Seventeen journalists have been killed covering the war began between Israel and Hamas which erupted on on 7 October, according to the Reporters Without Borders (RWB) international non-governmental organisation.

Of these 13 were killed in the Gaza Strip, RWB says, external.

But if you include journalists killed in "circumstances unproven to be related to their duties", a total of 63 have been killed in the war.

The data was accurate as of 1 December.

Image source, Reuters

Earlier this month, human rights groups said Israel should be investigated for a possible war crime over the death of a journalist in Lebanon in October.

Reuters reporter Issam Abdallah, 37, died in apparent tank fire across the Israel-Lebanon border. Six other people were wounded.

Amnesty and Human Rights Watch said investigations had shown the journalists had probably been fired on deliberately by an Israeli tank crew.

Israel denies targeting the reporters.

Read the full article here

Yolande Knell
BBC Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

The health ministry in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, says that Israeli air strikes early on Thursday morning killed at least 19 people.

There’ve been growing signs of disagreement between Israel and its closest ally, the US, ahead of the arrival of the White House national security adviser, Jake Suillivan.

This week, President Joe Biden blamed Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza for a loss of global support for its war on Hamas.

Ahead of his trip, Sullivan was quoted as saying that he’d discuss a timetable to end the war and urge Israeli leaders to "move to a different phase from the kind of high-intensity operations seen today”.

Reacting to growing international calls for a ceasefire, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told soldiers in Gaza, “We’re continuing until Hamas is annihilated… Nothing will stop us.”

Patrick Jackson
Live page editor

It's just gone 07:15 in Israel and Gaza, and 05:15 here in London, and through a live video stream we can hear explosion after explosion reverberating from the direction of the Palestinian territory as aircraft pass.

Filmed at a distance from over the boundary inside Israel, the stream shows only a fairly clear morning sky with a few clouds. At least that may bring some relief to thousands of homeless Gazans struggling with winter rain this week as they shelter in tents.

Image source, Reuters

Chloe Kim
BBC News

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The families of US hostages held by Hamas say they believe President Joe Biden is doing everything he can to secure the release of their loved ones.

The administration is "completely committed" to getting them home, one relative said after meeting Biden on Wednesday.

There are believed to be eight Americans still held in Gaza.

The meeting came a day after Biden said Israel was starting to lose global support over its "indiscriminate bombing" of the territory.

This was the first in-person meeting family members of US hostages had with the president after a first virtual meeting in October.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer were also in attendance.

Read Chloe's full article here

The Israeli defence ministry body overseeing policy for the Palestinian territories, Cogat, has published a video which it says shows Hamas gunmen "violently" seizing a humanitarian aid convoy and shooting at civilians.

The video shows hooded figures standing on the back of several lorries, shooting at people as they drive past.

It's unclear what part of Gaza the video is filmed in, and the BBC is working to verify its accuracy.

Israel opened the Kerem Shalom goods crossing with Gaza on Tuesday for security checks on aid shipments delivered via Rafah.

However, the UN says its ability to receive incoming aid is being significantly undermined by a shortage of lorries within Gaza; the lack of fuel; telecommunications blackouts; and the increasing number of staff unable to reach the Rafah crossing safely because of the intensity of hostilities in the south.

Aid distribution has also largely stopped outside the Rafah area becauser of the fighting. Israel has severely limited supplies of fuel, arguing that it could be stolen by Hamas and used for military purposes.

Patrick Jackson
Live page editor

Image source, Getty Images

It has just gone 03:30 in Israel and Gaza, and 01:30 here in London. On a live video feed looking towards Gaza we are regularly hearing explosions and the buzzing of aircraft, possibly drones.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said Israel will continue its war in Gaza until it achieves victory against Hamas. His comments come a day after the UN General Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution demanding a ceasefire.

Relations between Israel and the UN have reached an all-time low and fighting has continued to rage across Gaza as Israeli forces seek to root out Hamas members.

The group's head, Ismail Haniyeh, said he was open to any initiative that could end Israeli aggression but added that there could be no such arrangement that excluded Hamas.

The White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has held talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a visit to Saudi Arabia.

Discussions focussed on the Gaza conflict and other regional issues, including efforts to deter Houthi attacks against commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

Sullivan will travel to Israel on Thursday for talks with Netanyahu and members of his war cabinet. US officials said he would be calling on the Israelis to be more surgical and precise with their strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza.

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Hamas is a Palestinian group which has run Gaza since 2007 - it wants to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamic state.

