Dual citizens and foreign passport-holders in Gaza have been travelling to the south of the Strip, as they wait to find their name on a list that would enable them to leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

As we've been reporting, a list of approved departures has been released for Friday.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Jeremy Bowen
Reporting from Jerusalem

There are several different theories about what Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, might say in his speech this afternoon.

He could say things just to keep the pot boiling, or might lay out some red lines for Israel, warning them to watch themselves. But what Israelis fear most is he could say “we’ve just pressed the button and missiles are heading your way.”

Hezbollah is significantly more powerful than Hamas. One popular estimate is that they have about 150,000 missiles and rockets of different kinds, mostly provided by Iran, that they could aim at Israel.

Nasrallah’s speech has actually been previewed on social media channels with a slickly produced promo, where a probable body double, with a beard, is seen wearing a turban and a large ring.

The ring is very similar to the ring that Qassem Soleimani, a leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, used to wear, and when he was assassinated by the Americans in 2020, his body was only identified by the ring on his hand. So everybody in the region will pick up that particular cue, and that will make Israel genuinely concerned about what Hezbollah is capable of doing.

Image source, @IsraeliPM

The office of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has posted pictures of the meeting between the Israeli PM and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

It posted on X, external: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now holding a private meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, at the Kirya in Tel Aviv.

"They will also meet with the members of the War Cabinet."

Blinken is on his third visit to the country since the deadly Hamas attacks on 7 October.

Image source, @IsraeliPM

Dr Abdelkadar Hammad is a doctor from the Royal Liverpool University Hospital and reached Cairo this morning ago after crossing from Rafah on Thursday.

Speaking to the BBC, Dr Hammad said that it had been very difficult over the past four weeks: "At one stage we were 20-25 sharing one room."

He said that he had left as part a group, as internationals, and "it was big relief for everyone being able to leave that terrible situation to safety in Cairo".

He told the BBC that people were fighting for food and water in Gaza.

"One morning we woke up to screams from one of the families in the rooms next to us, they received a message saying their daughter had been killed by an airstrike in Gaza. Her father, said ‘that’s our fate, what can we do, all the world has abandoned us.’

"I have a heavy heart about what I left in Gaza, about my patients, my colleagues. They are running out of medication now."

Dr Hammad also said that he developed a bond with Gaza, where he had been saving lives and making life better for patients. "Unfortunately what has been happening is heart-breaking," he added.

Image source, Reuters

Survivors from kibbutz Be'eri - where more than 100 residents were killed when Hamas rampaged through the community on 7 October - have been recuperating and undergoing therapy at a resort on Israel's Dead Sea.

Ayelet Hakim, whose sister Ran Ben Ami and brother-in-law Ohad Ben Ami were taken hostage and are being held in Gaza, says "we have no place to go back to, we have nothing of our own" - but they are relying on donations from "very good people who take care of us".

Speaking from the resort, where evacuees are offered counselling and therapy funded by aid groups and Israel, Hakim says: "I will go back to Be’eri. I will live there until I die. And I will rebuild my home, rebuild my family where I was born, because that’s my home. There’s no other home for me in the world anywhere."

Yulie Ben Ami, the daughter of Ohad and Raz, says she still wants to believe her parents are alive - "but it’s becoming difficult everyday".

• You can read more about the 242 people who are being held captive by Hamas here.

Battles in five areas between Israel and Hamaspublished at 08:41 Greenwich Mean Time 3 November 2023

08:41 GMT 3 November 2023

Rushdi Abu Alouf
Reporting from Gaza

The fighting this morning is in five different areas in Gaza City and the north, where the Israeli ground operation was expanding yesterday, and the west Gaza is where the biggest incursion is.

The Israeli army is engaging with gunfire from air, sea and land with the Hamas militants.

Hamas issued statements yesterday that they were fighting the Israeli army using anti-tank missiles.

The air strikes continued overnight especially around Al-Quds Hospital near Gaza City where about 14,000 people are taking shelter in the hospital.

The hospital said eight people were connected to life saving machines and it was impossible to move them because most roads around the hospital were damaged, and heavy fighting with Hamas was happening about 500m away from the hospital.

Israel is in control of both roads - the main exits to Gaza in the north and the coastal road - so exit out of Gaza is extremely difficult, people are risking their lives to leave to the south.

Two thirds of the population are getting some sort of aid from Egypt in the south - about 300 lorries and another 100 are expected today - though the humanitarian situation is worse for those in the north.

About 700,000 people in Gaza are with no access to electricity, water or internet. Everything is down.

UK Security Minister Tom Tugendhat has been explaining more about the Gaza departure list, which has been released for Friday.

