Benjamin Netanyahu reiterates that Israel is preparing for a ground invasion of Gaza, but he won't say when it will happen
The Israeli prime minister says "this is only the beginning" in a televised address from Tel Aviv
Elsewhere, US President Joe Biden says there is no going back to the status quo between Israelis and Palestinians “as it stood on 6 October"
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said earlier he was "shocked" at the reaction to a statement he made on Tuesday about the war between Israel and Hamas
He said he clearly condemned the "acts of terror" inflicted on Israel in remarks where he also said the attacks did not happen "in a vacuum"
Meanwhile in Gaza, hospitals are stopping all but emergency services as fuel runs out. Israel has blocked fuel from reaching Gaza and accuses Hamas of stockpiling it
The UN has said its humanitarian agency in Gaza is facing a similar fuel shortage, saying it may have to shut down in the coming hours as a result
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says almost 6,500 people have been killed since 7 October - Israel has been bombing the territory
More than 1,400 were killed in the initial attacks on Israel by Hamas, and more than 200 people are still being held hostage in Gaza
Image source, via ReutersIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has just addressed the media from a live briefing in Tel Aviv.
He says they are doing everything possible to secure the return of hostages taken by Hamas.
We've been looking at some of the pictures coming in from Gaza today. People are continuing to search the rubble after continued airstrikes.
Earlier, the Hamas-run health ministry said more than 750 Palestinians in Gaza had been killed by airstrikes over the past 24 hours.
Image source, Reuters
Image source, EPAPalestinian volunteers prepare food in a centre run by a UN aid agency in Khan Younis
Image source, EPAA man searches for bodies and survivors in the rubble of a house
Watch: Antonio Guterres and Eli Cohen speak during UN Security Council meeting
We've been reporting on the deepening row between Israel and the UN over comments made by UN chief Antonio Guterres yesterday. Guterres held a news conference earlier to clarify his comments - but Israel's ambassador has just responded saying he should have retracted them, and should resign.
This video shows the remarks that started it all during Guterres's address to the UN security council yesterday.
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, has reacted angrily to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres's remarks today, urging him once again to resign.
"It is a disgrace to the UN that the Secretary-General does not retract his words and is not even able to apologize for what he said yesterday. He must resign," said Erdan.
Saying he "distorts and twists reality", Erdan accused the UN chief of blaming Israel for Hamas's brutal attack on 7 October.
"Every person understands very well that the meaning of his words is that Israel has guilt for the actions of Hamas or, at the very least, it shows his understanding for the ‘background’ leading up to the massacre.
"A secretary general who does not understand that the murder of innocents can never be understood by any ‘background’ cannot be secretary general."
Image source, EPAIt's just gone 19:00 in Israel and Gaza, and if you're just joining us, here's a quick catch-up to get you up to speed with what's happened so far today:
Image source, EPABatool, an 18-year-old Palestinian woman, sent the BBC a voice message from Gaza City yesterday. Here's what she said:
Quote MessageMy name is not important. My friends' names are not important. Our stories are not important. We are just numbers - this is how the world sees us.
Quote MessageA foreign person asks: 'Well, how do you feel?' Thanks for your question. We don't feel. We don't cry. We don't have the time to mourn our beloved because others are being killed. We don't have time to feel. We just have the time to smell death coming closer and closer. We just have time to sit in one room and hug each other, asking God to take our souls together.
Quote MessageWe are eager to sleep a whole night without being terrified by the sound of falling bombs. We are eager to have a shower, to be tired at the end of a normal day, to talk about anything expect death, martyrs and blood - and to hear a laugh from a child. Are we asking so much, world?"
Batool, Speaking from Gaza City
Adam Durbin
Live reporter
Many aid agencies are saying the same thing - that Gaza desperately needs fuel, with hospitals already shutting down. Israel isn't allowing fuel in and has accused Hamas of stockpiling hundreds of thousands of litres of fuel in reserve.
Yesterday, the Israeli military published an aerial image of 12 tanks near the Gaza-Egypt border, which it said are being used as fuel storage.
