Hugo Bachega
Reporting from Lebanon

Image source, EPA

Many in Lebanon will be breathing a sigh of relief after the much-anticipated speech by the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, amid intense cross-border clashes between the group and the Israeli military.

In his first public address since the Israel-Hamas war started, he said all options were on the table and that the only way to prevent a regional war was to stop the conflict in Gaza. But, notably, there was no announcement of any major immediate escalation - he said Hezbollah was already doing enough by keeping Israeli forces busy along the Lebanon-Israel border.

The group organised public screenings of the speech in several location across the country. The largest site was in southern Beirut, the group’s stronghold, where thousands of people gathered. Many carried Hezbollah and Palestinian flags and posters with Nasrallah’s face. Some waved the flag of Iran, Hezbollah’s main supporter.

When Nasrallah appeared on the screen, the crowd erupted chanting: “We answer your call, Nasrallah”. The speech was, unsurprisingly, rich in its anti-Israeli and anti-American rhetoric.

Before Nasrallah spoke, 52-year-old Ahmed said: “We’re on the side of the Palestinians – in war and peace. We don’t want war but if that’s what happens, we’ll be ready for it.

Nagham, who is 20, said she had attended the event to show her support for the Palestinians. “Hamas is fighting against injustice. We’re not afraid. War will happen, it’s inevitable.”

Hadi, 41, said: “Whatever Nasrallah asks us to do, we’ll do. We trust his decisions.”

Matt Murphy
Live reporter, in Washington DC

Image source, Getty Images

The US has confirmed for the first time that it has been flying unarmed surveillance drones over the Gaza Strip since Hamas launched its attack on Israel on 7 October.

Pentagon Spokesperson Brig Gen Pat Ryder said in a statement that the drones were operating in "support of hostage recovery efforts".

"The US is conducting unarmed UAV flights over Gaza, as well as providing advice and assistance to support our Israeli partner as they work on their hostage recovery efforts," the statement said.

"These UAV flights began after the Oct 7 attack by Hamas on Israel.”

The confirmation comes after MQ-9 Reapers usually operated by US special forces were spotted circling Gaza on Flightradar24, a publicly-accessible flight-tracking website, by reporters.

Reaper drones have previously been used to conduct airstrikes in Afghanistan, but are primarily used as surveillance drones due to their ability to "loiter" above an area for more than 20 hours at a time.

Three things that struck me from Hezbollah leader's speechpublished at 19:34 Greenwich Mean Time 3 November 2023

19:34 GMT 3 November 2023

Frank Gardner
Security correspondent

Listening to Hezbollah's leader speak earlier, one of the things that struck me was him saying Hamas's 7 October attacks were "100% Palestinian".

The wording of Hassan Nasrallah's speech was very careful - it is praising that attack, but saying that it was entirely the work of the Palestinians.

In other words, he was distancing himself from the suspicion held in some quarters that Iran was secretly behind the 7 October attacks.

The other things that stood out was him saying it exposed the weakness of Israel's defence. I have to say, he's right on that one: This was the biggest security defence and intelligence failure in 50 years in Israeli history.

And the third thing that struck me was Nasrallah praising the attacks by militias in Iraq and Syria - Iranian-supported militias - on US bases.

And that's one of the areas where it's feared that this whole situation could spin out of control, because the US has already warned Iran to rein in those militias, to stop attacking isolated US bases that are primarily fighting the Islamic State group, but have been coming under drone attack.

The head of the World Health Organization has said he is "utterly shocked" by the reported blast outside Al-Shifa hospital, in Gaza City.

Posting on X, formerly Twitter, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there have been "deaths, injuries and damage" as a result, adding:

Earlier, Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said "several citizens were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike at the entrance to Al-Shifa hospital".

The Israeli military has since said it hit an ambulance "being used by a Hamas terrorist cell", but didn't clarify if it was outside Al-Shifa.

It said it intended to release more information on the incident.

Israel has vowed there will be no ceasefire until Hamas is dismantled.