He tells BBC Breakfast it is a list of people who've been approved to cross out of Gaza as soon as possible - agreed by the Egyptian and Israeli governments, and in terms of UK nationals, validated by the UK government to include British citizens, or "dependant or entitled people".

The minister stresses that "what we're very cautious about doing is giving a firm number about who's going to be able to cross today, because we neither control the border, nor do we control what's going on inside Gaza".

"So what we don't want to do is give false hope or false belief to individuals that they'll be able to cross today."

He adds the UK government is working hard to make sure British citizens can leave Gaza as soon as possible.

It's just gone 10am in Israel and Gaza and here are the latest developments from the region:

• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Israel, his third visit to the country since the deadly Hamas attacks on 7 October. He is meeting Benjamin Netanyahu and will focus on "concrete steps" to minimise harm to civilians in the Gaza Strip
• Israel’s military has declared it had “completed the encirclement of Gaza City”
• Rafah crossing will be opened for the third time today since Wednesday for the evacuation of dual nationals. There are 127 people listed in the UK section, with almost 100 noted as British, some as Palestinian or Irish dependants

• Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 9,000 people have been killed in Gaza Strip since Israel launched its retaliatory strikes
• Thousands of Gazans working in Israel are being sent back to Gaza, their work permits revoked, the Israeli government said

• Palestinian medical sources told Reuters that eight Palestinians were killed in the West Bank overnight
• 242 people including women, children and the elderly are being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

Image source, Reuters

The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this morning, after touching down in Israel a short time ago.

Speaking to reporters in Washington ahead of the trip, he said discussions with Israel would include "concrete steps" to minimise the harm to civilians in Gaza.

We will bring you more as soon as we have it.

There are reports that thousands of cross-border Gazan workers and labourers in Israel and the West Bank have been sent back to Gaza.

As we reported earlier, the Israeli government announced that there would be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza.

Thousands of Gazans received permits from Israeli authorities to work outside the area before the deadly Hamas attacks on 7 October.

Witnesses told Reuters on Friday that some of the Gazan workers had been returned through the Kerem Shalom crossing, a commercial goods junction with Israel in southern Gaza.

More news has been emerging from the occupied West Bank about what Reuters is calling a number of separate incidents.

Palestinian medical sources told the news agency on Friday that eight Palestinians were killed there overnight. One of them died of wounds from a previous incident, it said.

The West Bank is run by the Palestinian Authority and is separate from the Hamas-run Gaza.

Anthony Zurcher
Travelling with the US secretary of state

Antony Blinken has arrived in Tel Aviv and has a full day scheduled with Israeli leaders.

Unlike most international journeys by the US secretary of state, which are heavily scripted and meticulously planned in advance, this trip has the feel of a diplomatic team working things out, quite literally, on the fly.

His morning begins with a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu. On the secretary’s last visit, his talks with the Israeli prime minister stretched for seven hours. Today, the Americans’ itinerary is much tighter.

After an hour with Netanyahu, Blinken visits the Israeli war cabinet and then Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

He will next talk with those of us in the press and, perhaps, recount what - if anything - he has accomplished.

The Americans are hoping these meetings will result in more progress in allowing humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.

Israel’s Arab neighbours are becoming increasingly outspoken in their condemnations of Israel’s ground campaign against Hamas.

After today’s Israeli meetings, the secretary heads to Jordan, where he will hear from some of those Arab leaders directly.

The horizon for determining where the secretary goes next from here is measured in hours - and entirely depends on where the Americans determine his diplomatic efforts would be most productive.

The goals for the US, however, are straightforward. To continue to demonstrate support for Israel, to make visible and effective efforts to limit a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. And to prevent the Israeli-Hamas war from embroiling the entire region in a growing conflict.

The list of approved departures out of Gaza through the Rafah crossing has been published for Friday.

The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened yesterday for the second time - allowing a limited number of civilians and foreign nationals to leave the strip.

We don't yet know the full breakdown of nationalities - but we can report there are 127 people listed in the UK section, with almost 100 noted as British, some as Palestinian or Irish dependants.

We'll bring you more on this as soon as we have it.

You can read more about the Rafah crossing and why it is important for Gaza here.

Image source, Reuters

As we've reported, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is making his third visit to Israel since Hamas launched a series of deadly attacks on the country on 7 October and Israel began it's retaliatory offensive in Gaza.

His trip will focus on measures to minimise harm to civilians in the Gaza Strip.

Ahead of his departure, Blinken said he would seek "concrete measures" from Israel to ensure that harm to Palestinian civilians is reduced, as US President Joe Biden also called for humanitarian pauses in the conflict.

