Lucy Manning
BBC News Special Correspondent

Image source, PA Media

In the UK, Greater Manchester Police has said it regrets any offence, external caused after social media pictures appeared to show its officers pulling down posters of Israelis who are being held hostage by Hamas.

Assistant Chief Constable Wasim Chaudhry said "we share concerns raised regarding the removal of posters in the North Manchester area and can confirm an investigation is under way".

The posters have been put up around the country, and follow a template seen across the world. They show the names and faces of the 240 hostages held by Hamas gunmen.

Other social media footage showed Metropolitan Police officers removing kidnapped posters from the front of a pharmacy in north London.

In a statement the Met said "we totally understand the concerns raised, but we believe the officers were acting in good faith".

It said it removed them to prevent any escalation as it believed the posters had been put on the pharmacy “as a retaliation” for comments made online.

Adam Ma’anit from Brighton - whose 18-year-old cousin Maayan was murdered, and her father Tsachi kidnapped - said the police behaviour was "heartbreaking".

"My cousin’s face is on those posters," he said.

"He had to watch his daughter murdered. We just want to bring him home. It feels like an added insult to have the posters with his face pulled down on the streets of the UK."

Image source, Reuters

We've reported this morning on Israeli updates of their ground offensive in Gaza - it says it is destroying Hamas "step by step".

Telegram channels operated by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad also describe the fighting in Gaza. In recent hours, the armed wing of Hamas - the Al Qassam brigades - say they have:

• Killed an IDF soldier and destroyed two vehicles attempting to move further into north-west Gaza
• Set an Israeli tank on fire in the near the Zeitoun neighbourhood, after hitting it with an anti-tank shell
• Attacked soldiers who entered a building in Beit Hanoun where Hamas gunmen were hiding, targeting a bulldozer and an unspecified IDF vehicle

The Al Quds brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, also say they have attacked two groups of Israeli troops and vehicles with mortar shells near Erez and Al-Atatra in north-west Gaza.

As a reminder, the BBC is not able to immediately verify most battlefield claims.

Earlier this month - before the large-scale ground operation began - Israel confirmed one of its soldiers was killed during a raid inside the Gaza Strip.

In London, Labour's leader, Sir Keir Starmer, is seeking to reaffirm his party's position on the conflict.

You can watch his speech - and his responses to questions from journalists - by clicking on the play button at the top of this page.

Hostages deal was close - than Israeli troops went into Gazapublished at 11:23 Greenwich Mean Time 31 October 2023

11:23 GMT 31 October 2023

Jeremy Bowen
International editor, reporting from Israel

In the last few days I’ve spoken to sources in Qatar who are working on negotiations between Israel and Hamas. They said they had been close to a deal on hostages being held in Gaza.

One contact said to me they had done all the hard stuff. They were dotting I’s and crossing T’s when Israel started the ground invasion.

Israel’s position is even though there are 240 hostages, they don’t want to give Hamas any sort of impunity or type of reward for what they’ve done.

We’ve heard from Israeli government spokespeople who say force and strength is the only way to get Hamas to release the hostages.

However, a lot of hostage families are saying we need to make a deal on this, now.

I’ve watched the hostage video that was released yesterday several times, and to me it didn’t appear to be scripted.

All hostage videos are made under duress, but by the end of the video message, the woman speaking was shouting at Netanyahu, you need to make a deal, you need to get us out now.

At least 8,525 people have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, the Hamas-controlled health ministry there has just announced.

3,542 children and 2,187 women are among the Palestinians killed, as well as 130 healthcare workers, the ministry says.

On Monday the death toll stood at 8,306.

Houthi fighters from Yemen were responsible for attacking Israel with drones earlier today, the leader of the Iranian-backed group has told the AFP news agency.

As we've reported, an air raid alert was issued in the Red Sea port of Eilat over an unspecified "aerial target" earlier. No damage or casualties have been reported.

Image source, .