In the last few minutes, the Israeli military has said one of its aircraft hit an ambulance in Gaza.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its soldiers had assessed that the vehicle was being "used by a Hamas terrorist cell" and that a number of Hamas operatives were killed in the strike.

"We emphasise that this area is a battle zone," the statement reads. "Civilians in the area are repeatedly called upon to evacuate southwards for their own safety."

The IDF said it intended to release more information on the incident.

"We have information which demonstrates that Hamas's method of operation is to transfer terror operatives and weapons in ambulances."

Earlier, there were reports of a blast outside Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Footage, verified by our colleagues at BBC Verify, shows a damaged ambulance and a number of injured people lying outside the hospital.

The IDF does not make clear in its statement whether it's talking about the same incident.

Footage shows injured people lying outside Gaza hospitalpublished at 18:02 Greenwich Mean Time 3 November 2023

18:02 GMT 3 November 2023

Image source, Reuters

A littler earlier we said we'd seen reports of a blast outside Gaza City's largest hospital, Al-Shifa.

BBC Verify has now verified a number of videos, showing badly injured people lying outside the hospital in the street.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says a convoy of ambulances was hit by Israeli strikes at the gate of the hospital. The Israeli military is cited by Reuters news agency as saying it's looking into the incident.

BBC Verify has studied three videos - one of which is very graphic - and established that they were filmed outside Al-Shifa and were uploaded this afternoon. In one video, there are people filmed lying in pools of blood in the road next to vehicles - some are severely injured and some are not moving.

Across the three videos, we counted around 20 injured or possibly dead people. There is no crater visible in the footage we've seen so far, and no debris or shrapnel visible.

There's damage to the front of an ambulance and some cars on the road have smashed windows. BBC Verify is showing the footage to weapons experts and asking them for their assessment of what may have caused this.

France's foreign ministry says the French Institute in Gaza has been "targeted" by an Israeli air strike.

In a statement posted on X, external, the foreign ministry said it had been informed by the Israeli authorities that the institute - which promotes French culture overseas - had been hit. They said they've urged Israel to provide "tangible" reasons for the strike "without delay".

No staff members were present at the French Institute when it was hit, according to the statement.

Separately, French news agency Agence-France Presse also reported that its offices in Gaza had been bombed.

In a statement, external, AFP said it condemned the strike, which it said happened on Thursday, in the "strongest possible terms", and urged more protection for journalists covering the violence in the Palestinian enclave.

Israel’s forces say they are targeting the web of tunnels built by Hamas beneath Gaza City and the wider Gaza Strip.

They say the tunnels are used as hideouts for Hamas to plan operations against Israel and for their fighters to launch hit-and-run attacks on Israeli ground troops currently in Gaza.

The tunnels are reported to stretch for hundreds of miles and can be up to 80m (260ft) below the surface - sometimes accessed by ropes or ladders.

While some are tightly-built corridors, lined with concrete, there are also reported to be chambers which are used as weapons-making workshops, command posts and storage facilities.

One of the Israeli hostages released by Hamas said she had been held in an underground room.

Image source, .

White House and Israel will have been watching Hezbollah speech closelypublished at 16:59 Greenwich Mean Time 3 November 2023

16:59 GMT 3 November 2023

Orla Guerin
Reporting from Beirut

Thousands of Hezbollah supporters here in Beirut were hanging on his every word but Hassan Nasrallah's speech earlier today will also have been carefully followed in Tel Aviv and in the White House.

After the bloodletting of the past month, the Middle East is now a tinder box, and there are fears of a wider regional war.

In his carefully calibrated statement, the Hezbollah leader said that such a war was a possibility and he warned “the enemy must keep that in mind". The situation, he said, could escalate militarily “at any time”, depending on developments in Gaza, and Israel’s approach to Lebanon.

It seems clear that Hezbollah will keep up its cross-border attacks, tying down as many Israeli forces as possible. But for now, it is leaving the fight inside Gaza to Hamas.

Victoria Bourne
BBC News

Image source, AFP

As we reported earlier, some 100 British nationals are on the list of people who have been allowed to leave Gaza through Egypt's Rafah Crossing today.

But the BBC is aware of at least 19 people named on the UK list of foreign nationals permitted to leave Gaza today who are unable to do so.

