Israel's prime minister has dismissed a plan that could see Hamas serving as a partner in governing Gaza, after the war.

As we mentioned earlier, Bloomberg News reported that the Palestinian Authority is working with US officials over who will run Gaza post-war. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh says the preferred outcome would be for the Hamas militant group to become a junior partner under the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Shtayyeh also suggested that Israel's aim to fully defeat Hamas is unrealistic.

However, The Times of Israel, external reports that Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that "there will not be a Hamas, we will eliminate it," and "the the fact that this is the Palestinian Authority’s proposal only strengthens my policy - the Palestinian Authority is not the solution."

Image source, Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Palestinian Authority is working with US officials over who will run Gaza after the war, reports Bloomberg News, external.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh says the preferred outcome would be for the Hamas militant group which controls Gaza to become a junior partner under the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

Shtayyeh said the coalition would aim to build a new independent state that includes the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

"If they (Hamas) are ready to come to an agreement and accept the political platform of the PLO, then there will be room for talk. Palestinians should not be divided," said Shtayyeh.

He added that Israel's aim to fully defeat Hamas is unrealistic.

Ethar Shalaby
BBC News Arabic

Image source, .

I have spoken to a 22-year-old Palestinian who was one of the dozens of men detained by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in northern Gaza on Thursday.

Footage of the detentions has gone viral on social media. He has asked to remain anonymous.

“They (the IDF) forced us to sit in the middle of [the] street for almost three hours, then trucks came, they handcuffed and blindfolded us and they took us to an unknown place,” he told me by phone.

When they arrived at the location, he said they were randomly selected for questioning and interrogated about their relationship with Hamas.

He said the place that he, his father, brother and five cousins were taken to was sandy, and that they were left almost naked but given a blanket at night.

After the questioning he was taken to an unknown location and simply told to go home, he said, arriving back at about 01:40 in the morning.

“They released all of us, except my father and eldest cousin. My father works for UNRWA. I don’t know why they took him,” he said.

“We walked barefoot down the street in the dark, with the roads full of rocks and glass.”

Image source, AFP

The US representative at the UN, Robert Wood, has said that they wouldn’t support an immediate ceasefire.

"While the United States strongly supports a durable peace, in which both Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and security, we do not support calls for an immediate ceasefire."

"This would only plant the seeds for the next war because Hamas has no desire to see a durable peace," he told the UN Security Council.

The US is one of the permanent members which has the right to veto resolution.

The vote is expected to be held later today.

Image source, Getty Images

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, has firmly rejected calls for a ceasefire.

He told the UN that "a ceasefire cements Hamas’s control of Gaza" and sends a mesage that "Hamas is forgiven for their deliberate atrocities".

Erdan also said "Hamas’s oppression of Gazans" had been given a "green light by the international community".

"Without the military pressure applied on Hamas no amount of diplomacy can secure the release of hostages," he added.

Image source, .

The Palestinian Authority's representive has spoken at the UN Security Council meeting.

Riyad Mansour said that the "Israeli's objective is clear" and that it was "to force people out".

He said Israel would "make Gaza unliveable for all" and displace people.

Mansour went on to say that he believed Israel was pushing people into the south and would eventually "launch a full-fledged attack" on the area.

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Antonio Guterres says the brutality of the 7 October attacks by Hamas on Israel does not absolve Israel of its own violations of humanitarian law.

He says that the people of Gaza are being told to move like human pinballs, without any of the basics for survival. “But nowhere in Gaza is safe,” he adds.

Guterres says that families have lost everything and have been sleeping on bare concrete floors, that there is a food crisis that most of the people in Gaza are starving.

He concludes that he “unreservedly condemns” Hamas’ 7 October attacks and calls for the immediate release of the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas.

“At the same time, the brutality perpetrated by Hamas can never justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” he says.

Antonio Guterres says "we are at a breaking point in Gaza” as a “humanitarian nightmare has engulfed the people of Gaza”.

He says that there is a risk of complete breakdown of public order and total collapse of the humanitarian support system in Gaza, and that’s why he used UN Article 99 to initiate today's vote.

He also warns about the pressure for mass displacement into Egypt, and says the war in Gaza is a risk to international security and peace.

“The threat to the safety and security of United Nations staff in Gaza is unprecedented. More than 130 of my colleagues have already been killed, many with their families,” Guterres says, adding that this is the largest single loss of life in the history of the Organisation.

Image source, Reuters

UN chief Antonio Guterres has been speaking at a UN meeting to discuss the situation in Gaza.

A vote is due to take place later on whether to call for an immediate ceasefire.

Guterres told the representatives at the meeting that "the people of Gaza are looking into the abyss" and that the international community "must do everything possible to end their ordeal".

He urged those assembled to "push for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, for the protection of civilians, and for the urgent delivery of lifesaving aid".

He also spoke about a two-state solution being the "only viable possibility for a peaceful future".

"The eyes of the world – and the eyes of history – are watching. Time to act." he added.

The delegates at the UN are now meeting to discuss the situation in Gaza.

A reminder that you can follow the proceedings by clicking the play button at the top of this live page.

Nada Tawfik
Reporting from New York

We've just heard from Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyadh Mansour, who spoke to reporters on his way in to the council chamber.

He said the correct thing for the council is to adopt this resolution and to not let the UN secretary general down.

Then France's ambassador to the UN, Nicolas de Rivière, spoke and said diplomats need more time to negotiate because the last thing the Security Council needs today is another showdown and another failure.

He said they can't rush and "drive the Security Council car against the wall", adding that the previous resolution was modest and not enough.

