Israeli official insists there's no humanitarian crisis in Gazapublished at 11:33 Greenwich Mean Time 7 November 2023

11:33 GMT 7 November 2023

Paul Adams
Reporting from Israel

Image source, EPA

This morning, an Israeli official briefed journalists on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Col Elad Goren, from the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat), insisted there was no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

"I can say clearly that we are not remotely close to approaching the minimum levels that we are obligated under international law," he said.

On food, he said there were supplies inside Gaza "for weeks to come".

Water, he admitted was not at pre-war levels but was sufficient for humanitarian needs. Israel is supplying water through two lines, providing 28 million litres a day.

“Twenty-eight million litres for a population of 1.6 million, it’s more than enough,” he said, referring to the current estimated population of the southern Gaza Strip.

Col Goren said medical supplies were still sufficient and said that “all essential facilities”, including hospitals, still had access to power, including via solar panels.

I asked him whether there were any real safe areas in the south of the Gaza Strip.

He indicated that only al-Mawasi, an area of relatively open ground west of Khan Younis, could be considered properly safe.

Al-Mawasi is where Israel has been telling civilians to go to get access to humanitarian assistance. In other words, nowhere else in the south can actually be considered safe.

"Wherever Hamas will be, we will attack them," Col Goren said. "That is our position."

What happens after the war?published at 11:09 Greenwich Mean Time 7 November 2023

11:09 GMT 7 November 2023

Paul Adams
Reporting from Israel

Image source, Getty Images

Benjamin Netanyahu’s brief remark to ABC News that Israel “will have overall security responsibility” in Gaza for “an indefinite period” after the war ends marks the first time the Israeli prime minister has shed any public light on his longer term plans.

It comes at a time when questions are starting to be asked about what happens when – or perhaps if – Israel achieves its stated goal of eradicating Hamas in Gaza.

Amir Tibon, writing in the Ha’aretz – a newspaper ferociously critical of the Netanyahu government – reports American officials are concerned at the lack of an exit strategy.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked members of the government about it during his latest visit, Tibon writes, but received the impression “the matter has barely come up for discussion”.

It seems evident in the short term at least, the Israeli military will once again be policing the Gaza Strip, 18 years after it pulled out.

But, apart from the more extreme right-wing elements of the Netanyahu government - who would like to see Jewish settlers once again living in the Gaza Strip - there is little appetite in Israel for a permanent return to a place that has, in the view of most people, represented nothing but trouble.

Who ends up running Gaza for the long term - the Palestinian Authority, the UN, Arab peacekeepers - is, at the moment, anyone’s guess.

Image source, Wafa news agency

A Palestinian journalist has been killed alongside 42 members of his family by an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, his news agency reports.

The Palestinian agency Wafa says Mohammad Abu Hasira died near the fisherman's port to the west of the city.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, there have been 37 journalists and media workers killed in Israel and Gaza, external since the conflict began a month ago.

As we've reported, dozens of deaths have been reported after blasts in the southern Gaza Strip.

Health officials in Hamas-run Gaza say at least 23 people were killed in two separate Israeli air strikes in the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, Reuters is reporting.

Official Palestinian news agency Wafa says at least 12 were killed in Khan Younis, with 25 killed in Rafah.

The IDF has not commented, but has said its operation in Gaza continued overnight.

It's one month since Hamas launched its attacks on Israel on 7 October and, as we've reported, Israelis across the country are remembering the victims.

A minute's silence was observed at 11:00 local time. These photos show people gathering in Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv, where posters showing faces of hostages being held in Gaza were displayed.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

Abu Jihad, who lives in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, was sleeping when strikes hit the city overnight.

He says the area around him was destroyed, with people being pulled from under the rubble.

Reuters, quoting local authorities, say at least 23 people were killed in two separate overnight strikes in the southern Gazan cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.

Hundreds of thousands of Gazans have fled south after Israel warned them to leave the north. Israel Defense Forces have not commented on the strikes.