Three family groups have said they are located in the north of Gaza but it is too dangerous to travel to the south where the Rafah crossing is located.

Ali Abbas Ahmadi
Live reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Thirty-year-old "Sarah" - not her real name - is from Alma al-Shaab, a predominantly Christian Lebanese village along the Israeli border.

Speaking to the BBC from Beirut, she says her family fled the village from the continuous rockets exchanged by Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and Israel, which intensified after Hamas’s 7 October attacks on Israel.

Leaving her home was a “difficult and frightening decision”, she says, but necessary because of the “relentless bombings".

Sarah’s family initially hoped they would return in a few days - it has now been weeks. Her parents go to the village every few days to check on their house, she says, but always return to the relative safety of Beirut.

The fears of an escalation bring back "vivid and painful memories” of 2006, says Sarah, who was a 13-year-old in the village when a full-blown war broke out between Hezbollah and Israel. She says she “can't help but feel a surge of fear and anxiety” when she hears loud noises, which forced her to leave along with her family.

"The collective trauma of the past conflicts has left a lasting mark on our community, and the fear of violence resurfacing is a daily concern.”

Image source, PA Media

The mother of the wife of Scotland's First Minister, Humza Yousaf, has spoken to the BBC about leaving Gaza and the ordeal of being trapped there.

On a coach to Cairo after being allowed to leave the enclave with her husband Maged, Elizabeth El-Nakla told BBC reporter Patrick Clahane: “We are completely exhausted as we haven’t slept properly for the past 27 days.

"The past few days have been particularly traumatic. We don’t really know what’s been going on in the outside world as there’s been no internet, electricity, clean water and food has been difficult to get.”

She said they went to Gaza to visit her mother-in-law who had a stroke in March but has now recovered. They were planning on staying for five weeks, returning in November, but “after four days of arriving in Gaza everything started and we weren’t able to get out”.

She said that leaving today has been “incredibly hard as they are leaving their family behind”. She said she is worried about her son who is working all hours in the A&E department in Nasser hospital in southern Gaza.

No clear breakthrough on humanitarian pauses after Blinken's trip to Israelpublished at 16:28 Greenwich Mean Time 3 November 2023

16:28 GMT 3 November 2023

Paul Adams
Diplomatic correspondent in Jerusalem

Since launching Israel’s response to the massacres of 7 October, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected all talk of a ceasefire. There was no change today.

What the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, is trying to achieve is something much more modest: Brief humanitarian pauses, designed to facilitate the delivery of aid and create conditions that might result in the release of hostages.

But Israel wants to make sure that Hamas cannot take advantage of any break in the fighting, and it was clear from Blinken’s remarks that Israel has yet to agree to any kind of pause.

Blinken said the problem could be solved, but indicated it could take time.

In the meantime, there was clear disagreement on another issue of vital importance to the UN - fuel.

“We have recognised mechanisms to enable fuel to reach hospitals and other needs in the south,” Blinken told reporters.

But in his own remarks, delivered at almost the same time, Netanyahu was adamant: Israel will not allow any fuel into the Gaza Strip.

We're seeing reports of a blast outside Gaza City's largest hospital, Al-Shifa.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society - which operates at the hospital - shared a photo of a damaged ambulance outside the hospital. It said ambulance vehicles were on their way back from the Rafah border in southern Gaza, where they had dropped injured Palestinians, when they say they were hit.

Palestinian media are reporting Gaza's health ministry as saying people have been killed and injured in the blast.

The Israel Defense Forces are looking into the report, Reuters news agency reports.

The BBC can't independently confirm what's happened but we are working to verify these reports.

Orla Guerin
Reporting from Beirut

Hezbollah has been upping the pressure on Israeli forces along the Lebanon-Israel border, with a serious escalation in attacks. But Hamas wants more from its ally.

Both organisations are Iranian-backed and classed as terrorist groups by the UK and the US.

At times, the fiery Hezbollah leader sounded almost defensive about what his fighters have done so far.

“What’s taking place on our front is very important and significant,“ he told a cheering and segregated crown, sitting under a hot Sun.