Rushdi Abualouf
In Khan Younis, Gaza

Here in the south of Gaza, water and food are a real issue.

Israel said they would resume water pumping to the area - but there has been no fuel to pump the water to people’s houses.

There is a UN tanker with clean water outside the Nasser hospital, with hundreds of people queuing to fill up a little bottle of water.

I met a father here yesterday. He told me he queued for six hours to get five pieces of bread for his family.

The people in this area are asking for a sustainable aid corridor. They want to be able to give food and water to their families, they don’t care about anything else.

They are living to survive.

Image source, Reuters

Footage released by the Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday shows ground troops moving through Gaza.

Rushdi Abualouf
In Khan Younis, Gaza

Last night, there was a little pause in air strikes here in Khan Younis. This morning, airstrikes resumed in some areas.

The south is considered safer - but Israel keeps targeting the area where about two-thirds of the population have now moved to, after being warned to leave the north.

The main focus of the Israeli air strikes is now Gaza City. Very few people are still able to communicate there.

We managed to talk to someone in Jabalia camp, north of Gaza City, who said how huge the explosions were.

He said the dust and the smoke were a real issue for the civilians still living there.

Image source, Reuters

Shortages of supplies mean doctors in Gaza face a "moral trauma" on which patients to save, and which to let die, says the head of a medical group.

Speaking from Washington DC, Zaher Sahloul tells BBC World Service's Newsday about the conditions his teams are facing.

"They're running out of anaesthesia, medications for pain, blood products, antibiotics, gauze and many other items that are needed to stop the bleeding and treat patients in trauma.

"On top of that you have the bombing and limited, or shortage of, clean water, food, diesel and fuel."

He adds: "So that means you have to make a decision as a doctor which patients you need to focus on, and maybe treat and save lives, and which patient you need to let go."

Israel is playing a clever information gamepublished at 09:46 Greenwich Mean Time 31 October 2023

09:46 GMT 31 October 2023

Jeremy Bowen
International editor, reporting from Israel

Image source, IDF

The Israelis are playing a clever game on the information battlefield, which is very important in modern warfare.

They're saying very little, and only giving out small bits of heavily edited and granulated video of their military operations. They are doing that deliberately.

The videos are not verified, so it's incredibly hard to know exactly where it came from.

I think it's pretty clear that they're moving slowly on the ground, but keeping up an awful lot of shelling.

From our hotel in Ashkelon in southern Israel, you can hear the constant booming, sometimes up to six times per minute.

It was the last thing I heard through my open window before I went to bed, and when I woke up at about 06:00, I heard just-as-heavy war planes overhead.

I think it’s important to not get too bogged down on the semantics of what to call the Israeli military operation.

It’s an invasion, but it’s not the on-all-fronts invasion, try-to-get-everywhere kind of invasion.

They have started in the north of the Gaza Strip, and have made it clear they are not leaving.

It seems pretty clear to me that they are trying to work their way down south, but not into Gaza City - because that would be a very difficult urban battlefield.

Image source, EPA

A little while ago, an IDF spokesman briefed the media on the latest situation in both Israel and the wider region.

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari repeated a lot of the updates about the "integrated and coordinated air and ground strikes" on hundreds of Hamas targets in Gaza.

He also updated on the situation on the northern Border with Lebanon - where there have been clashes with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah forces in recent weeks.

The IDF spokesman said fighter jets "destroyed infrastructure belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation" in overnight strikes.

Hagari added that thousands of civilians are fleeing southern Lebanon "on their own initiative", over fears that "Hezbollah will bring war upon them".

Shai Wenkert's 22-year-old son Omer was abducted from the Supernova music festival in southern Israel on 7 October.

He last heard from Omer at 07:15 that morning. By noon, a photograph of Omer being taken into Gaza alive - wearing only handcuffs and underwear - was circulating.

"I miss him a lot. I haven't seen him for 25 days," his father tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Wenkert was one of several families of hostages who met Israeli President Isaac Herzog yesterday.