Blinken will also hold talks in Jordan.

It comes as Israel said on Thursday evening its army had completely encircled Gaza City and was engaging in face-to-face battles with Hamas fighters.

We've just heard that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Israel - where he is expected to hold discussions with the Israeli government.

Yolande Knell
BBC Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

Israel’s military sees Gaza City as a main focus of its offensive aiming to dismantle Hamas. However, further advances look set to involve gruelling urban warfare and are complicated by the presence of many thousands of civilians and some 240 hostages held by Hamas.

A spokesman for the Hamas military wing warned Israel that its soldiers would go home “in black bags”.

The US has promised full support and increased military aid to Israel for its attacks in Gaza, but there’s also been a shift in tone.

As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken left for the Middle East, he said he’d talk about “concrete steps” to minimise harm to civilians.

The White House has proposed a series of localised pauses in fighting to allow aid to be delivered to Gaza or to carry out evacuations. It has stressed these would fall well short of a ceasefire, which it believes would benefit Hamas.

Gazans working in Israel will be sent back to the besieged enclave, the Israeli government has announced.

“Israel is severing all contact with Gaza. There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza. Those workers from Gaza who were in Israel on the day of the outbreak of the war will be returned to Gaza,” a post from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on X, formerly Twitter, read.

Israel’s security cabinet also agreed to “deduct all funds designated for the Gaza Strip… from Palestinian Authority [PA] funds”. The PA has control over areas of the occupied West Bank, but not the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

Some 18,500 Palestinians from Gaza had received permits to enter Israel before the deadly 7 October attack by Hamas militants, according to Cogat, the Israeli defence body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs.

Since then, Israel has launched a retaliatory bombardment of the Strip. More than 9,000 people have been killed here, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Image source, epa

Day has broken over Gaza City and along with the birdsong comes the boom of powerful explosions and whine of drones, as we can hear from a live video feed.

Counter-insurgency expert David Kilcullen has told BBC's Newsday programme that Israeli forces are trying to “bite off a chunk of the northern Gaza Strip in order to isolate some of the heavier Hamas concentrations” and fight them at close quarters.

“It's pretty clear that the Israeli objective is for civilians to leave the area, so that it would only be Hamas fighters remaining. And then it would become, if you like, a sort of... Mosul-style battle in those ruins,” he said, referring to the war with the Islamic State group in Iraq in 2016-17. There would probably still be a “heavy civilian presence” if and when that happened, he added.

Kilcullen - who was a senior adviser to the US military during the Iraq war - said Israel's military was carrying out its operation “in stages” with the first step being the “encirclement” of northern Gaza.

Speaking about the possibility of Hezbollah - which is backed by Iran - joining the conflict, Kilcullen said the Shia Islamist group seemed to be "holding back”.

“Now, whether that's through co-ordination with Hamas or Iran or whether it's to do with their own concerns is a bit unclear,” he told Newsday.

“But one of the things that people are very worried about is that once the Israelis are fully committed to a ground invasion of Gaza, you might then see Hezbollah opening a second front in the north,” the counter-insurgency expert added.

Israel's military has announced the deaths of four more soldiers taking part in the ground offensive in Gaza.

That brings the total number of soldiers killed fighting in Gaza to 23, Haaretz newspaper reports.

Image source, The Seddiq Law Firm

Folla Saqer and her two children are still trapped in Gaza.

Her husband, Ramiz Younis, is in Arkansas anxiously waiting for news.

The children - Zain, two, and Zaina, nine months - are American citizens, but their mother is a permanent legal resident.

The children are on the list published by Gaza's border authority approved to cross into neighbouring Egypt on Thursday, along with some 500 other foreigners, including 400 Americans.

Saqer - whose name is not on the list - attempted to pass through the Rafah crossing on Thursday morning but was denied, according to Justin Eisele, a lawyer for the family. Unable to cross, "she elected to not hand her babies to a stranger".

Eisele told the BBC no reason was provided, but "based on comparing notes with other people", her immigration status - a permanent resident, but not a citizen - "seems to be the distinction".

"Before we give Israel $15bn, could we take a minute to organise a mother crossing the border with her children?" he asked. "You can ship rockets that can level a building but you can't organise a simple border crossing with two of our allegedly strongest allies?"

In a statement to the BBC, the US state department declined to say why Saqer had been unable to pass through the Rafah crossing.

"It has been a top priority for us to get Rafah open not just for trucks coming in, but for US citizens and other foreign nationals coming out," a spokesperson said. "We expect exits to continue over the next several days. We will not stop working to get US citizens and their family members out as safely as possible."

Read more on the anxious wait to get out of Gaza.