US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Saudi Arabian Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman Al Saud at the White House on Monday to discuss the situation in Gaza.

A readout from the White House says they “affirmed the urgent need to increase humanitarian assistance for the people of Gaza”.

The readout also highlighted the “importance of working towards a sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians, building on the work that was already underway between Saudi Arabia and the United States over recent months”.

Another topic raised was the importance of “deterring any state or non-state actor from seeking to expand the conflict”.

Earlier on Monday, our chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet spoke with Mark Regev, one of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's senior advisors.

Asked if Israel's plan was for the military to steadily move into the Gaza Strip, Regev replied: "I'm not going into the details of the next moves of the IDF".

"Maybe Hamas is watching and we don't want to give them any advice on how they should better defend themselves. Our goal remains clear: We will destroy Hamas’s military machine, and dismantle the political structure of their rule in Gaza. They are the goals, together with getting the hostages out."

Regev was then asked about evacuations from north Gaza, and he said: "We have been encouraging people to leave a war zone. People have taken that advice and headed south, but not everyone has. We will be as careful as possible to distinguish between innocent civilians and Hamas terrorists."

Nadia Ragozhina
Live reporter

“Our biggest message is the hostages have to be the top headline, this message can’t get lost,” Lee Siegel tells me over the phone from his home in Israel.

His brother, Keith, and sister-in-law, Adrienne, who is also known as Aviva, were taken by Hamas from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on 7 October and are being held in Gaza.

“For 23 days we’ve been waiting for some sign that they are indeed there and that they are alive and healthy. This is very stressful,” Lee says.

Keith and Lee, both American citizens, are two out of four siblings who live in Israel.

Along with his brother and sister in the US, Lee has been meeting with US delegations – senators, governors, representatives – virtually and in person.

They have been reassured time and time again that everything is being done through the diplomatic channels to ensure the safe return of Keith and Adrienne, as well as all the other hostages.

“Whatever solution brings the hostages back sooner rather than later is what needs to be done,” he says.

Nada Tawfik
Reporting from New York

We've just heard the last briefing at today's UN security council meeting.

Lisa Doughten, from the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA, said people are becoming increasingly desperate in Gaza as they search for food, water and shelter “amid a relentless bombing campaign that is wiping out whole families and entire neighbourhoods”.

Director Doughten wants another entry point into Gaza opened at Kerem Shalom, between Israel and Gaza, the only crossing apparently equipped to process a large number of trucks.

Director Doughten also detailed how the health care system is in tatters with patients on the floors and surgeons operating without anaesthesia. There are 1,000 patients dependent on dialysis and 130 premature babies in incubators, whose lives “hang by a thread as hospital backup generators run on fumes”.

She said OCHA was deeply concerned by allegations of military installations in the close vicinity of hospitals and the request by Israeli authorities for hospitals to be evacuated.

She said there is nowhere safe for patients to go, and moving those on life support and babies in incubators would almost certainly be a death sentence.

Mohammed Ghalayini, a scientist from Manchester who travelled to Gaza in September to visit family told the BBC earlier that he and his family are “not okay".

“I am struggling in different ways, the least of them wondering where my next drink of water is going to come from, wondering how I am going to be able to wash myself or flush my toilet and wondering where my next pack of bread is going to come from,” Ghalayini said.

He said they get food through a combination of buying it privately and receiving donations. Ghalayini has moved four times since the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip began.

He said he is scared of the “horrific bombardment” that’s going on “in every other street” in Khan Younis, saying buildings just metres away from him being bombed.

"You ask yourself when will the bomb fall on me,” Ghalayini said.

Image source, Mo El Deeb

Earlier we heard from Mo El-Deeb, whose parents Talal and Naila are stuck in Gaza.

He's since spoken to our radio colleagues over at 5 Live and described the impact all this is having on him.

"It's been a very long nightmare since the conflict started," he told presenter Nihal Arthanayake.

"A lot of sleepless nights, well over 100 calls to the Foreign Office, and always receiving the same news - which is 'keep an eye on the news'.

"The uncertainty, not knowing if my parents are dead or alive, has been paralysing in terms of getting on with everyday life."

Mo said he and his siblings have struggled to get in touch with their parents, who are both in their sixties. "You need to try at least 10 times at a minimum to connect" with them on the phone, he said.

Nada Tawfik
Reporting from New York

Let's circle back to that UN security council meeting, which has heard from Unicef executive director Catherine Russell since we reported on it a little earlier.

She says more than 420 children are being killed or injured in Gaza each day the conflict goes on - a number, she says, that should shake each of them to their core.

