Imogen Foulkes
Geneva correspondent

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

The International Committee of the Red Cross has called for an immediate de-escalation of the conflict in Gaza, deploring the loss of life and what it said was an intolerable level of suffering.

The ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva conventions, the laws of war, and since the Hamas attack on Israel three weeks ago it has repeatedly called for the release of all hostages, and appealed for access to Gaza for aid supplies.

The ICRC rarely comments publicly on the way a particular war is being waged – it believes quiet reminders to the warring parties are the best way to encourage respect for international law.

But late on Saturday night the Red Cross issued an urgent warning. "Two million civilians were trapped in Gaza with nowhere to flee," it said, "amid massive bombardment and a military siege". This, the ICRC statement continued, was a "catastrophic failing that the world must not tolerate".

It also condemned the use of civilians as human shields and repeated its call for the release of hostages.

"But the absolute priority is the preservation of life, and that means allowing sustained deliveries of aid, and access for aid agencies," said the statement.

Image source, AFP

As we've been reporting, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier today said his country's war with Hamas had entered its "second stage".

Last week, Israel's defence minister Yoav Gallant told a parliamentary committee that the war would have three stages.

"The first stage of the campaign was meant to destroy Hamas's infrastructure in order to defeat and destroy Hamas," Gallant said.

He described the second stage as continued fighting as troops work to “eliminate pockets of resistance".

And the third phase, Gallant said, "will require the removal of Israel's responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip, and the establishment of a new security reality for the citizens of Israel".

Image source, Getty Images

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said the escalation in Israel's military assault on Gaza surprised him after it appeared there was a growing international consensus around the need for a humanitarian pause in the conflict.

"I was encouraged in the last days by what seemed to be a growing consensus in the international community... for the need of at least a humanitarian pause in the fighting," Guterres said in a statement.

"Regrettably, instead of the pause, I was surprised by an unprecedented escalation of the bombardments and their devastating impacts, undermining the referred humanitarian objectives," he added.

On Friday, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly called for an immediate humanitarian truce between Israel and Hamas to allow more aid into Gaza.

But Israel angrily dismissed the resolution.

Lack of footage from Gaza shows the impact of internet blackoutpublished at 21:34 British Summer Time 28 October 2023

21:34 BST 28 October 2023

Since last night, BBC Verify has been looking through photos and videos from Gaza trying to understand what is happening on the ground.

Much of the footage we've seen shows dead or injured civilians and severely damaged buildings.

But nearly all of it predates last night's escalation in hostilities.

This speaks to the impact of the internet blackout imposed on Gaza by the Israelis as the strikes began.

A simple way of establishing whether a video is old is by taking a screenshot of one of the frames and "reverse searching" for any previous versions of it.

At BBC Verify we are committed to ensuring that the images we present to you are an accurate record of the incidents we are reporting.

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

Image source, Getty Images

A voice note arrives from a journalist in a city in central Gaza, where lines of communication have been almost completely eliminated.

Mid-way through the audio, a loud explosion thuds in the background.

"The situation is very dangerous," he says, adding that many people don't know what happened to their relatives overnight.

The WhatsApp voice note, sent from the city of Deir al-Balah, is one of few insights available into what is happening in Gaza - and how civilians are coping since Israel intensified air strikes and expanded its ground operations on Friday night.

Internet monitoring group NetBlocks says there has been a "collapse in connectivity" in the enclave. The blackout means people can't contact their friends or family - or ambulances to pick up the injured.

Palestinian Minister of Communications Ishaq Sider has said efforts are being made to activate international roaming services in Gaza.

But for now, most people there remain, in the words of one of our contacts, "disconnected from the planet".

Read more here.

Paul Adams
Diplomatic correspondent, in Jerusalem

Anyone expecting to hear an offer from Israel’s prime minister to pause his military’s assault on Gaza in order to secure the release of hostages will have been disappointed.

