Image source, Rex Features

The Israel Defense Forces say fighter jets have hit 250 Hamas targets in Gaza in the past day including command centres, infrastructure, tunnels and rocket launchers.

The Israeli navy separately destroyed a Hamas surface-to-air missile launch post in Khan Younis area of Gaza, the IDF says.

A few hours ago, a Hamas-run Telegram channel said it hit an Israeli helicopter with a surface-to-air missile near the Bureij refugee camp in Gaza. It did not provide evidence or timings.

We've just received a new statement from Lynn Hastings - the UN's humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinians, responding to Israel telling people in Gaza City to leave.

"For people who can’t evacuate – because they have nowhere to go or are unable to move – advance warnings make no difference," she says.

"When the evacuation routes are bombed, when people north as well as south are caught up in hostilities, when the essentials for survival are lacking, and when there are no assurances for return, people are left with nothing but impossible choices.

"Nowhere is safe in Gaza."

She adds the armed conflict should be governed by international law.

"This means that civilians must be protected and have the essentials to survive, wherever they are and whether they choose to move or stay.

"It also means that hostages – all hostages – must be released, immediately and unconditionally."

Why Israel wants a ground invasion to seem imminentpublished at 08:06 British Summer Time 26 October 2023

08:06 BST 26 October 2023

Tom Bateman
Reporting from Jerusalem

Image source, X: @IDF

This is exactly the kind of thing you would expect before a ground invasion - troops probing to find and destroy defences on the ground.

The pictures show tanks and armoured bulldozers going in. The Israeli statement alludes to fighting on the ground, although the pictures don’t show this.

It says the troops exited “at the end of the activity”.

But it’s hard to say this gives us many more clues about the timing of a ground operation.

The language used by the Israeli army is stronger than in the previous raids saying this was “part of preparations for the next stages of combat”.

But the narrative war is critical too. Israel wants to keep the sense going that an incursion is imminent for three reasons:

• To stop morale slipping on the ground
• For domestic Israeli consumption to show that the response is coming, and
• To keep the pressure on Hamas - especially over the hostage negotiations

Image source, X: @IDF

As we've been reporting, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out a "targeted raid" into Gaza overnight.

It's not the first time the IDF has confirmed an incursion into the Strip since 7 October.

On 13 October, the IDF announced raids into Gaza for the first time since the Hamas attacks, sending troops and tanks to attack Hamas rocket crews.

This was the day it warned residents of the north to evacuate south.

Four days ago, on 22 October, one Israeli soldier was killed and three were injured by a missile launched towards an IDF tank during a raid into the Gaza Strip.

Marianna Spring
Disinformation and social media correspondent

In the opening days of the Israel-Gaza war two small boys, both aged four, were killed. One was Israeli, one Palestinian.

Their names were Omar Bilal al-Banna and Omer Siman-Tov, and they lived roughly 23km (14.3 miles) apart, on either side of the Israel-Gaza perimeter fence.

But across social media neither were mourned - instead, users tried to deny their deaths had taken place.

Read the full report here.

Image source, Family handout

Satellite images are coming across our desks now, showing areas of Gaza at the beginning of the war, and now.

The top image below shows Beit Hanoun in the north of the Gaza Strip on October 10 2023, and the bottom one shows the same area 11 days later.

Image source, .

Image source, EPA

It’s coming up to 09:00 in Israel and Gaza. If you're just joining us now - here's a quick look at what's happened over the last few hours:

• The Israel Defense Force said it carried out an overnight "targeted raid" in northern Gaza using tanks
• It said it had struck "numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts"
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated that Israel is preparing for a ground invasion of Gaza, while offering no details on timings
• Seperately in Gaza, the UN says that fuel could run out in the coming hours, and has warned that hospitals are now only taking emergency cases
• Later today EU leaders are expected to call for a pause in the current fighting to facilitate the passage of urgent humanitarian aid

• The World Health Organization has urged Hamas to release all hostages on medical grounds
• Earlier, US President Joe Biden said there was no going back to the status quo between Israelis and Palestinians “as it stood on 6 October"

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has carried out a "targeted raid" overnight in northern Gaza using tanks.

It said the raid was carried out as part of “preparation for the next stages of combat” and "struck numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts", in a post on Thursday, sharing video of the operation.