Russell adds that the violence being perpetrated against children extended beyond the Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, at least 37 children had reportedly been killed, she says, and more than 30 Israeli children had reportedly been killed - while at least 20 remain hostage in the Gaza Strip - their fates unknown.

The consequences of the terrible trauma Palestinians and Israeli children are experiencing could last a lifetime, she says.

Russell tells the council it has the power to help lift civilians out of this spiral of violence - and, among other things, urges parties to afford children the special protection to which they are entitled.

Image source, EPA

The US is confident there will soon be a significant increase of aid going into Gaza, according to White House national security spokesperson John Kirby.

The "first phase is getting up to 100 trucks a day," Kirby specified, saying even that wouldn't be enough but was still a "dramatic improvement" of the current situation. He said the US was confident it could happen "in the coming days".

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that before the conflict erupted on 7 October, following Hamas's surprise attack on Israel, around 500 trucks a day were crossing into Gaza.

“The US is leading the effort to try to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza, and if it wasn’t quite frankly for American leadership I know you wouldn’t see the increase of the aid getting in," Kirby said at a White House press briefing on Monday.

Kirby further said that the US did not support a ceasefire right now, which he said would only benefit Hamas, but that temporary humanitarian corridors should be explored.

He also said the US was "part of the conversation" that led to restoration of internet connectivity in Gaza after it was cut over the weekend.

Nada Tawfik
Reporting from New York

Image source, EPA

The UN Security Council has been holding an emergency meeting and it has been hearing from the head of UNRWA - the UN's agency that supports Palestinian refugees.

Philippe Lazzarini says the human tragedy unfolding is "unbearable", and reiterates that there's no safe place in Gaza. He also describes Israel's bombardment, evacuation orders and siege as both "forced displacement" and "collective punishment".

He tells the emergency meeting that 3,200 children have been killed in Gaza in just three weeks, surpassing the number of children killed annually across the world's conflict zones since 2019. That, he says, can't be collateral damage.

Unrwa has lost 64 employees, Lazzarini tells the council, including one who he says died just two hours earlier along with his wife and eight children.

He also says Gazans feel the world is equating all of them to Hamas and it's dangerous that an entire population is being dehumanized. The atrocities of Hamas, Lazzarini says, do not absolve Israel from its obligations under International Humanitarian Law.

Urging council members to change the trajectory of the crisis, he says the present and future of Palestinians and Israelis depends on an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. He also reiterates calls for unimpeded and continuous flow of humanitarian aid - including fuel - and the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure.

It's now the 24th day since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October. More than 8,000 people in Gaza have been killed since Israel began retaliatory airstrikes, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Images from Gaza show buildings turned to rubble and thousands of displaced Palestinians living in makeshift shelters or refugee camps.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

Today I received a voice note from Dr Marwan Abusada, a senior surgeon at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, describing the situation there as "horrifying".

"We are receiving many casualties each half an hour, each minute... Our hospital is overwhelmed now with the huge number of injured patients. There is no space for more people to be admitted to our hospital. We have more than 800 injured people now here," he said.

Videos shared with me by Dr Abusada show patients, including children, on beds and lying on the floor.

"Gaza is without electricity, without water, without fuel, without food, without sanitation. The situation is very bad," he said in his voice note.

He added that, in addition to patients, thousands of people were seeking shelter at the hospital after fleeing from their homes. "They are occupying each square metre of the hospital," he said.

"This is a bad, horrific situation. You can’t imagine... it is catastrophic and disastrous."

Barbara Plett Usher
US State Department correspondent

The State Department says Hamas is making demands before it will allow people to leave Gaza.

The US has been working on a plan to get American citizens, and other foreign nationals, to exit via the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

Matt Miller, the department's spokesman, acknowledged that it did not have a clear picture of what was happening on the Gaza side of the border because it doesn’t have anyone operating there. Nor did he specify what the Hamas demands were.

But he said it’s one of the few things that’s still holding up a deal. He also said Egypt was ready to process US citizens once they arrive.

Cairo has opened the gate to allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza. Earlier it was reluctant to do the same for the entry of civilians into Egypt, afraid doing so would trigger a stampede of refugees. But those concerns seem to have eased.

There are around 500 Palestinians with US citizenship in Gaza. It's not clear how many want to leave. The US has been sending them alerts about its exit plan. That’s one of the reasons it pushed the Israelis to restore phone and internet connections cut off on Friday, but by no means the only one.

Miller said connectivity was essential for the delivery of aid, for families to communicate and for journalists to document the war.