“Those who claim that Hezbollah should engage swiftly in an all-out war with the enemy might see what is taking place on the border as minimal. But if you look objectively we will find it sizeable. “

Predictably he left the door open for a further escalation.

“I assure you this will not be the end”, he said, “this will not be sufficient".

Image source, Getty Images

It's just gone 16:00 here in London and 18:00 in Israel and Gaza. Here's a recap of what's been happening today:

• Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there would be no temporary ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza until Israeli hostages are released
• He was speaking after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated US calls for "humanitarian pauses" to help allow aid into the besieged Gaza Strip

• A spokesman for Israel's military said they are on "very high alert" along Israel's northern border with Lebanon
• Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanese Shia Islamist group Hezbollah, praised Hamas' attacks on Israel on 7 October during a speech. But he did not declare for all-out war on Israel

• After visiting Israel, Blinken is expected to hold talks in Jordan, as part of efforts to stop the conflict spreading across the region
• About 100 British nationals are on the list of people who have been allowed to leave Gaza through the Rafah Crossing today

No declaration of all-out war on Israel from Hezbollah's leaderpublished at 15:21 Greenwich Mean Time 3 November 2023

15:21 GMT 3 November 2023

Orla Guerin
BBC international correspondent in Lebanon

When the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, finally spoke about the latest Israel-Gaza war, after a month of silence, what he did not say mattered as much as what he did say.

There was no declaration of all-out war on Israel. Few here had expected one.

Nasrallah knows there’s little appetite in Lebanon for another war with Israel. This country has troubles a plenty. The economy is in ruins and the political system, such as it is, is in a state of collapse.

And the two American aircraft carriers recently deployed to the Mediterranean sea may also be a powerful deterrent.

Image source, Getty Images

US surveillance drones are flying over Gaza to help search for hostages taken at the outset of fighting between Hamas and Israel on 7 October, according to US officials.

Citing two anonymous US officials, Reuters has reported that the drone flights have been taking place for over a week.

Two US officials confirmed the flights to CBS, the BBC's US partner.

A separate report from the New York Times said that the drones - unarmed MQ-9 Reapers - have mostly been operating in southern Gaza.

At least some of the flights have been spotted on Flightradar24, a publicly accessible flight-tracking website.

MQ-9 Reaper drones have been widely used by the US military in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria and are also utilised by the Royal Air Force and Italian military.

Israel does not use them and produces its own domestically manufactured drones.

Patrick Clahane
BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

A little earlier, the BBC spoke to Tamer Abu-Foul, who is at the Gaza-Egypt border and waiting to hear if his family of 16 can all get through - first to Egypt and then home to Birmingham.

He said: “We are still in Egyptian customs we have had 13 passports stamped but we are still waiting for three to come back."

This morning 12 of the family members names were published on a list of British citizens allowed to cross through at Rafah.

But four of their group were not on the list - two women and two young children. So far, they’ve all managed to stay together.

Tamer said: “I can’t tell you how exhausted we all are. We are completely sleep deprived and feel mentally ill. We are still in shock over what we have all gone through.

Over the past few weeks they’ve been sheltering from bombs in basements and have struggled to find clean water and food. But today has been different.

“We have been treated very well by the authorities here and have been given food and water.

“We are managing this difficult situation together well. We are very hopeful that we will all go through to Egypt today.”

Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has rejected calls for a temporary ceasefire in the conflict with Hamas.

Speaking during a televised address, Netanyahu said he would not agree to such a move until the hostages Hamas took during its attack on Israel on 7 October were released.

He was speaking moments after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated calls for "humanitarian pauses" in the conflict to allow for more aid into Gaza. Blinken also said such pauses could create a "better environment in which hostages can be released".

Blinken said the details of how the pauses would work were being "ironed out" and that Israel had "legitimate questions" about how they would work.

But Netanyahu said: "Israel refuses a temporary ceasefire that does not include the return of our hostages."

While formal ceasefires are usually longer-term arrangements that allow parties to engage in dialogue, humanitarian pauses can last as little as a few hours.