Israel-Gaza war updates: Hamas says Israel refused offer to free 2 hostages

Thank you for following along with all of today’s live updates from the Israel-Gaza war.

You can continue to follow our new live page here.

You can also read more about competing Hamas and Israeli claims over captive releases here. And an analysis of Israel’s “total blockade” on Gaza here.

We are going to bring our live coverage to an end soon. Here’s a summary of today’s main events:

• Hamas says it tried to release two captives but Israel refused. Israel says it will not respond to “mendacious propaganda”.
• Israel says it will step up air attacks on Gaza as the military remains poised for a ground invasion.
• The first aid convoy has been allowed to enter Gaza from Egypt but monitors warn it is a “drop in the ocean” amid no agreement for longer-term aid.
• Israel blocked fuel transports into the enclave – a supply UN aid chief Martin Griffiths says is essential for humanitarian purposes.
• The Israeli military warned civilians living in north Gaza that they will be seen as collaborators with “terrorism” if they do not evacuate. It later walked back the warning, blaming it on an imprecise Arabic translation.
• Fighting continued on the Israel-Lebanon border with Hezbollah saying six fighters were killed and Israel saying one soldier was killed.
• World leaders attended a summit in Cairo aimed at de-escalating the conflict.

Palestinian Americans and other dual citizens rushed to southern Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt hoping to escape the fighting.

Even as embassies asked their citizens in Gaza to stand ready at the border, crowds of disappointed Palestinians holding American, Canadian, German and United Kingdom passports waited hours in vain for at least a fifth time this week.

“There is no opening of the crossing and the suffering is the same,” said US citizen Dina al-Khatib. “They communicate with us, but there is no change.”

With a humanitarian disaster brewing in Gaza, al-Khatib said she and her family were desperate to get out. “It’s is not like previous wars. There is no electricity, no water, no internet, nothing.”

Al Jazeera speaks with human rights advocate Mansour Shouman, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese and senior Crisis Response Adviser at Amnesty International Donatella Rovera about Gaza’s need for humanitarian aid.

They discuss what UN chief Antonio Guterres can hope to achieve in negotiations.

Watch below:

The group reported the updated toll as fighting continues along the Israel-Lebanon border, bringing the total number of Hezbollah members killed in the current escalation to 19.

Israel’s military says it hit several Hezbollah positions today in response to missile fire from Lebanon.

There are concerns that the Iran-backed Hezbollah, which has a weapons arsenal consisting of tens of thousands of rockets and missiles as well as different types of drones, might try to open a new front in the Israel-Hamas war with a large-scale attack on northern Israel.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Israeli shelling of several villages and said a car took a direct hit in the village of Houla. On Saturday evening, shelling intensified around an Israeli army post across from the Lebanese village of Yaroun.

Israeli analyst Akiva Eldar says that if Hamas wants to release hostages, it can hand them over to humanitarian organisations or let them cross into Egypt.

Earlier, we reported that Hamas informed Qatar that it planned to release two Israeli captives for “humanitarian reasons” – but Israeli authorities had refused. In response, Israel called Hamas’s claims “mendacious propaganda”.

“If it’s not part of a quid pro quo or anything that Israel has to give in return, then it’s very simple – just like they allowed the two American citizens to cross the border with the assistance of the Red Cross,” Eldar noted.

“In Israel, they believe that it is part of a psychological war, that Hamas wants to gain time, along with international pressure to stop Israel from carrying out a ground invasion,” he said.

“There has been some pressure on Israel from the Americans and the Europeans as well to delay this ground invasion – to allow for all the civilian hostages to be released.”

Since the release of the two American captives yesterday, there has been a lot of speculation in Israel on whether more captives were going to be released.

What we are hearing is that there is a lot of behind-the-scenes pressure, diplomatic pressure by Western governments for Israel to delay a possible ground invasion into Gaza until they can find out if more captives can be released, especially Israelis who have dual nationality with Western countries.

We are also starting to see more anger towards the Israeli government from family members of captives being held in Gaza. On Saturday evening, there was a protest in front of the defence ministry in Tel Aviv.

