Earlier on Monday we heard from Avi Hyman, a spokesperson for an advisor to the Israeli government, who said Israel did not seek civilian casualties and its orders for residents of Gaza to evacuate had proven that.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Hyman said Israel intended to deal with Hamas in the way that Isis was dealt with by the West.

Asked how many more civilians would become victims in those efforts, Hyman reiterated that Israel did not "seek civilian casualties on either side".

Figures from the Gaza Health Ministry indicate more than 2,700 people have died in Israeli retaliatory strikes in Gaza.

"What we have to do is attack Hamas hard," he said.

It's been reported that the US Secretary of State and the Israeli prime minister had to shelter in a bunker for five minutes when air sirens went off during their meeting in Tel Aviv.

The insight into what happened in the meeting between Antony Blinken and Benjamin Netanyahu was released by US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.

Blinken has been holding talks in Israel and other countries in the Middle East about getting aid to hundreds of thousands of civilians in Gaza.

Israel warned 1.1 million people to move south as it prepares to launch a ground offensive after Hamas staged surprise attacks killing 1,400 people on 7 October.

Conditions in Gaza are worsening for the civilian population, with shortages of water, food, fuel and medicines being reported.

Nada Tawfik
BBC News

A spokeswoman for the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, said 14 staff members, mainly teachers, have been killed and the number increases as Israeli airstrikes continue almost uninterrupted.

Juliette Touma said the rest of their 13,000 staff are desperate, exhausted and terrified of what the next hour, let alone the next day will bring.

They share that they can’t even reassure their children that everything will be okay. Supplies are running out fast and their offices in south Gaza are down to one litre of water a day.

Touma is concerned about water borne diseases because people in Gaza have resorted to drinking from dirty water sources like wells.

She also said reports that fuel tankers have crossed into Gaza were false. UNRWA was moving existing, but limited stock of fuel, from inside Gaza’s border to health providers in Gaza city. Yesterday, the UN said fuel reserves at all hospitals would only last for 24 hours.

The former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal has said the group of Israeli hostages being held in Gaza includes "high-ranking officers from the Gaza Division" (of the IDF).

Israel has said Hamas is holding 199 people who were taken to Gaza when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October.

A short while ago, a Hamas spokesperson claimed the group was holding between 200 and 250 people.

The BBC has not independently verified these claims.

Meshaal, who heads Hamas' diaspora office, also said the group would spare no effort in using the captives as leverage to free 6,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, Reuters news agency reports.

There have been early reports of Qatar-led negotiations on the release of hostages, but those were denied by Israel and Hamas.

Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK, external, the US and the European Union.

Image source, UGC

A young Palestinian woman whose family fled their home in Gaza said she "can’t even describe the condition" they are living in.

It comes after thousands of people in northern Gaza were told to make their way south by the Israeli government ahead of an anticipated ground offensive.

Rahaf, who is now in Khan Younis, said: "There is no clean water. There’s no water to even wash our faces. We’re all oppressed. We can’t endure this anymore."

She described seeing blood and bodies on the streets, and how she tries to calm her siblings when they hear explosions by telling them the sounds are from a “wedding ceremony”, that they are “normal”.

She hoped she would have something to eat today, after her father waited three hours at a bakery yesterday for some bread, amid a dwindling supply of food and water in the region.

A video analysed by BBC Verify appears to show an air strike at the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.

The video was recorded by CCTV footage on the Egyptian side of the border and published by Egyptian news channel Al Qahera News.

The Rafah crossing, largely controlled by Egypt, is currently closed, but negotiations are ongoing to open it for aid and for dual citizens to leave Gaza.

Sara Monetta
Reporting from Israel

Image source, handout

The families of the hostages taken by Hamas are awaiting the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ground operation in Gaza with trepidation and anxiety.

Ilay David, whose younger brother Evyatar was kidnapped at the Nova music festival, tells me he feels torn between the concern his brother might be caught in the crossfire and the desire to have him back home.

He and his mother last heard from Evyatar on the morning of 7 October. Evyatar told them there were men shooting and he was rushing to the car.