Benjamin Netanyahu cast this battle in the broadest context: a 3,000 year old battle for Jewish survival.

Israel, he said, had to prevail. Defeating Hamas was his principal objective. Securing the release of hostages was a secondary objective.

He was speaking just a short time after meeting the relatives of Israelis being held hostage by Hamas. They’re deeply apprehensive and want assurances that Israel’s military operations, which stepped up a gear 24 hours ago, won’t prove to be a death sentence for their loved ones.

But the prime minister, who said that his heart broke when he met the families, said there was “no contradiction” between defeating Hamas and bringing the hostages home.

In a further indication of his government’s strategy, the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said “the more we hit out at [Hamas], we know that they will be willing to come to some kind of agreement, and we will be able to bring our dearly beloved hostages home.”

We reported just now that Hamas has offered exchanging the more than 220 hostages they kidnapped on 7 October in exchange for the release of all the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu commented on this earlier at a news conference.

He said the idea of a swap deal involving hostages for prisoners had been discussed within the Israeli war cabinet but declined to give details about specifics, saying this would be counterproductive.

More from our correspondent Paul Adams in Jerusalem in a moment on the hostages and how Israel's leadership is coming under fresh pressure to secure their release as ground operations intensify.

Hugo Bachega
Reporting from Lebanon

Image source, AFP

Since the Israel-Hamas war started three weeks ago, the Lebanese group Hezbollah and the Israeli military have frequently exchanged fire along the Lebanon-Israel border.

Fears that this could become another front in the conflict are rising, again, as Israel expands its ground offensive in Gaza.

Today, the Israeli military said it had launched a retaliatory strike after thwarting a surface-to-air missile that was fired from Lebanon towards an Israeli unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Hours later, it said one of its drones hit a “terrorist cell” in Lebanon that had tried to launch an anti-tank missile at Israel.

Hezbollah said it had carried out several attacks with artillery shells and guided missiles, without giving more details.

The violence has forced more than 28,000 people to flee their homes in Lebanon, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Hezbollah, which is considered a terrorist organisation by the UK and other countries, is part of the Iranian-backed "Axis of Resistance", that also includes groups and factions in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Paul Adams
Diplomatic correspondent, in Jerusalem

In his first comments since the war began on 7 October, Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, has offered to release all hostages being held in Gaza in return for the release of all Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails.

In a statement on the group's official website, Sinwar said: “We are ready for an immediate exchange deal that includes the release of all prisoners in the prisons of the Zionist enemy in exchange for the release of all prisoners with the resistance.”

Image source, Getty Images

The UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned that large-scale Israeli ground operations in Gaza could produce "catastrophic" consequences, with possibly thousands more civilian deaths.

Volker Turk urged the two sides and others with influence in the region to do everything to de-escalate the conflict.

“Last night’s bombardment and ground operations in Gaza by Israeli forces were reportedly the most intensive yet, taking this terrible crisis to a new level of violence and pain," he said.

"Compounding the misery and suffering of civilians, Israeli strikes on telecommunications installations and subsequent Internet shutdown have effectively left Gazans with no way of knowing what is happening across Gaza and cut them off from the outside world."

Israel says its military operations in Gaza are targeted at destroying Hamas and its infrastructure so it can no longer mount attacks.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant speaks after Netanyahu, and talks about the hostages.

"It's a very complex effort to bring them home”, Gallant says.

He goes on to add: “The more we hit out at them (Hamas), we know that they will be willing to come to some kind of agreement, and we will be able to bring our dearly beloved hostages home."

Netanyahu concludes by referring to support he says he has been given from allies in the West and Arab world.

He says "this will be a long and difficult war", adding: "We will win. We will prevail."

He describes the war, which follows Hamas's attacks on 7 October, as Israel's "second war of independence".

He continues: "We will fight and we will not surrender. We will not withdraw. Overground and underground."

Netanyahu says that Israeli soldiers and commanders "are now in the Gaza Strip, they are deployed all over".

