Image source, Reuters

Several people were sheltering in Abu Younis petrol station in the Gaza Strip when it was hit yesterday in Israeli air strikes, according to Reuters news agency.

Milling around the wreckage, locals told Reuters how the structure was targeted as people slept. "It was a place where people could feel safe," resident Abdullah Abu Alattah explained.

"Because this station had fuel everyone would come to fulfil their needs," he said. "People would come to drink and get water, charge their mobile phones, and take care of their necessities."

Several people died and children were left terrified when the Israelis "shelled everything", he said. "The entire area was in fear even though it was supposed to be a safe zone."

Image source, Reuters

Here's a clip of Sharone Lifschitz, daughter of freed hostage Yocheved, speaking to Mishal Husain this morning.

She told the presenter of BBC Radio 4's Today programme she was looking forward to some "quality time" with her mum.

Lucy Williamson
Reporting from Tel Aviv

Image source, EPA

Our correspondent reflects on today's press conference by one of the two elderly hostages newly released by Hamas.

There was steel beneath her frailty, as Yochedev Lifschitz held the gaze of one journalist after another and gave measured details about her kidnap by Hamas - her wheelchair submerged in a sea of microphones and television cameras from around the world.

"I've gone through hell," she said.

She described how the attackers kidnapped her from her house in kibbutz Nir Oz, carrying her to Gaza on a motorbike, punching her and hitting her with sticks - until, she said: "It was so painful that I couldn't breathe."

In Gaza, she said, she joined a group of 25 hostages, and was then separated into a smaller group with four other people from her kibbutz - and guarded inside a network of tunnels.

She said she was treated well, had a mattress to sleep on, and one meal a day of pitta bread, cheese and cucumber. She also said a doctor was sent to examine them every few days.

"They were scared we’d become sick," she said.

She ended with critical words for the Israeli government "We were their scapegoat," she said, describing the infiltration of Hamas into their fields three weeks before the 7 October attack. "They showed us what they were capable of, burning our fields, but the IDF didn't take it seriously."

Yesterday, this 85-year-old woman was living with Hamas in the tunnels under Gaza.

Today, her story holds the world captive: offering precious information for Israel's security forces, relief to her family, and to the relatives of those still held there, a longed-for glimpse of hope.

Image source, .

Hugo Bachega
Reporting from southern Lebanon

Image source, EPA

Cross-border attacks between the Lebanese movement Hezbollah and the Israeli army have intensified, and residents in southern Lebanon are fleeing, concerned that the violence can escalate even further.

The International Organization for Migration estimates that around 20,000 people have been displaced since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, external, on 7 October, most of them from southern areas of the country.

We've been to villages along the border in recent days, and many are empty, with shops closed and streets deserted.

In the southern city of Tyre, hundreds of people, with nowhere to go, are taking refuge in public schools that have been turned into shelters.

Although the cross-border strikes have intensified, the violence, so far, has been contained.

But many here still remember the devastation brought by the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah, and fear that history might repeat itself.

The Gazan city of Khan Younis has come under more bombardment from Israel. At about 12:30 local time (10:30 BST), fresh strikes hit the buildings.

BBC reporter Rushdi Abualouf is in Gaza, and captured footage from the aftermath, showing people frantically searching the rubble for survivors.

Image source, Reuters

As we just reported, Israel has dropped leaflets in Gaza asking for information on the hostages being held by Hamas.

But the Reuters news agency found one person tearing up the appeal for help.

"We don't care, do whatever you [Israeli PM Netanyahu] want, all of us in Gaza are telling you, we are resisting, from the east to west," the man said, as the crowd around him clapped.

"If they want to bomb us, they might as well bomb us while we’re here, we will not leave," the man, Abu Ramadan, continued.

"We will not be displaced nor evacuated, we lost our homes and our lives.

"We are living in this unsafe place with no shelter, no food, no water, not even water that is suitable for animals, but thank God, we will stay, we will stay here until victory God willing."

The Israeli military has dropped leaflets in northern Gaza to ask for information about hostages being held by Hamas - and offering protection and compensation in return.

The leaflets read - in Arabic: "If your will is to live in peace and to have a better future for your children, do the humanitarian deed immediately and share verified and valuable information about hostages being held in your area.

"The Israeli military assures you that it will invest maximum effort in providing security for you and your home, and you will receive a financial reward. We guarantee you complete confidentiality."

Image source, Rex Features

Let's go back to diplomatic efforts taking place in Israel and the wider region. In Jerusalem, French President Emmanuel Macron has been speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Macron says the same international coalition which has fought the Islamic State group since 2014 could also "fight" against Hamas.

"[Israel] is not alone... France is ready for the coalition which is fighting in Iraq and Syria against IS to also fight against Hamas," Macron says.

Macron also warns the militant group Hezbollah and Iran against opening a new front on Israel's northern border.

Further escalation in the north would "open the door to a regional conflagration from which every party would lose", he says.

A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says 12 Britons are now known to have died in the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October, and that five are still missing.

Government minister Victoria Atkins said this morning that 10 had died and six were missing.

The Hamas-run ministry of health in Gaza has issued an update, saying at least 5,791 people have been killed in Gaza since 7 October.