“The soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory,” it added.

Earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised speech that IDF forces are still preparing for a ground invasion, but did not give any clues as to the timing.

Israel told 1.1 million residents of Gaza City and other northern areas to leave for their own safety last week.

But a senior UN official told the BBC some Palestinians who fled their homes in the north of Gaza are starting to return as conditions deteriorate in the south.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has disputed a claim from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) that fuel will imminently run out in the Gaza strip.

“As far as I know, there's still electricity in the Gaza Strip. And this report is a bit questionable,” IDF spokesman Lt Col Jonathan Conricus said in a live briefing, referencing a UNRWA report from 16 October.

“We responded to the claim by UNRWA referring them to where Hamas - which governs the Gaza Strip - source fuel, both diesel fuel and other types. It's all inside the Gaza Strip.

“There's enough for many days for hospitals and water pumps to run. Only the priorities are different. Hamas prefers to have all of the fuel for its warfighting capabilities, leaving civilians without it,” he added.

Hospitals in Gaza are taking on emergency cases only amid fears fuel supplies could run out in the coming hours, according to the UN.

The World Health Organization's representative, Dr Richard Peeperkorn, earlier told the BBC that hospitals supported by the UN were running generators "at minimum levels only for life-saving operations".

Jude Sheerin
BBC News, Washington DC

A prestigious university in Washington DC has disavowed a campus protest after it provoked accusations of antisemitism.

Police were called on Tuesday night to stop demonstrators projecting slogans on to the side of the Gelman Library at George Washington University.

One of the messages beamed on to the building said "Free Palestine from the river to the sea".

Activists say the phrase is a pro-Palestinian independence rallying cry, but the Anti-Defamation League, an anti-hate watchdog, has described it as code for the destruction of the state of Israel.

The university said in a statement , externalon Wednesday that the protesters "in no way reflect the views of the university".

"We recognize the distress, hurt, and pain this has caused for many members of our community," the statement added.

Read more here.

Image source, @LILY1SABELLA

Sofia Bettiza
BBC News, Brussels

EU leaders are expected to back a pause in the current conflict between Israel and Hamas to facilitate the passage of crucial humanitarian aid into Gaza.

European Council President Charles Michel says the deteriorating conditions on the ground in Gaza are of grave concern, and the leaders are keen to facilitate access to food, water, medical care, fuel, and shelter.

The decision will be made at a meeting in Brussels on Thursday.

For weeks, the European Union's stance on the war has been clouded with mixed messages, diplomatic gaffes, and conflicting national views.

Read more here.

Image source, Reuters

Hospitals in the Gaza strip are now admitting emergency cases only as they run dangerously low on fuel, the UN says.

Across the territory, hospitals have shut down all department except for their emergency rooms, says the BBC's Rushdi Abu Alouf, who is in Gaza's southern city of Khan Younis.

Hospitals need to conserve the little fuel that they have to power life-saving equipment such as ventilators, neonatal incubators and kidney dialysis machines, he says.

Gaza's hospitals are now "in a state of complete collapse", says Mohammed Abu Selmeya, the head of the territory's biggest hospital, Al-Shifa.

Israel is blocking new fuel deliveries to Gaza, saying they could be stolen and exploited by Hamas for military purposes. It also accuses Hamas of stockpiling hundreds of thousands of litres of diesel and refusing to share it.

Read more here.

Warning: This video contains distressing content

For Gaza's emergency workers, there is no time to stop - much less show feelings - as air strikes flatten buildings and tear families apart.

Ambulance driver Mahmoud Badawi tells the BBC he has grown used to seeing the most horrific of injuries since the war started.

"We do not rest a lot with all that is happening. The situation is very bad. Now we will try to locate the bombed area to go to the injured and the dead," he says as the sound of a missile exploding is heard in the background.

Asked what is the situation with medical supplies, Mahmoud says: "Everything is going."

Read more here.

Image source, Getty Images

The 7 October attack by Hamas militants that killed over 1,400 people and resulted in more than 220 hostages was “clearly a crime against humanity”, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the former chief prosector of the International Criminal Court has said.

“Hamas’s attack on October 7 is clearly a crime against humanity… Because killings with the intention to strike a group is a genocide, and Hamas’s official intention is to strike Israelis,” he told the BBC's Newsday programme.