He said the situation is tragic, deteriorating by the day with civilian causalities increasing by the day, so they can't wait forever.

Nada Tawfik
Reporting from New York

The United Nations vote on the Arab and Islamic nations' Israel-Gaza ceasefire resolution (which has 54 co-sponsors and counting) has been moved to 22:30 GMT.

The vote time was changed because of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's meeting with Arab ministers in Washington DC.

The UN debate will still take place at 15:00 GMT.

Image source, .

Earlier we posted about a video showing Palestinian men detained by Israeli soldiers in Gaza.

Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy says the men had been detained in Jabalia and Shejaiya in northern Gaza, which he described as "Hamas strongholds and centres of gravity".

"We're talking about military age men who were discovered in areas that civilians were supposed to have evacuated weeks ago," he says, before adding that they would be questioned to "work out who indeed was a Hamas terrorist and who is not".

He emphasised the detained men had been found in areas where Israeli forces had engaged in "close-quarter combat" with Hamas. They had been "deliberately disguising themselves as civilians" and operating from civilian buildings.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has not directly commented on the images, but spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Thursday that "IDF fighters and Shin Bet officers detained and interrogated hundreds of terror suspects".

"Many of them also turned themselves in to our forces during the past 24 hours. The intelligence coming out of their interrogations is utilised to continue the fighting."

The BBC has been told some of the men have now been released.

Read the full updated story here.

Image source, Reuters

Civil order is breaking down in Gaza, the director of affairs for the UN's refugee agency in the Strip warns.

In a strongly-worded post on X, external, Unwra's Thomas White says Gaza's streets "feel wild, particularly after dark" with some aid convoys being looted and UN vehicles stoned.

"Society is on the brink of full-blown collapse," he says, adding: "Unwra continues to serve the population with what limited aid we have."

Image source, Reuters

We have some photos to bring you from the funeral of IDF soldier Gal Eizenkot, who was the son of Israeli war cabinet minister and former IDF Chief of the General Staff Gadi Eizenko.

The 25-year-old was killed in the Gaza Strip yesterday.

Among the mourners at the cemetry in the Israeli city of Herzliya was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Benny Gantz, leader of the National Unity Party, also attended the funeral and gave a eulogy.

Image source, EPA

Nada Tawfik
Reporting from New York

This is one of those defining moments for the Security Council. To push them to demand an immediate ceasefire, the secretary general has invoked for the first time in his tenure a rarely used power granted to UN chiefs by the organisation’s charter.

Antonio Guterres will address council diplomats today in an open meeting after speaking with many leaders over the phone, including the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and several Arab ministers.

Arab and Islamic nations immediately responded to his letter with a draft resolution that will be voted on today.

The majority of the council has long supported an immediate ceasefire so all eyes will be on Israel’s ally, the United States. While they have not publicly stated whether they intend to exercise their veto again, they have signaled as much. The US’s position is that a resolution would not be “useful at this time”.

If the council is once again blocked from taking action from a permanent veto wielding member, it will raise the question, not for the first or last time, if the Security Council is fit for purpose.

The UN Security Council is due to meet in a few hours to vote on whether to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

It comes two days after UN chief Antonio Guterres took the unpredecented step of invoking Article 99 of the UN's charter, external.

No one in his role has done this in decades.

The move allows the secretary-general to bring to the council's attention "any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security".

The United Arab Emirates has prepared a draft resolution that will be put to a vote, it needs at least nine votes in favour and no vetoes by the United States, Russia, China, France or Britain to pass.

A video that emerged yesterday on social media showing dozens of Palestinian men detained by Israeli forces has been verified by the BBC.

The footage shows them stripped to their underwear, kneeling on the ground and being guarded by Israeli soldiers.

The men are thought to have been arrested in Beit Lahia, in the far north of the Gaza Strip.

A local media outlet says one of the men is a respected journalist.

Other images show them being transported in military trucks.

Another shot - which has not yet been verified by the BBC - shows men blindfolded, kneeling in what appears to be a large pit of bulldozed sand.

In Israeli media, the captives are being described as Hamas fighters who have surrendered.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has not directly commented on the images, but spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Thursday that "IDF fighters and Shin Bet officers detained and interrogated hundreds of terror suspects".

Read the full story here.

Image source, IDF

Now for an update on Israel's military operation in the north of the Gaza Strip.

Posting on X, external, IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari says troops destroyed buildings and infrastructure at Al-Azhar University which he claims was used by Hamas for its military activity.

Hagari says an "underground route that leaves the university yard and continues to a school about a kilometre away" was discovered during the raid.

Explosive devices, rocket parts and launchers were also found, he adds.

Hagari says during a separate raid at an observation post near the Shatti Hospital, IDF troops found around 200 radios and dozens of cameras.

"A combat shaft, cartridges, grenades, a sniper position, military equipment and shooting holes" were also discovered, he adds.

Image source, IDF

As we've been reporting, fighting is continuing to rage in the southern city of Khan Younis, where many Palestinians sought shelter after evacuating the north of Gaza earlier in the conflict.

In a post on X, external, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says Israeli aircraft targeted a house near the organisation's headquarters and the Al-Amal Hospital in the city.

It says the bombardment led to "the shattering of glass and the breaking of doors and windows, in addition to extreme panic among 14,000 displaced people who are taking shelter inside PRCS facilities."

The PRCS says the hospital received dozens of injured and some dead people as a result of the attack, without giving specific figures.

The BBC is not yet able to independently verify the claims.