Abu says people there "are waiting for death".

"It will be better than living, we are waiting for death in each moment," he says. "It's a suspended death."

Some news just reaching us on cross-border fire in the north of Israel.

The IDF says a short time ago an Israeli military tank "attacked a terrorist squad" in Lebanon, which it says "tried to launch an anti-tank missile" towards the Shatula area.

Military spokesperson Daniel Hagari added on social media: "Earlier today IDF forces attacked a position of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, in order to remove a threat."

Cross-border fire between northern Israel and southern Lebanon has been frequent since 7 October. Both Hamas and Hezbollah say they are attacking Israel from Lebanon.

Gaza's 'safer' zones being attacked by Israelpublished at 09:31 Greenwich Mean Time 7 November 2023

09:31 GMT 7 November 2023

Jeremy Bowen
International editor, reporting from southern Israel

Israel is using very heavy bombs to destroy what it says are military targets, without being too bothered about the fact that sometimes large numbers of civilians are killed at the same time.

They get around the fact by saying they have warned civilians to evacuate through announcements and dropping leaflets from the air.

But, in the area the military has said is safer, which is the southern half of the Gaza Strip, they have raids there too.

Just last night, there was one on Rafah, which is the border city with Egypt where many Gazans are trying to flee, and we’ve heard that people don’t feel safe there either.

I think there is a mood in Israel now where people have hardened their hearts very considerably about what's taking place in Gaza.

I’ve spoken to many Israelis who say it’s unfortunate, but Hamas brought this on them, and it's them or us.

Image source, Cogat

Seventy trucks carrying international humanitarian aid have crossed into Gaza via the the Rafah border today, according to Cogat, a unit of the Israeli Ministry of Defence.

The trucks - containing medical supplies, food, and water - were inspected before entering from Egypt, Cogat said.

About 500 trucks a day entered Gaza before the war started. Some 1.2 million people living in the territory already relied on food aid, the UN says.

Image source, Rex Features

Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military's Arabic-language spokesman, says the IDF is again allowing "passage" for civilians leaving the north of Gaza for the south.

Posting on X, external, Adraee says the IDF is allowing a route on the Salah al-Din Road between 10:00 and 14:00 local time.

"For your safety, take this next opportunity to move south beyond Wadi Gaza," Adraee says.

He adds "many" are already using the route, posting video of groups of Palestinians.

The IDF first warned people in the north of Gaza to head south on 13 October.

Yolande Knell
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

It's 11:00 in Israel and many in the country are falling silent for a minute to remember the victims of the country’s deadliest ever day of attacks – exactly one month ago.

Families of the bereaved called for the initiative, asking people to wear black shirts and then sing the national anthem.

Memorial ceremonies are also taking place at schools and universities.

This is also a day when the families of some 240 people still held hostage in Gaza are raising their voices, demanding more be done to bring their loved ones home safely.

Image source, Noam Sagi

Noam Sagi's mother Ada Sagi was taken hostage from the Kibbutz Nir Oz on 7 October.

He has not heard anything about her whereabouts and believes she is being held deep inside a tunnel under Gaza.

"It is a month on and we live in a void," Noam tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Noam, who is British, says his mother - who has a lung condition and severe asthma - will be focusing on others.

"If she can, she will take care of the elderly and the kids," he says.

"It is hard to have a conversation talking about what is happening when nothing is happening.

"They have been sitting under the ground for a month. They are deteriorating by the day."

• You can read more here about the people taken hostage

What did Netanyahu mean by 'security responsibility' for Gaza?published at 08:26 Greenwich Mean Time 7 November 2023

08:26 GMT 7 November 2023

Jeremy Bowen
International editor, reporting from southern Israel

Image source, IDF via Reuters

As we've reported, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will have "security responsibility" for Gaza for an "indefinite period" after the war ends.

It’s hard to define what exactly he means - but it could be a sort of occupation that doesn’t include municipal responsibilities.

