Israel says its troops are in "the heart of Khan Younis" after bombarding the southern city overnight
The Israeli military report "the most intense day" of fighting since their ground operation began in late October
The resumption of fighting has intensified the hunger crisis in Gaza, the UN Food Programme says
According to the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, the "pulverising" of Gaza ranks "among the worst assaults on any civilian population in our time and age"
The BBC has seen evidence of rape, sexual violence and mutilation of women during the 7 October Hamas attacks
The Hamas attack on southern Israel on 7 October killed 1,200 people, with around 240 others taken hostage
Hamas officials in Gaza say at least 16,248 people have been killed in Israel's retaliatory campaign, including about 7,000 children
Israel says it has carried out "approximately 10,000 air strikes" in Gaza since the beginning of the war.
In a statement, the Israeli military says the cooperation between ground forces and the air force "is one of the most prominent elements in the IDF’s [Israel Defense Forces'] ground operation in the Gaza Strip".
Hugo Bachega
Reporting from Jerusalem
Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, is one of the main targets of the renewed Israeli offensive against Hamas in territory. Israeli authorities believe members of the Hamas leadership are hiding in the city, where hundreds of thousands of people have been sheltering after fleeing fighting in the north in the early stages of the war.
This morning, the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for several districts of the city, urging people to leave immediately.
Mohammed Ghalayini, a British-Palestinian who has stayed in Gaza, said the situation in the city was “beyond catastrophic”.
Image source, Handout“People have been, for 50 days or more, withstanding brutal Israeli onslaught and are very low on all resources - food, water, power and the sanitation and the waste services,” he told me by phone, before our connection cut off.
The air pollution expert, who normally lives in Manchester, arrived in Gaza for a three-month visit to see his mother shortly before the 7 October attacks.
Israel says it has taken measures to protect the civilian population, as it resumes its bombardment of Gaza after a ceasefire collapsed.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says 15,523 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war.
In a news conference, Dr Ashraf Al-Qudra said 41,316 Palestinians have been also been injured since 7 October.
The UN's refugee chief has described the situation for civilians in Gaza as a "displacement crisis".
Speaking to the BBC from the UN's COP28 climate conference in Dubai, Filippo Grandi says Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are being "pushed more and more towards a narrow corner of what is already a very narrow territory".
He also says it was devastating to see the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas collapse on Friday, and expresses hope the truce can resume.
Grandi adds that it is also important to think of what will happen once the war ends. "We need to think of how can serious peace discussions resume after years of neglect."
The Israeli government spokesperson, Eylon Levy, has given a press conference on the latest updates on the Israeli army’s operation in Gaza.
“Since the start of the war the IDF has located 800 shafts and destroyed 500 of them, in addition to many miles of tunnel roads under civilian areas,” Levy said.
He also said an anti-tank missile was launched towards an IDF vehicle in northern Israel and "several IDF soldiers sustained light injuries".
James Elder, from the UN children's agency Unicef, has been describing the situation in a hospital in southern Gaza, as Israel continues its bombardment in the region.
Speaking to the BBC, he says bombing has been "relentless" with "big bombs consistently" falling all in different parts of the south.
He was at the Nasser Medical Hospital earlier today, and calls it "a warzone" with a "degree of panic" he's not seen before.
Elder says multiple children were arriving with “head injuries, with terrible burns, with shrapnel from blasts that had occurred in the last, I guess, half an hour".
Quote MessageIt’s a hospital I’ve gone to regularly and the children know me now, the families know me now. Those same people are grabbing my hand, or grabbing my shirt saying 'please take us somewhere safe. Where is safe?'
Quote MessageThey are unfortunately asking a question to which the only answer is there is nowhere safe. And that includes for them, as they know, that hospital."
"This is not a place where children can recover, it's even not a place for children," he says.
Image source, Getty ImagesFor anyone who's still getting their head around the fast-moving events of the last week, here's a brief summary:
A week-long ceasefire ran from 24 November to 1 December, during which Hamas released 110 hostages and Israel released 240 Palestinian prisoners.