Paul Adams
Reporting from Jerusalem

As we reported earlier, Hamas has published a video showing three hostages held in Gaza.

It’s no accident that the only images of the hostages we’ve seen since their violent abduction on 7 October have been of women.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier called the release of Hamas's latest video “cruel psychological propaganda”.

There’s absolutely no doubt that its release is designed to play on the emotions of all Israelis, in ways that are likely to make his situation even harder.

He's already under enormous pressure from the families of hostages to do more to release their loved ones. Two nights ago, he said this was his second priority, after the need to destroy Hamas.

The woman who speaks in the video, Danielle Aloni, delivers a furious attack on Netanyahu’s alleged failure to protect civilians on 7 October.

Even if it was uttered under conditions of extreme duress, it plays into an anguished debate in Israel about how the government and the military allowed any of this to happen.

Image source, Getty Images

Turning back to the situation in Gaza, Jason Lee from the Palestinian branch of charity Save the Children says one child is now being killed every 10 minutes.

Speaking to the BBC from Jerusalem, he said out of the 20,000 civilians that had been injured, one in three of them was a child.

Communicable diseases are on the rise, Lee said, because of overcrowded conditions and a lack of hygiene practices. He said he feared the spread of influenza.

And he added that trucks delivering aid to Gaza were a "drop in the ocean".

"They’ve run out of medical commodities like bandages and you have 130 premature babies in incubators that are at risk of turning off," he said.

The final representatives step up at the press conference. A woman named Neta Alon introduces herself and a man, Shahar Cohen, as being friends of the son of the kidnapped Elena Trupanov.

"We are delighted she is still healthy", she begins. She voices her hope that Elena is still "there along with the other members of their family".

Alon goes to say the family “disappeared completely”, saying the father was murdered and four other members of the family are hostages.

Cohen addresses the press conference in English. He says three generations of the family in question were either kidnapped or murdered - meaning there is no-one else to speak for them.

Referring to the video which emerged earlier today, he says this is the "first proof" that Elena is still alive, and that they are "so happy."

He acknowledges that 239 people are still being held captive by Hamas after 24 days. “How is it possible they have been held hostage for so long,” he asks, before urging US President Joe Biden to do everything he can to secure their release.

We've just heard from Avital Kirsht Buchshtov, the mother of Rimon Kirsht, who appears in the hostage video released by Hamas a short time ago.

Buchshtov begins by saying she will do her utmost to bring Kirsht home.

"I do not wish upon any mother what we are suffering over the last 24 days," she says, adding that she is "really anxious" since seeing the video in which her daughter appears.

She says Kirsht wasn't wearing her glasses in the video and won't have been able to see.

Image source, Al Qassam

Image source, Reuters

The families of the hostages who appeared in the video released earlier by Hamas have just given a press conference.

Remus Aloni, father of Danielle Aloni seen in the video, said when he saw her picture on television, "my heart nearly stopped beating”.

He said he and his wife felt a sigh of relief that she was alive.

“We really want her to come back to us, so we can hug her,” he said.

Danielle's sister Sharon Aloni Konio and three of Remus Aloni's grandchildren were also taken hostage.

He goes on to say the Red Cross must not remain on the side-lines.

“They must demand to see all our hostages,” he says, adding two of his daughters need regular medication and without it their health could deteriorate.

He also goes on to urge the Emir of Qatar to “make every possible effort to bring them home”.

Netanyahu is asked by a member of the media gathered in Tel Aviv about Israel's position that its ground operation in Gaza will secure the release of hostages taken by Hamas.

He replies: "Our common assessment, of not only the cabinet members but all the security forces and the military, is that the ground action actually creates the possibility - not the certainty - of getting our hostages out, because Hamas will not do it unless they're under pressure."

"We're committed to getting all the hostages back home," Netanyahu adds.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes on to say he wants to make Israel’s position on a ceasefire clear.

“Just as the US would not agree to a ceasefire after the bombing of Pearl Harbour or after the terrorist attack of 9/11, Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the horrific attacks of 7 October,” he says.

"Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism," he says.

“The Bible says ‘there is a time for peace, and a time for war’,” he continues, “this is a time for a war”.

“A war for our common future. Today, we draw a line between the forces of civilisation and the forces of barbarism.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now giving a media briefing from Tel Aviv.

He says: "The horrors that Hamas perpetrated on 7 October remind us that we will not realise the promise of a better future unless the civilised world are willing to fight the barbarians."

"The barbarians are willing to fight us."

He says Israel did not start the war but will win it, and adds that Hamas is part of the "axis of evil" Iran is forming.