The group has fought several wars with Israel since it took power, firing thousands of rockets into Israel and carrying out other deadly attacks.

In response, Israel has repeatedly attacked Hamas with air strikes, sending in troops in 2008 and 2014, and now this year again.

Hamas - which has been designated by some powers as a terrorist group - is backed by Iran, which provides funding, weapons and training.

For more on Hamas, the Israeli military and the war itself take a look at this simple guide.

Pro-Palestinian protesters shut down a freeway in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

They called for a ceasefire in Gaza and blocked traffic for about an hour.

The protesters stood in the road and later sat down, forming a human chain. Around 75 people were detained, according to California Highway Patrol.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

A medical charity says it is imploring EU leaders to prevent “further abhorrent bloodshed” in Gaza ahead of a key meeting in Brussels.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF), a charity that provides humanitarian medical assistance, writes on X, external, formerly Twitter, that they ask each EU leader to do “whatever is in your power to protect the lives and dignity of Palestinians trapped in Gaza”.

They call on the EU’s heads of state to exercise their “unique position" to convince Israel to stop "the indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza Strip and protect people facing unimaginable horror”.

A European Council meeting, which brings together EU heads of state or government, will take place tomorrow and on Friday.

Image source, EPA

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan has held talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a visit to Saudi Arabia.

Discussions focussed on the Israel-Gaza war and other regional issues, including efforts to deter Houthi attacks against commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

The news agency Reuters quotes an official saying the pair discussed efforts to "maintain stability across the region and prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict from expanding".

The official adds that Sullivan aimed to build on work already under way to try to create sustainable peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The national security adviser is now expected to travel to Israel, where he will spend Thursday and Friday holding talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of the war cabinet.

Here, they're expected to discuss the need for Israel to be more surgical and precise with their strikes against Hamas targets, a spokesperson says.

The UN Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) says that at least 288 people in its Gaza shelters have been killed since Hamas's attack on 7 October, in a post on X, external.

It added that 271 Palestinians - including 69 children - have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank.

This, it says, marks the "deadliest year for Palestinians killed in the West Bank" since the UN started recording casualties.

Adnan El-Bursh
BBC Arabic correspondent in Rafah

Disease is continuing to spread across the Gaza Strip, especially in overcrowded shelters.

I sat down with Dr Marwan al-Hams, the director of the Martyr Mohammed Yusuf al-Najjar Hospital, in the southern city of Rafah.

The hospital has 63 beds, and is caring for 145 patients, some of whom lay on the hospital floor as we spoke. Rafah is now home to around one million displaced Palestinians, on top of the pre-war population of 300,000.

“The medical situation across Gaza but especially in Rafah is catastrophic,” Dr al-Hams tells me.

He says hospitals are receiving patients with severe diarrhoea, fatigue and high temperature. There are also high rates of bacterial infections and skin diseases.

Medicine to treat such conditions is hard to find.

Food poisoning is another concern, linked to the lack of fresh drinking water and spread of water contaminated with sewage around displacement camps.

“People are resorting to eating old bread. They wash it, dry it in in front of a fire or over a heater and then eat it.”

Image source, Getty Images

Family members of Americans held hostage by Hamas have praised the Biden administration after a meeting with the US president at the White House earlier.

Speaking in a press conference afterwards, Jonathan Dekel-Chen says it was a "terrific meeting".

"We all came away feeling that...we could have no better friend in Washington," he says.

Meanwhile Liz Naftali - whose relative Abigail has been released by Hamas - says the families were hoping for "a Christmas miracle", and the return of more hostages.

"We would love all of our loved ones to come back and be with us for Christmas," she says.

We've been hearing from the Israeli leadership, and now we have some lines from Hamas.

Any post-war arrangement in Gaza without Hamas is a "delusion", Ismail Haniyeh - who is widely considered the group's leader - warns in a televised address.

"We are open to discuss any ideas or initiatives that could end the [Israeli] aggression and open the door for putting the Palestinian house in order both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," Haniyeh adds, in comments translated by the Reuters news agency.

The Israeli government says one of its war aims is to fully eliminate Hamas.

Hamas is proscribed as a terrorist organisation in many countries, including the US and UK.

Image source, Reuters

Nada Tawfik
Reporting from New York

Image source, Reuters

Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen has said that Israel would continue its military operations in Gaza “with or without international support”, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "nothing will stop us" even "in the face of international pressures".