After negotiations failed to extend the deal, the truce broke down on Friday and fighting resumed in the early hours.
An hour before the ceasefire was due to end, Israel said sirens were sounding for communities close to the Gaza Strip - it then said it had intercepted a rocket fired from the enclave. An hour later, Israel's military said fighting had begun again, with Israel and Hamas each blaming one other.
By Saturday, it appeared that Israeli forces were shifting their focus to the southern Gaza Strip - where they had initially asked Palestinians in the north to move to.
Talks to resume the ceasefire collapsed by the afternoon, leading to Israel pulling its negotiators out of Qatar.
Around 200 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting resumed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza. The ministry also says Israeli attacks have killed more than 15,000 people - including around 6,000 children.
Israel's bombardment of Gaza began following Hamas's 7 October attacks, when they killed around 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostage.
Israel's military says several of its soldiers have sustained minor shrapnel injuries in an anti-tank missile attack from Lebanese territory.
The Israel Defense Forces say the attack also damaged one of its vehicles in the Beit Hillel area of northern Israel, a few miles from the border with Lebanon.
They did not confirm how many soldiers were hurt or who fired at them.
Israel's military says artillery are striking the areas in Lebanon that the missile was fired from.
Image source, AFPThe UN estimates that about four in five people in the Gaza Strip have had to flee their homes due to the war.
In its latest update, external, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, says about 1.8 million people are thought to be internally displaced, out of the 2.2 million who live in Gaza.
However, the UN says "obtaining an accurate count is challenging" as it's difficult to track those who have fled and account for those who returned home during the temporary ceasefire.
Early in the war, Israel told Palestinians to move south, with hundreds of thousands relocating. Since the ceasefire ended on Friday, Israel has also told people in eastern areas of Khan Younis to evacuate further to the south.
The below graphic shows how the number of displaced Palestinians has surged since Hamas's attacks on 7 October (it's worth noting it doesn't include the latest UN figure).
Image source, ,Over the last few hours, we've been reporting on the situation in southern Gaza, where Israel is intensifying its bombardment.
Our Middle East correspondent Hugo Bachega is in Jerusalem and has the latest updates in this 48-second clip below:
The UK Ministry of Defence is carrying out surveillance flights over Gaza to gather intelligence on the potential whereabouts of hostages held by Hamas.
Health Secretary Victoria Atkins told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that they were "unarmed and unmanned drones", but the BBC has since verified with the Ministry of Defence that the flights are in fact piloted.
She said: "They are there to look for hostages, because although we've had some hostages released, obviously there are many more that still need to be released from captivity."
Five British nationals are still missing following the deadly attacks on southern Israel on 7 October, and the UK government has not said how many could be held by Hamas.
We've got more information on this story here.
An earlier version of this post quoted Health Secretary Victoria Atkins as describing the flights as "unarmed and unmanned drones". We've since called the Ministry of Defence which has clarified that the aircraft are manned.
As Israel shifts the focus of its operations towards the south of the Gaza Strip, the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah are being hit with heavy air strikes.
Israel says Hamas fighters are hiding in the south, and Mark Regev, an adviser to the Israeli prime minister, told the BBC that there was "major Hamas military infrastructure" in Khan Younis.
Below are some of the latest photos we've been getting from the area.
A warning: Some people may find the following photos distressing.
Image source, GettySmoke billows above the skyline in the south of the Gaza Strip
Image source, GettyThree men, surrounded by the rubble, assess damage after a strike in Rafah
Image source, EPARelatives of Palestinians who died during air strikes pray alongside medical staff at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis
Image source, .Khan Younis and Rafah are located in the south of the Gaza Strip, which in total is only 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide
Image source, GettyAlso in Rafah, people gather around the edge of a large crater strewn with debris
Image source, GettyWomen and children react after a house was hit by Israeli bombing in Khan Younis
After almost seven weeks of war, Israel and Hamas held a seven-day ceasefire that took effect last Friday.
During that time, 110 hostages were released by Hamas, while 240 Palestinians were released from Israeli jails.