For a few hours, Ilay didn’t know if his brother had made it out alive. Then, he received a video on TikTok showing him standing with his shirt torn apart, his neck gripped by a Hamas fighter in Gaza.

He says seeing his brother like that filled him with “so much rage” but the video also gave him hope that his brother could be rescued.

Now that the Israeli army is preparing to enter Gaza, I ask him if he’s worried.

“It’s frightening. It really is. We’re all concerned,” he says. "We don’t know what the IDF are planning to do, and we must count on them.

“We hope that that it will be a smart manoeuvre, with precision, so that the abducted won’t to be harmed, but all we can do right now is to pray.”

A spokesperson for the military wing of Hamas says there are "about 200 to 250" Israeli captives being held in Gaza, the Reuters news agency is reporting.

Hamas said in a recorded video that it has "about 200" hostages, and the rest are being held by "other armed factions."

It is dealing with the prisoners in accordance with ethics and humanitarian law, the group claims.

The group said it has captives "of other nationalities who are guests" and it will "release them when circumstances allow us".

The BBC has not independently verified these claims.

Hamas previously said it had hidden hostages in "safe places and tunnels" within Gaza, but threatened to kill them if civilian homes were bombed by Israel without warning.

Image source, EPA

Israel's intelligence minister Gila Gamliel said the government will not rest until Hamas, whom she described as "monsters", were pushed out of Gaza.

Speaking to the BBC World Service's Newshour programme, she said the first step of Israel's intervention in the Palestinian enclave would be to restore the security of Israeli citizens.

Gamliel admitted the government had failed to protect its citizens during the 7 October attack but she said that would be dealt with "after the war", and it would later apologise to the victims.

Image source, Reuters

Vladimir Putin has held a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the situation in Israel and Gaza, according to the Kremlin in Moscow.

In a statement, the Kremlin said the Russian president expressed his condolences to the families of Israelis killed in the recent attacks by Hamas and "stressed strong opposition to, and condemnation of, any actions whose victims are civilians, including women and children".

Putin, who has been issued with an arrest warrant for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, told Netanyahu about steps taken by Russia "aimed at facilitating a normalisation of the situation, preventing further escalation and avoiding a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip".

Nick Johnson
BBC News

“Enough is enough, call Hamas terrorists”. The message from the National Jewish Assembly, who’ve arranged this protest outside the BBC’s Broadcasting House in London.

Hundreds of protesters gather outside the BBC’s HQ. Chants of “shame on you” ring out against a backdrop of Israeli flags.

Speakers say the BBC should be calling “terror by what it is”.

The NJA in the UK focuses on the promotion of Jewish life, the support for Israel and fighting antisemitism.

Earlier this week, the BBC defended its decision not to describe Hamas militants as "terrorists" in recent coverage, with a spokesperson noting it was a long-standing position for BBC reporters not to use the term themselves unless attributing it to someone else.

The BBC’s editorial guidelines say the word "terrorist" can be "a barrier rather than an aid to understanding".

The head of Shin Bet, Israel's intelligence agency, has taken responsibility for the lack of early warning about Hamas's attack on 7 October.

In a statement to agency members, Ronen Bar said: “Despite a series of actions we carried out, unfortunately on Saturday we were unable to generate a sufficient warning that would allow the attack to be thwarted.

"As the one who heads the organisation, the responsibility for this is on me."

He said there will be time for investigations but "now, we are fighting".

Image source, EPA

It's just gone 21:00 in Israel and Gaza, and here are the latest developments on the ground:

• The armed wing of Hamas said it fired a "barrage of missiles" on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem today in response to Israel's "targeting of civilians"
• A top UN official, Martin Griffiths, said around one million Palestinians who've fled the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, were in urgent need of help, and the health system in Gaza was "collapsing before our very eyes"
• A hoped-for humanitarian truce failed to materialise with the UN saying no progress had been made on reopening Rafah crossing
• The area around the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt was hit by an airstrike, with no reports of casualties
• 199 people were being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza - including children and the elderly - the Israeli military said. They were taken when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October
• UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said six British people were killed in the Hamas attacks on Israel. Two teenage sisters are among the missing

Why doesn't Egypt open Rafah crossing?published at 18:48 British Summer Time 16 October 2023

18:48 BST 16 October 2023

Sebastian Usher
BBC Arab Affairs Editor

Cairo has kept tight restrictions on movement through the Rafah crossing for many years - to such an extent that many Palestinians have essentially accused Egypt of bolstering Israel's blockade of Gaza, which has been in place since Hamas took full power there in 2007.