That's an increase of more then 700 on the figure announced yesterday.

Israel says its air strikes hit more than 400 targets in Gaza in the past day - it says it's targeting Hamas infrastructure.

Image source, EPA

Israel has claimed Hamas are stockpiling fuel in Gaza needed by hospitals and civilians for their generators.

In posts on social media, the Israeli military published satellite imagery of what it says are 12 Hamas-operated fuel tanks positioned on the border with Egypt.

Israel's comments come amid growing concern that hospitals in Gaza are running out of power.

While some food, water and other humanitarian aid has been arriving on lorries via Egypt, Israel has not allowed any fuel to enter Gaza because it says it will be commandeered by Hamas.

Before Hamas's invasion on 7 October, Israel supplied most of Gaza's electricity via cable, which has also been cut off.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said this morning there was about 48 hours of fuel left for use by hospitals.

Last night the Indonesia Hospital in northern Gaza suffered a blackout after fuel ran out, the health ministry said.

Image source, Reuters

For nine days, five families have been sheltering in a tent together in the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

They were displaced after an Israeli strike on the north of the territory. Their makeshift home is one of many that sit in vast rows in the city, where hundreds of thousands of people have arrived in the past two weeks.

Sojood Najim and her five children told the Reuters news agency that water and medical supplies are hard to come by.

"I can't even bathe my children, I don't have water, I don't have a space to bathe them," she says. "I can't find clean clothes, I don't have clean floors to seat them on.

"I worry for my children, they cough and their noses run at night, my oldest son has asthma."

Image source, Reuters

Hamzah Abbas
Live reporter in London

Image source, Emad Abuaassi

Let's go back now to Gaza, where Israeli jets hit more than 400 sites in the past 24 hours - the Israeli military says it's targeting Hamas infrastructure.

Emad Abuaassi, a Palestinian who moved to Gaza from Blackpool in the UK just under a year ago, says he has been living with more than 50 members of his family in his brother's flat in Khan Younis.

He is with his wife, Stephanie, and their four children. This morning he was able to find pasta but no bread.

In a voice note to the BBC, he says: "I reckon in the next two, three days people are going to start killing each other for a bit of food here.

"You go to buy a bit of bread, you'll see people stabbing each other just for the sake of a bag of bread."

Image source, Reuters

We've been reporting on the release of two hostages last night - Yocheved Lifschitz and Nurit Cooper. But their husbands remain missing, believed to be held captive in Gaza.

Oded Lifschitz - Yocheved's husband - is a journalist who for decades has worked for peace and the rights of Palestinians, his daughter told us earlier.

Oded speaks Arabic and used to work for newspaper Al-Hamishmar, published in Israel and Palestinian territories.

More recently, he volunteered for a group that transports sick Palestinians from Gaza for treatment in Israeli hospitals.

According to the National Union of Journalists,, external in 1972 he defended the rights of Bedouin people who were expelled from their homes in the Rafah area, south of Gaza.

In 1982 he was among the first journalists to report on the massacre in Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut.

He and his wife co-founded their Kibbutz Nir Oz, and after leaving his job at the newspaper, Oded wrote for the local press and published opinion articles in Haaretz newspaper.

We've just heard from Yocheved Lifschitz, 85, who was released last night from captivity in Gaza by Hamas.

Footage from when she was released shows her turn and shake hands with a Hamas gunman.

Earlier her daughter Sharone told the BBC that the gesture was in keeping with her mum's character: "It's so her."

At the news conference that just finished, she said she was kidnapped from her kibuutz, beaten with sticks, and held in tunnels under Gaza for two weeks, before her release last night.

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Here's what we heard during that news conference with freed Hamas hostage, Yocheved Lifschitz, at a hospital in Tel Aviv.

• The 85-year-old said she had "been through hell" and suffered bruises while being kidnapped from her kibbutz in Israel on a motorbike
• Assisting with her mother's narrative, her daughter Sharone - who arrived in Tel Aviv from London this morning - said Lifschitz and her fellow captives were hit with sticks
• Sharone also said her mother had witnessed a "huge network" of underground tunnels run by Hamas, which she likened to a "spider's web"
• Sharone said after arriving into Gaza, her mother's captors said they "believe in the Quran" and therefore would not hurt her
• Lifschitz herself went on to describe clean conditions and guards who took care of "every detail". They were fed white cheese and cucumber - the same food as the captors
• Referring to the other hostages taken by Hamas, Sharone said her mother felt "the story's not over until everybody comes back"

The news conference has now ended, with Yocheved Lifschitz being taken away by her daughter Sharone in a wheelchair.

Lifschitz's daughter Sharone - who arrived in Tel Aviv from London this morning - continues to assist with her mother's narrative.

Referring to the other hostages taken by Hamas, she says her mother feels "the story's not over until everybody comes back".

Lifschitz says, while being held in the tunnels, her group were given white cheese and cucumber to eat.

It was the same food that her Hamas captors were eating, her daughter, Sharone, adds.

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Yocheved Lifschitz says there was a guard for each of the five people being held hostage in her group.

Her captors "took care of every detail", she says - including women who knew about "feminine hygiene".