After talks for an extension failed, fighting resumed on Friday morning. Both Hamas and Israel have blamed each other for the end of the pause.
Speaking to Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Netanyahu's senior adviser Mark Regev blamed Hamas for not following “its own obligation to release more prisoners on a list that they had agreed to”.
"So the people of Gaza, if they have complaints, they know who they should point the finger at," he said.
Afterwards, Kuenssberg said a Palestinian official close to the talks gave a different account to the BBC, saying Hamas had made proposals to reach an agreement to extend the ceasefire, potentially handing over more civilian hostages.
Mark Regev, one of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior advisers, tells the BBC Israel is making "maximum effort" to avoid civilian casualties, following warnings from US allies over the number of Palestinians being killed.
Regev tells the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg civilians are not targets, and protecting them is made more difficult by Hamas "embedding its military terror machine ... amongst civilian neighbourhoods".
He says the Israel Defense Forces are trying to be "as surgical as we can in a very difficult combat situation", and has given advance warning of attacks.
More than 6,000 children are among the 15,000 people who have been killed during Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
He also says that at the end of the war, compared to the UK and other Western forces fighting Isis in Iraq and Syria, “you will see that we have succeeded in keeping the level of civilian casualties very, very low.”
Hugo Bachega
Middle East correspondent, reporting from Jerusalem
Image source, Getty ImagesTwo senior officials and one clear message to Israel from its main ally, the United States: It needs to do more to protect civilians in Gaza, as it resumes its war against Hamas.
While Israel had a right to defend itself, US Vice President Kamala Harris said too many Palestinians had already been killed – around 15,000 since 7 October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza. The scale of civilian suffering, she said, was “devastating”.
Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, made his strongest comments so far: Protecting the population was a “moral responsibility”. In comments we reported in our previous post, he appears to suggest that the ferocity of the attacks could increase the support for Hamas, not the opposite.
The Israeli military is now shifting the focus of its offensive to southern Gaza, where Hamas leaders are believed to be hiding and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering after fleeing fighting in the north. Many are on the move, again, amid evacuation orders given by the Israeli military, fearing that a ground offensive could be imminent.
The Biden administration has made it clear to Israel that it should not repeat in the south what it did in the north, and Israel says it is taking measures to safeguard civilians.
There are also concerns over the acute humanitarian crisis in the territory, with crowded hospitals operating with limited resources and widespread shortages of food and water. Around 100 lorries with basic supplies entered Gaza from Egypt on Saturday, but aid agencies say it is still not enough.
Image source, Getty ImagesIsrael's main ally, the US, is calling for stronger action to avoid civilian deaths in Gaza.
Defence secretary Lloyd Austin said Israel had a “moral responsibility” to protect civilians.
"If you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat," Austin said at an event in California.
He stressed that the US would stand by its "closest friend in the world", while saying he pressed Israeli officials to dramatically expand Gaza's access to humanitarian aid.
His comments came on Saturday as Israeli forces intensified their strikes in south Gaza, where hundreds of thousands people from the north of the Strip are seeking refuge.
Before Austin spoke, US Vice President Kamala Harris said that “too many innocent Palestinians have been killed” and described the scale of the suffering as "devastating".
Image source, Getty ImagesIt's 10:30 in Israel and Gaza, and it's the third day of fighting since a temporary ceasefire broke down between Israel and Hamas. Let's take a look at the latest headlines:
In the weeks since the beginning of the Israel-Gaza conflict, there've been regular protests on the streets of the UK led by groups sympathetic to both Israelis and Palestinians. This Saturday, Armistice Day, is due to be no exception with the Stop The War Coalition just one of the groups to confirm that it was not planning to call off a demonstration. The plans have come in for heavy criticism from senior politicians including Rishi Sunak, and the Home Secretary Suella Braverman.
London's Metropolitan Police has urged protest organisers to "urgently reconsider" holding a demonstration at a moment when Britain stops to honour its war dead, but in a BBC interview, Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said that he can't ban it from happening.
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Image: Andy Rain/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
Yossi Sneider says his cousin and her two children were taken from their home in southern Israel.
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