They were demanding that the Israeli government not press ahead with a ground invasion until it could secure those captives’ release from Gaza. So, we are starting to see some mounting pressure from some sectors of Israeli society, specifically those related to the captives, to have the government hold off.

US and European officials have reportedly been leaning on Israel to delay a Gaza ground invasion to allow more time to negotiate captive releases.

Today Biden was asked if he was encouraging Israel to delay the invasion.

“I’m talking to the Israelis,” Biden said, without elaborating or answering further questions.

In the call today with Israel’s Yoav Gallant, Pentagon Press Secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder said the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin “discussed the continued provision of security assistance and the US commitment to deter any state or non-state actor seeking to escalate this war”.

The Biden administration has pledged to increase military assistance to Israel amid the war, prompting backlash among critics who say the White House is fuelling Israeli “war crimes” in Gaza.

Biden this week called on the US Congress to approve $14.3bn in additional military aid for Israel, which annually receives about $3.8bn in security aid from Washington.

This week, a high-level State Department official resigned over weapons transfers to Israel.

When Ola Obeid went to the Gaza Strip last month for her father’s funeral, she didn’t think she would be stuck and unable to leave.

“I live in the United Arab Emirates but came for my father’s funeral and stayed a few extra days after,” she said, speaking from the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing. “But then this war began right before I was due to travel.”

Ola has gone to the crossing four times in the past two weeks, saying it was risky to be out on the road.

“Today, there were two air raids close to us while we were driving,” she said.

Ola, who is diabetic, said she has never lived through such difficult days.

“The children are terrified from the sound of the bombs and missiles,” she said. “There is no water, electricity, or bread. Some people need to leave for medical treatment. We just want the border to open.”

Hamas says Israel’s refusal to accept two captives shows it’s not serious about “stopping the bloodshed” in Gaza.

“Due to severe humanitarian conditions, we decided to hand them over to their families, through our brothers in Qatar. That’s what we informed them last night. [We didn’t want] anything in return,” said Hamas spokesman Khaled al-Qaddoumi.

“Unfortunately, the government of Israel refused to take them and this is proof that this occupation government is not serious, and is not ready to stop the bloodshed.”

Israeli earlier described the Hamas claim as “mendacious propaganda”.

The Israeli prime minister’s office has responded to a Hamas statement saying its military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, offered to release two Israelis hostages but Israel declined to receive them.

“We will not refer to mendacious propaganda by Hamas. We will continue to do everything necessary to bring all the kidnapped and missing back home,” Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

Israel’s military denies it is telling civilians in north Gaza they will be considered “terrorists” if they do not heed evacuation orders.

The military, in a post in English on X, said: “The translation from Arabic that has now spread across platforms is imprecise. To clarify, the IDF has no intention of considering those who have yet to evacuate as a member of a terrorist group.”

Al Jazeera’s Youmna ElSayed, reporting from Gaza City, said residents had been receiving phone calls saying they would be considered “a collaborator with terrorism if they do not evacuate the city”. Leaflets dropped by Israel in northern Gaza, and viewed by Al Jazeera, also said those who did not leave could be viewed as collaborators with a “terrorist group”.

The Israeli military said residents should evacuate north Gaza and would be endangering themselves if they did not.

The translation from Arabic that has now spread across platforms is imprecise.

To clarify, the IDF has no intention of considering those who have yet to evacuate as a member of a terrorist group.

The IDF states, once again, for the safety of Gazan civilians, that they should…

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 21, 2023

Lebanon’s Hezbollah group says four more of its fighters have now been killed along the border with Israel, taking to 17 the number of its members who have died since October 7.

Earlier, the armed group said one fighter was killed in the Lebanese area of Hula, opposite the Israeli community of Margaliot.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, which also has a presence in southern Lebanon, separately said one of its fighters was killed.

About 2,000 protesters gathered at the Washington Monument in Washington, DC, where they delivered speeches and recited prayers for peace.

They then marched to the Peace Monument on the grounds of the US Capitol, the seat of the US legislature.

The march comes amid near-daily demonstrations in solidarity with residents of Gaza in the United States.