“It's a war crime, because taking hostages is a war crime,” he added.

But Mr Moreno-Ocampo also referred to Israel’s subsequent blockade of Gaza as a “crime against humanity and a genocide”.

“One of the forms to commit a genocide is to inflict on the people [sic] conditions to destroy them. And that's exactly what the blockade is.

“The blockade is blocking water, food, hospitals cannot work, [there is] no electricity for people who can go nowhere. Israel has the right to defend itself, but cannot block 2 million people and in doing so make it into a concentration camp,” he said.

US President Joe Biden said he had “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using” when asked whether Israel was doing enough to "minimise civilian casualties" in a press conference earlier.

"I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war,” Biden told reporters on Wednesday.

“The Israelis should be incredibly careful to be sure that they’re focusing on going after the folks that are propagating this war. And it’s against their interest when that doesn’t happen. But I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using,” he added.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says that over 6,500 people have now been killed since 7 October, including more than 2,700 children.

Jeremy Bowen
International Editor, reporting from Israel

Image source, Hezbollah Media Office

In the last 24 hours, a photograph has emerged of the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Lebanon, where they were meeting Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Shia Muslim militia and political movement Hezbollah.

It’s the most powerful body in Lebanon, more powerful than the Lebanese state, and its military wing is backed, trained and armed by Iran.

The Iranians see Hezbollah as a vital part of their strategy of forward defence in the region. It has perhaps 150,000 missiles of different sorts and thousands of trained men, battle-hardened from fighting in the war in Syria on behalf of the Assad regime there.

One of the big fears and dangers of all this is that there could be another war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is a very powerful force.

I think those groups talk the whole time, to be honest, but they have chosen to make this meeting public - partly to put pressure on Israel and partly because they are facing pressure themselves.

They are facing the criticism that they have been talking about hitting Israel, and now that the opportunity has come along, some say, “Why don’t you?” I have even heard some Palestinians say, “Hezbollah have let us down.”

However, there have not been many signs that Iran wants this to happen. Deterring Iran and its Lebanese allies is a major reason why the US has already moved one carrier group to the Mediterranean and another one on its way to the Gulf.

The situation remains desperate on the ground in the Gaza Strip.

The BBC has been speaking with Mohamed, a father-of-three from London who is trapped in Gaza with his family.

He says they have been on the move for 10 days, looking for somewhere that is safe.

“There is bombing everywhere, there is no food, no clean water,” he says, adding that many of the children are sick and that people are queuing for hours for bread and fuel.

Mohamed says he is in regular contact with the Foreign Office, but there is currently no plan in place to get him and his family out of Gaza.

His infant children – one of whom is four months old – are scared.

“I tell them [the bombing] is fireworks, and they start screaming, ‘I hate fireworks, daddy.’ They wake up in the middle of the night screaming,” he says.

Image source, EPA

The UN agency running humanitarian operations in Gaza says it will make a decision in the coming hours on how much assistance it can continue to provide because of a lack of fuel.

The UNRWA spokeswoman, Juliette Touma, told the BBC it was likely it would have to reduce its work.

"The coming few hours are very critical as we continue to hope that there will be supply of fuel that is sent to UNRWA in Gaza," she told BBC News.

Without a shipment of fuel, "we will have to take probably one of the toughest decisions that any aid organisation would take, [which] is to reduce humanitarian assistance to people who need us most on the ground in the Gaza Strip.

"And that decision will be made tomorrow [Thursday] morning if the fuel doesn't come into Gaza."

Image source, Getty Images

If you're just joining us, welcome to our live coverage of the latest development in the Israel-Gaza war. This follows our previous page.

Here's what's been happening:

• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated that Israel is preparing for a ground invasion of Gaza, but did not give any clues as to the timing

• A resolution addressing the situation in Israel and Gaza has again failed at the UN Security Council - this time facing vetoes from Russia and China
• Separately, Israel has continued to demand the resignation of UN chief António Guterres over comments he made about the Gaza war not occurring "in a vacuum"
• The UN has also warned that fuel in the Gaza strip will run out imminently, forcing the closure of hospitals and shelters
• The World Health Organization has urged Hamas to release all hostages on medical grounds