He says the meeting gave him "more strength", and that the government and IDF are doing the best they can for them to "bring Omer home".

Wenkert goes on to say that the war is "not just in Israel".

"What has happened is a war of the world...not just [against] Jews but the human race."

Image source, Shai Wenkert

Drone attack on Eilat likely to have come from Yemenpublished at 08:54 Greenwich Mean Time 31 October 2023

08:54 GMT 31 October 2023

Jeremy Bowen
International editor, reporting from Israel

Image source, Getty Images

As we reported earlier, a drone has been shot down in the town of Eilat in southern Israel. The assumption is that it came from Yemen and flew up the Red Sea.

The Houthis who control the capital and large areas of Yemen have an alliance with Iran, and it is well known that Iran has a very advanced drone industry.

So perhaps it was a so-called kamikaze drone - also known as a loitering munition that can wait around for its target.

It's not the first time there have been attempts to fire up towards Israel from Yemen.

Just last week, a US warship in the Red Sea intercepted missiles and drones shot by the Houthi rebels in Yemen flying towards Israel.

Many evacuees from Gaza border villages are staying in tourist hotels in Eilat, so this is very alarming for them. Any sort of unknown aerial object will automatically trigger air raid sirens, forcing people to run for shelter.

We’ve also heard from military personnel who are stationed in Eilat, and they are hiding out in shelters.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, says 64 of its staff have now been killed in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war.

One colleague was killed yesterday along with his family - eight children and his wife - while he was at home, spokeswoman Juliette Touma tells BBC World Service’s Newsday.

She says the 450 shelters they manage across the Gaza Strip are becoming overcrowded, with 670,000 people staying in UN facilities in total.

"We are starting to get reports of diseases spreading such as scabies and diarrhoea.

"There needs to be a humanitarian ceasefire. Places that should be protected have been hit - churches, mosques and UN facilities. So no place is safe. Gaza has turned very quickly into a hell-hole."

Image source, Reuters

Image source, IDF

More now from IDF spokesman Peter Lerner, who tells BBC Breakfast that "Hamas is hiding behind Palestinians".

Lerner says it is "a human tragedy on both sides of the fence. This is one of the reasons why Hamas needs to go. Everybody is suffering from this organisation".

He accuses Hamas of putting "all of their capabilities in the civilian arena", including "explosive drones on the rooftops of houses" and "launching rockets from outside UN facilities".

He also says more than 7,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza at Israel since 7 October.

Previously, Lerner said Hamas was using hospitals in Gaza as "command positions, staging grounds, and human shields.", external

It's been another night of heavy bombing of the Gaza Strip - Israel says it hit 300 targets in total overnight.

Photos taken from southern Israel show plumes of smoke rising over levelled neighbourhoods.

And inside Gaza this morning, funerals continue to be held for the thousands killed since 7 October.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, IDF

IDF spokesman Peter Lerner has just appeared on BBC Breakfast in the UK. He says there has been a "large amount of exchanges" between Israeli forces and Hamas in Gaza overnight.

Lerner says the IDF is "destroying Hamas step by step, and strike by strike".

He says the idea is to engage with Hamas and "destroy their infrastructure".

Lerner also accuses Hamas of operating from mosques and civilian buildings.

In an update on the "hostile aircraft" previously mentioned, the IDF now says it identified an "aerial target" approaching Israeli territory near Eilat.

The update says "there was no threat or risk to civilians".

It does not say whether the target was destroyed by air defence or otherwise intercepted.

Air raid sirens have sounded in the city of Eilat in southern Israel after a "hostile aircraft intrusion", the IDF says.

It did not provide details about the nature of the aircraft or its origin. Reports from Israeli radio suggest a drone was shot down over the Red Sea.

Eilat is Israel's most southern city, located on the Red Sea near the borders of both Jordan and Egypt - around 200km (125 miles) from Gaza.

Image source, .