Security responsibility is a phrase that’s used in part of the West Bank, which is the other Palestinian territory.

Under the Oslo Accords - the first Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement from the 1990s - one of the agreed areas was that parts of the West Bank would be under Palestinian municipal control and Israeli security responsibility.

So in other words, the Israelis would come and go as they pleased in terms of enforcing the law and maintaining order, but the more mundane, workaday tasks like collecting rubbish and running the schools, would be done by the Palestinians.

However, to do that, there must be a Palestinian body that is prepared to work with the Israelis.

After everything that has been happening, I think the chances are that any Palestinian who tried to do that would be regarded as a quisling.

I do think that - while this might be a sort of vague aspiration for Israe - the fact is that they are going to be in a very difficult position.

They are now stuck with Gaza, will have to deal with it, and it probably will involve some sort of occupation.

Another group of foreign nationals are due to leave Gaza today via the Rafah crossing into Egypt.

Around 600 foreign passport holders are on a new list published by the General Authority for Crossings and Borders - including two UK foreign nationals.

The list also includes people from Germany, Romania, France, Philippines, Ukraine, Canada and Moldova.

The Rafah crossing opened for some foreign passport holders and injured Palestinians on 1 November after being closed for more than three weeks. It closed again on Saturday, and reopened on Monday.

As reported by Reuters, health officials in Hamas-run Gaza say at least 23 people were killed in two separate Israeli air strikes in Rafah and Khan Younis - both cities in southern Gaza.

The IDF has not confirmed the strikes.

We've just had these pictures from Khan Younis this morning.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

As we've just reported, Israel's military operation in Gaza is continuing. Since 13 October, it has warned Gazans to leave the north - leading to hundreds of thousands of displaced people heading south.

"Our Unrwa shelters are really overflowing with people," the director of communications at the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees tells the BBC's Newsday programme.

Juliette Touma says the shelters - often repurposed schools - are "holding four times more the capacity that they were planned to do".

In an update on Sunday, , externalthe organisation said nearly half of the 1.5m people displaced since the war began - 717,000 people - are sheltering in 149 Unrwa sites.

The Israel Defense Forces has just given its morning update. It says:

• IDF troops took control of a Hamas stronghold in the northern Gaza Strip, and located anti-tank missiles and launchers, weapons, and intelligence materials
• Israeli naval forces struck Hamas targets including "posts containing technological assets"
• IDF troops located Hamas fighters in a building near the Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City - an air strike led to "significant secondary explosions" that indicated the presence of a "Hamas weapons depot in a civilian area", Israel says

Although the IDF didn't mention it, we're getting pictures of the aftermath of an apparent air strike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip - we'll bring you those soon.

As a reminder, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more more than 10,000 people have been killed since Israel began its operation on 7 October, following the Hamas attacks.

Image source, Reuters

As we've been reporting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will have "security responsibility" for Gaza after the fighting ends.

Here's a reminder of his key quotes from his interview with ABC in the US:

• "Israel will, for an indefinite period, will have the overall security responsibility. When we don't have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn't imagine"
• "There will be no ceasefire - general ceasefire - in Gaza, without the release of our hostages. As far as tactical, little pauses - an hour here, an hour there - we've had them before. I suppose we'll check the circumstances in order to enable goods --humanitarian goods - to come in or our hostages, individual hostages, to leave"

As a reminder, Israel withdrew troops from Gaza in 2005 after 38 years there.

Image source, EPA

Crowds gathered at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City last night to mark one month since Hamas launched its attack on Israel - killing 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostage.

People lit 1,400 candles, and the faces of some 240 hostages still being held in Gaza were projected onto the city's walls.

Image source, Getty Images

The Israeli military has not released details of its overnight operation in Gaza, but explosions were reported across the Strip, including in southern Khan Younis.

The first two pictures show Israeli flares over Gaza. Flares can be used for a number of reasons - including to illuminate targets.

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

Image source, Reuters