Protesters chanted “let Gaza live” and “ceasefire now”.

#FreePalaestin #Gaza #DC #DC_now #Palestine_Protest
Now in DC. We stand with our brothers and kids until the end.
Free Palestine 🇵🇸 ✌️ pic.twitter.com/mAWl2QED8o

— yousef othman (@aboblack) October 21, 2023

Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida says he informed Qatar it was going to release two Israeli captives, but Israeli authorities refused.

“We informed our Qatari brothers yesterday evening that we would be releasing Nourit Yitshaq and Yokhefed Lifshitz for humanitarian reasons and without expecting anything in return. However, the Israeli occupation government refused to accept them,” he said on Telegram.

Al Jazeera contacted the Israeli military and prime minister’s office but did not immediately receive a response.

On Friday, Hamas released two American hostages, Judith Raanan and her daughter Natalie Raanan. They were the first captives freed since fighters from the Palestinian group carried out an attack on October 7, killing at least 1,400 people and taking about 200 others back to Gaza.

Serine Bseiso, a 36-year-old Palestinian-American, moved with her son Aiden from the United States to Gaza last year to be closer to family.

Bseiso says apart from the daily electricity outage, she largely enjoyed living in Gaza but all that has changed. “It’s death now. There is no life. It’s worse than a horror movie.”

Bseiso and her son’s American passports expired, and while she tried to get an appointment at the US embassy in Jerusalem, Israel refused to grant her a permit to leave the Gaza Strip.

“I thought I’d stay here another year, but if I had known we would be under bombing, I would have left.”

Bseiso says she is also traumatised from an attack at the Rafah border crossing. “We were here when Israel bombed the area outside the reception room. That’s where my son and parents were. Thank god they were unharmed.”

She says she doesn’t have faith in the US State Department’s ability to intervene or guarantee her safety, but is more disappointed in the stance of the Arab countries.

“I can’t believe the Arab governments are watching this happen to us and are not lifting a single finger.”

Fazil Say, a globally acclaimed Turkish composer and pianist, has revealed that his scheduled concerts in Switzerland have been cancelled amid his criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza.

In a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, the pianist says he was removed by the event unit of the retail company Migros.

“Officials from MIGROS cited the ideas I expressed on the Israel-Palestine tension on my social media as the reason,” Say posted.

pic.twitter.com/wqHf48Otqx

— Fazıl Say (@fazilsaymusic) October 20, 2023

“Everything I’ve written remains on my social media without any changes,” he said.

Say was originally slated to collaborate with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for performances in Zurich, Bern, Geneva, and Lucerne from Monday to Thursday.

A representative from Migros, as confirmed to AFP news agency, stated that Say had been removed from the concert program and substituted with Swiss pianist Louis Schwizgebel.

“The reason for this change is that Fazil Say’s public statements after the terrorist attack against Israel are not defendable for Migros,” the company said in a statement sent to AFP.

Biden expressed his “deep personal appreciation” for the leadership of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and the UN for allowing the crossing of humanitarian relief.

“The United States remains committed to ensuring that civilians in Gaza will continue to have access to food, water, medical care, and other assistance, without diversion by Hamas,” he said in a statement.

“We will continue to work with all parties to keep the Rafah crossing in operation to enable the continued movement of aid that is imperative to the welfare of the people of Gaza, and to continue working to protect civilians, consistent with obligations under international humanitarian law,” he said.

Qatar, a key power in the efforts to release hostages seized by Hamas from Israel, says they can be released “very soon” thanks to ongoing discussions.

Doha’s mediation played a key role in the release on Friday evening of two American hostages who had been held since the attack on October 7. The Gulf state is in talks with Israel and Hamas.

“I can’t promise you this will happen today or tomorrow or after tomorrow. But we are taking a path that will very soon lead to release of the hostages, especially civilians,” Majed Al-Ansari, a foreign ministry spokesman, told the German Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

“We are currently working on an agreement under which all civilian hostages will be initially released.”

Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani spoke to his US counterpart Antony Blinken in a phone call on Saturday on the hostage issue.