Dr Frank Ledwidge, a military analyst and former British intelligence officer, tells me he can’t see a military reason to store the fuel there and would “like to see a bit more evidence” of the tanks being in use before coming to a conclusion.
It is far more likely fuel dumps are stored underground in Hamas’s network of tunnels, which experts believe to be up to 500km (310 miles) in length, the University of Portsmouth expert says.
Hamas wouldn't be using stockpiles of fuels like diesel or petrol to fuel the rockets they're firing at Israel, as those weapons require specialist fuel, Dr Ledwidge adds.
His colleague and expert in political violence in Israel, Dr Veronika Poniscjakova, tells me it “would not be the first time” Hamas have seized fuel, humanitarian aid or other supplies for its own use.
On what the alleged stockpiles could be used for, she explains no one knows with certainty – but says they probably include keeping the lights on in their underground network, ensuring their vehicles are running and pumping water from tunnels to prevent flooding.
UK aid for people in Gaza has landed in Egypt, foreign secretary James Cleverly has posted on X, formerly Twitter.
“Humanitarian aid must continue to reach those who need it most,” he said, alongside a picture of the plane arriving., external
PM Rishi Sunak had earlier announced that an RAF plane was flying to Egypt with 21 tonnes of humanitarian supplies - as part of a £30m UK aid package for Gaza. Many countries have sent aid to Gaza.
Lucy Manning
Special Correspondent, reporting from Israel
It is the saddest of sights. Opposite the pomegranate trees in a quiet corner so at odds with the manner of their death, three graves have been dug for a mother and her daughters. Lianne, Noiya and Yahel Sharabi.
A family Hamas tried to obliterate. The contrast between this scene and a photo of smiling mum Lianne with her arms around her two teenage daughters, taken just a few months ago as they celebrated on Kibbutz Be'eri, could not be starker.
They cannot even return home in death. Be'eri has been destroyed, the scene of a massacre. Too many are dead, yet the living cannot bury their dead there.
So this British-Israeli family is being buried in a cemetery at about 25 miles from the Gaza border.
Lianne came to Israel from Bristol aged just 19 to work on a kibbutz. She then built her life here until Hamas decided to take that from her and her daughters.
Yahel, 13, the bundle of energy, full of adventure and mischief. Noiya, 16, the gifted student, sensitive and fun. Lianne, the caring mother, wife, daughter and sister with a dry sense of humour.
Their lives are now encapsulated in just a few words. "Our entire world is broken", their uncle said.
Lianne's family and friends in Bristol have been unable to travel here but have said they will watch it in the UK "united in grief".
The Sharabis cannot even rest in peace. The girls' dad Eli is still missing. Their uncle Yosi has been kidnapped. Here children can't mourn their parents. Parents can't grieve their children.
Dead, missing, kidnapped. The horror of that day, for this country, in one family.
Read more from Lucy's report here.
Watch: UN's Guterres statement on 'misrepresentation' of comments
We've just heard from UN chief Antonio Guterres, responding to the row after his comments yesterday - in which he said the Hamas attacks "did not happen in a vacuum".
Those comments sparked anger from Israel, which said there could be "no cause for such a massacre".
Finally, Guterres says he believes it is necessary to set the record straight.
"Especially out of respect for the victims and their families," he says before ending his short address.
Image source, AFPThe UN chief continues and stresses he condemns unequivocally "the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October acts of terror by Hamas in Israel".
Guterres points out that he said yesterday "nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets against civilian targets".
He goes on: "Indeed, I spoke of the grievances of the Palestinian people.
"In doing so, I clearly stated, and I quote: 'But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas'.”
Guterres starts by saying he is "shocked by misrepresentations by some" of his remarks yesterday in the Security Council - where he said it is important to recognise that the attacks by Hamas did not happen "in a vacuum".
"As if it was justifying acts of terror by Hamas," he tells reporters.
"This is false. It was the opposite."
UN chief Antonio Guterres has just appeared to speak to the media.
We'll bring you his comments on the Middle East situation, so stay with us.