That has mostly been about security concerns in north Sinai where the Egyptian authorities have long been involved in a deadly conflict with jihadists linked to Al Qaeda.

But Egypt's current reluctance to open the crossing without clear conditions and guarantees may be more about trying to avoid a mass exodus of Palestinians from Gaza.

Egypt does not want to play any role in what could amount to a permanent resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza.

It is likely, though, to allow foreigners and Palestinians with dual nationality to leave, but it wants this to be dependent on allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza.

For anything beyond this, Egypt may expect considerable economic incentives to help its ailing economy.

Image source, Reuters

The European Union will initiate a humanitarian air corridor to Gaza, president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced on Monday.

"In the face of this horror Israel has the right to defend itself in line with humanitarian and international law," she says.

"And right now, Palestinians in Gaza are in need of humanitarian help and aid.

"They cannot pay the price of Hamas barbarism. And this is why the commission has announced to triple humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza to €75 million ($79 million)."

The statement continues to say that the EU will be launching a "humanitarian air bridge to Gaza through Egypt".

It's not clear how exactly a humanitarian corridor might work - as we've been reporting today, a hoped-for humanitarian truce has failed to materialise and the UN says there's been no progress on the reopening of Rafah crossing.

Ione Wells
Political correspondent

What has been striking so far in the Commons is the almost indistinguishable positions between the two major parties’ leaders - not something you often see at these despatch boxes.

Both the prime minister and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer were calling for unity in their condemnation of Hamas, belief that Israel has a right and duty to defend itself, and calls for Israel to take every possible step to avoid civilian casualties and act within international law in its response.

Both also reiterated the UK’s longstanding foreign policy position, calling for a two-state solution: the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

There were some dissenting voices from across the political spectrum. Both the Labour MP Richard Burgon and Conservative MP Crispin Blunt asked for the government to toughen their language towards Israel, accusing it of “collective punishment".

Separately, the PM was asked directly whether he agreed that Israel has acted within international law.

He, like other ministers who have been asked this question in recent days, did not explicitly answer - instead reiterating that Israel had the right to defend itself, that civilian casualties must be minimised, and that international law must be respected.

The BBC can confirm two teenagers are among the list of missing British nationals following the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October.

They are sisters Noiya, 16, and Yahel, 13. Their surname has not been released.

The family say they disappeared from Kibbutz Be'eri.

Last night it was confirmed that their mother Lianne, who was born in the UK, was murdered by Hamas.

You can read the full story here.

An airstrike has hit the area around the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, the BBC correspondent in the Gaza Strip, Rushdi Abu Alouf has confirmed.

The building on the Palestinian side of the crossing has been damaged as well as the road.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

On Monday, crowds gathered at Rafah following reports that the crossing would be temporarily reopened during a brief ceasefire.

Both Israel and Hamas have denied this and a UN spokesperson has said there has been no progress on full reopening.

Rushdi Abu Alouf
Reporting from Khan Younis, Gaza

Image source, Reuters

Scarce resources are running out, fast. Khan Younis is a city that was already exhausted. The tide was too strong and things are starting to fall apart.

The main hospital here, already low on essentials, has not only taken in sick and injured from the north - it has now become a refuge.

Refugees line the corridors as doctors work on new arrivals injured by Israeli bombs. The din of competing voices fills the air.

You cannot blame people for coming here. Hospitals are among the safest places to be in a time of war, protected by international law.

By some measures these people are perhaps the lucky ones, at least for now.

Doctors say they have almost nothing to give the stream of new casualties - water is rationed to 300ml (10fl oz) a day for patients.

Refugees get nothing.

The Israeli Air Force has said on social media, external that an airstrike has killed the general intelligence head of Hamas.

Attaching a video file showing the purported attack, it said the airstrike was carried out in Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip.

The BBC has not verified this information.