Earlier today, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of war crimes.

The Israeli PM does not name him but says: "Don't accuse us of war crimes. If you think that you can accuse our soldiers of war crimes that is hypocrisy. We are the most moral army in the world."

He says the IDF is taking precautions to protect civilians, and accuses Hamas of commiting crimes against humanity by "using their people as human shields".

The health ministry in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, says more than 7,600 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel began bombing the territory. The World Health Organization said on Friday that 40% of the dead were children.

Hamas killed more than 1,400 people in Israel in the attacks of 7 October. Most of them were civilians, including women and children.

Benjamin Netanyahu says the ongoing ground operation in Gaza is the second stage of the war with Hamas, with "very clear objectives".

Netanyahu says additional Israeli ground forces have gone into what he called " that stronghold of evil", referring to Gaza, to "dismantle" Hamas and bring hostages home.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now speaking after meeting with representatives of the families of those held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

We will bring you what Netanyahu has to say and you’ll be able to watch live by clicking Play at the top of this page.

It's just after 20:30 local time in Israel and Gaza, 18:30 here in London. Here's a quick recap of what has happened today:

• Israeli forces say they have entered the northern area of the Gaza Strip, and appear to be trying to push south from there, reports Jeremy Bowen
• Israel's military has reiterated its call for civilians in northern Gaza to flee south for their safety, calling Gaza City a "battlefield"
• The IDF has also said Israel's objectives "require a ground operation" and that its "best soldiers and commanders are now in Gaza"
• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called Israel's strikes in Gaza a "massacre" - shortly after that, Israel's foreign minister called for all Israeli diplomats in Turkey to leave
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met with representatives of the families of the 229 hostages being held by Hamas - an announcement from his is expected shortly
• Latest figures from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry report that more than 3,500 children have been killed in Israel's bombing of Gaza since 7 October. More than 1,400 people were killed in the Hamas attacks that targeted Israel on that day
• Communication networks in Gaza went down on Friday evening, resulting in a lack of information in and out of the territory

Image source, Mohammed Saber/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Image source, Government Press Office of Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara have met representatives of the families of people taken hostage by Hamas.

"We will exercise and exhaust every possibility to bring them home," Netanyahu told them, adding that this was one of the goals of the war.

"This effort not only has not stopped, it continues and it continues even harder,” the prime minister said.

We are expecting to hear more from Netanyahu soon in a press conference he will hold with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz.

Throughout Saturday, numerous rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel.

Some of them have landed, local media reports, including in the southern city of Ashkelon.

There, a rocket landed on the shore in the early hours of the morning, but no one was injured.

Rocket sirens were also activated on Saturday afternoon in Tel Aviv and surrounding towns.

Israeli news website Ynet news reported that a rocket struck a car park in Kiryat Ono - just outside Tel Aviv - causing several cars to explode.

It reports that a man in his 50s in Holon suffered from smoke inhalation, while two others were injured in Tel Aviv seeking shelter.

Rushdi Abualouf
Reporting from Khan Younis, Gaza

More than a million people live now in southern Gaza after a huge flight from the north.

Some of them live in Khan Younis's Nasser Hospital, where I've been reporting.

It's the second biggest hospital in Khan Younis, serving half of the population. But right now, it's really struggling with the number of casualties arriving - a situation compounded by the fact that it is running low on fuel and medical essentials.

Doctors have shut most of the departments and are focusing only on people that need life-saving interventions.

Tonight, more Israeli planes are flying over Gaza. People here are expecting more heavy bombing.

We reported earlier that Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari has issued an "urgent plea" to the citizens of northern Gaza and Gaza City to move south, adding that their "window to act is closing".

That warning came via a post on X, which most Gazans currently can't access due to the internet outage.

But Israel's military has also been dropping leaflets into Gaza with a similar warning.

The leaflets, written in Arabic, warn that the north of the territory has become a "battlefield" that is not safe - and that people should head south.