For anyone who missed how the diplomatic row began yesterday, here's a summary of UN chief Antonio Guterres's comments which sparked anger from Israeli officials. You can read a transcript of what he said here., external
Addressing a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York, he opened by saying he "condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented" Hamas attacks and that nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring or kidnapping of civilians.
He added it is "important to also recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum", saying: "The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation."
The comments initially drew angry comments from Israel's foreign minister, who said there "can be no cause for such a massacre".
As we've been reporting, Israel has now said is has denied a visa to top UN official Martin Griffiths.
Yolande Knell
BBC Middle East correspondent
Image source, ReutersIn a shelter in Khan Younis, Ali Daba ties purple and black bracelets onto the wrists of some of his nine children. But they are not for decoration, they are meant to identify them in case they are killed in an Israeli air strike.
"It’s just in case something happens," he explains.
"I've seen bodies ripped apart. If they are in pieces this way, I will recognise them from the bracelets."
In a sign of parents' fears, in the past week, social media videos and images show how a trend has developed in Gaza to write children's names on their limbs.
One recent chilling picture shows several small bodies laid out, apparently in a Gaza hospital morgue, each child with a trouser leg pushed up to show their name inked onto their skin.
Doctors explain that some children brought from crushed buildings have been left unrecognisable by their injuries. Many live babies are also brought into hospitals without any relatives to identify them.
In some cases, infants have been given numbers instead. Already last week, Shifa Hospital in Gaza City was using triple digits.
Image source, Reuters"I will recognise them from the bracelets," says Ali Daba
A UK plane carrying 21 tonnes of humanitarian aid for Gaza is on its way to Egypt, the Ministry of Defence has announced.
The Royal Air Force C-17 aircraft is carrying 76,800 wound care packs donated from medical stockpiles, as well as 1,350 water filters and 2,560 solar-powered lights - both designed to support a family of five.
The aid comes as part of a £30m aid package for Gaza announced by UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak earlier this week and will be distributed by the Egyptian Red Crescent, the MoD says.
Some further comments from the office of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak now, in which a spokesperson says a ceasefire would only benefit Hamas.
"A wholesale ceasefire would only serve to benefit Hamas," the spokesperson says.
"Humanitarian pauses, which are temporary, which are limited in scope, can be an operational tool."
Tom Bateman
Reporting from near the Israel-Gaza border
We've come to a built-up part of southern Israel, about a mile from the Gaza permitter fence.
I've been here many times before during previous conflicts. This time is feels totally different.
The town is deserted. Shops are shuttered, homes empty, cars left with a layer of dust built up on them.
As we drive up a hill, the mangled wreckage of a car lies next to a smashed wall - presumably the result of an earlier rocket strike.
There's been no-one here to remove the debris. In the past 30 minutes we've heard outgoing artillery - four or five loud blasts as Israeli forces fire into the Gaza Strip.
We stop at a spot at the top of the hill as we have to do some live TV and radio reports for the next few hours.
Over the earth mounds in front of me I can see the the high rises of Gaza City - a place I've been many times over the past seven years, and I can hear down the line my friend and colleague Rushdi Abualouf, as he tells our audiences about the scale of the humanitarian crisis, worsening by the hour, across the fence.
The boundary line stretches south from here with Israel's forces amassed along it. They’ve been waiting, says the military, for the "political decision" about when to go in.
Everyone still believes a ground invasion will come, but my phone buzzes with more reports about diplomatic officials working on the continuing hostage negotiations.
You can see a lot from here - but a lot else is happening out of sight.
More now from Israel's ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan.
Speaking about the UN Secretary General, Erdan said it was "not by chance" that Antonio Guterres had not come to Israel since the war began.
Guterres asked to speak to PM Benjamin Netanyahu twice since 7 October - but Netanyahu "refused to accept his call", Erdan said.
Erdan also said agencies of the UN have created "a false picture" of the situation on the ground, accepting claims about Gaza even though "everyone knows" it is controlled by Hamas.
He said the next steps should be to expel "hostile UN officials" from Israel who present a false picture of what is going on.
As a reminder, Erdan also said the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths had been denied an Israeli visa, and other UN staff "will be refused".