This comes after Tuesday’s UN General Assembly vote, which showed that 32 countries have changed their position in the last month from the previous vote, including Canada, India, Japan and Denmark, to name just a few.

Overall, more than 153 countries demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza – that’s more than the 141 countries that voted to deplore Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

It speaks to their alarm about the way Israel is conducting its military operation and its compliance with the rules of war. President Joe Biden knows this - telling campaign donors just hours before the vote that Israel was starting to lose support because of its “indiscriminate” bombing of Gaza.

The resolution may not be binding but the global consensus will perhaps give US officials a further reason to be tough on Israel in private, including when Jake Sullivan travels to Israel this week.

Image source, EPA

Nothing will stop Israel from continuing the war against Hamas, including "international pressures", Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says, in a video posted to X, external.

Speaking to soldiers at a military base in southern Israel, he says Israel will "continue to the end, until the victory, until the elimination of Hamas".

Netanyahu adds: "I want to say in the clearest way what I just said to the commander in the field - we will continue to the end.

"There is no such question at all. I say this also in the face of great pain [of the fallen soldiers], but also in the face of international pressures.

"Nothing will stop us, we will go to the end, to victory, no less than that."

Hugo Bachega
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

As pressure grows on Israel over the huge number of Palestinians being killed by its military in Gaza and a worsening humanitarian crisis in the territory, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said the war against Hamas would continue, with or without international support.

His comments came after a non-binding vote at the UN General Assembly that overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, and the strongest comments yet by President Biden over the situation in Gaza. Israel, he said, was starting to lose support worldwide because of its “indiscriminate bombing”.

Cohen also said that, at this stage, a ceasefire would be “a gift” to Hamas. So far, the US has supported Israel’s opposition to a pause in hostilities.But senior American officials are increasingly demonstrating discontent with the way Israel is conducting its offensive. A week ago, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin warned that Israel risked turning a tactical victory into a strategic defeat by killing so many people.

Disagreements are also emerging about what a post-war Gaza will look like. Tomorrow, Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, arrives in Israel for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli media say their discussions will include a timetable for the end of the war – and some suggest that Netanyahu, by openly disagreeing with the Biden administration, is trying to appeal to his right-wing base.

Speaking with a military commander serving in Gaza this afternoon, Netanyahu said the war would “continue until the end, until the victory, until the elimination of Hamas”. And, reflecting “international pressures”, he added that “nothing will stop us”.

As previous Israeli wars show calls for a ceasefire will soon become too loud to be ignored.

Jonathan Beale
BBC defence correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

The UK's most senior military officer says Israel’s war in Gaza, and wider tensions in the Middle East, “risk inflaming an arc of instability”.

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin made the comments in his annual speech to the Royal United Services Institute.

In the speech, he repeats the UK's support of Israel's right to defend itself, but says that fighting in such densely-packed areas risks "causing immense harm to civilians, which is why we have urged restraint".

Adm Radakin adds he believes the impact on the wider region is "worrying”.

He says the UK assessed that Iran "does not want a direct war" but Tehran is "comfortable with how events have unfolded" – with threats posed by Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi’s, two groups Iran backs.

“There are multiple scenarios in which this crisis could escalate," he says, adding that the US, whose forces in Iran and Syria have been targeted by militant groups, "had shown commendable restraint".

But he says Britain’s allies in the Gulf were "nervous" – pointing to a perceived lack of engagement by the West over many years - specifically with a two-state solution for Palestinians.

As we reach early evening here in London, here's a quick recap of what's happened so far today:

• Israel's foreign minister says Israel will continue the war "with or without international support", after last night's non-binding UN vote demanding a ceasefire in Gaza

• The Hamas-run health ministry says 18,608 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war
• Meanwhile, Israel says 10 IDF soldiers have been killed in northern Gaza - making it the deadliest day for the military since its ground offensive began

• In the US, President Joe Biden has met family members of the American hostages in-person for the first time
• And people have formed a human chain outside the Israeli parliament, demanding the release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas in Gaza
• US and UK officials have announced a fresh wave of sanctions targeting individuals linked to Hamas
• While the EU Commission President has called for sanctions on "extremist" Israeli settlers, who she says are responsible for attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank
• And there have been warnings the UN Palestinian refugee agency's ability to help is on the "verge of collapse"

As we've been reporting, Israel's army says 10 soldiers were killed in fighting in northern Gaza on yesterday - making it the deadliest day for the military since its ground offensive began.

Among them was Lt Col Tomer Grinberg, whose funeral was held today in Jerusalem.

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

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