ordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, says the Israeli military's final preparations are probably "a few days away, if not hours away".

The logistical sustainment of such an operation - such as the number of casualties the Israeli military is likely to sustain - is difficult to predict, he says.

An operation into Gaza such as the one being planned would take "several weeks, but I believe it's going to be months", as the stated aim of wiping out Hamas's military capabilities would take that long, he adds.