Israel-Hamas war updates: Israel bombs areas near Gaza’s Al-Quds Hospital

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For the latest live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, follow along here.

You can read about the harrowing toll on children in Gaza here. For more on the worldwide protests in support of Gaza, click here.

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

• Israel has stepped up air attacks close to Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City after ordering its “immediate” evacuation.
• Clashes have taken place between Israel and Hamas near the Beit Hanoon crossing, known as Erez to Israelis. Hamas claims to have killed several Israeli soldiers – Israel said an officer and soldier were injured.
• The UN chief has repeated calls for a ceasefire to end “this nightmare for the people of Gaza, Israel”.
• Telecommunications were gradually restored to the Gaza Strip after a communications blackout cut the enclave off from the rest of the world.
• Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said the war in Gaza will be “long and difficult”, with Israel intensifying its aerial raids and progressing to the “next phase” of operations.
• Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, says the group is ready for an “immediate” prisoner swap with Israel.
• At least 8,005 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel.
• Pro-Palestinian protests were held across the world over the weekend, both in the Arab world and elsewhere.
• Impeding the delivery of aid to Gaza’s residents may be considered a crime within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, the body’s top prosecutor has said.

• The Israeli military said its call for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to evacuate southward is now urgent.

You may have read earlier that a crowd of pro-Palestine supporters stormed an airport in Russia’s Dagestan region to protest the arrival of a flight from Israel.

Hundreds of people joined the protest, which closed the airport on Sunday evening. Local health authorities say that about 20 people were injured.

Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova said that protesters were reportedly trying to overturn a police car. “Police reportedly fired into the air to try and disperse the crowd,” she said.

You can read more about how the situation unfolded here.

We’re getting reports of Israeli forces conducting a new raid in the occupied West Bank.

Al Jazeera Arabic said that clashes were centred in the vicinity of the Jenin refugee camp and Ibn Sina Hospital in the city.

A video posted by Al Jazeera Arabic showed Israeli armoured vehicles zooming past the empty streets of Jenin before dawn on Monday.

A raid was also reported in the predominantly Palestinian district of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem.

قوات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي تقتحم مدينة جنين في الضفة الغربية #حرب_غزة #فيديو pic.twitter.com/i45n7hI5Aq

— الجزيرة فلسطين (@AJA_Palestine) October 29, 2023

[Translation: Israeli occupation forces storm the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank.]

The cousin of an Israeli believed to be held captive in Gaza has told a rally in Washington, DC that Israel’s priority had to be the freedom of those being held in the enclave and not a conflict with Hamas.

Boaz Atzili, the cousin of Israeli captive Aviv Atzili, spoke to a crowd calling for the release of the hostages held by Hamas at a Sunday rally in Washington, DC.

“We’ve had enough bloodshed. Stop the missiles and the rockets. Stop the bombings. You must avoid any action that could hurt hostages. Start looking for solutions that would allow both Israeli and Palestinian families to live their lives peacefully. That will put an end to the endless cycle of hurt and sorrow,” Atzili said, according to CNN. “But first, bring them all back home, bring all the hostages back home.”

Boaz believes Aviv was taken, along with his wife, from Israel on October 7 after Hamas’s attack.

“Hamas will not release them out of the good of their heart. It will take a prize, but 226 human beings’ lives are worth any prize,” Atzili said.

The UN says Israel’s siege and destruction of Gaza is a “humanitarian catastrophe” for the enclave’s 2.3 million people.

It has warned that cutting off water, food, fuel and electricity is a war crime.

We have a panel of experts that help break down the implications of Israel’s ongoing siege on the people of Gaza and how it can be stopped.

Mansour Shouman – resident of Gaza

Bushra Khalidi – Oxfam policy lead in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel

Riham Jafari – ActionAid communications and advocacy coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory

Watch below:

• At least 16 people have been killed in northern Gaza’s al-Saftawi area after Israeli forces carried out two successive strikes on a house owned by the Jouma family, killing some of those who were injured in the first strike, as well as the neighbouring residents, who rushed to rescue the victims.
• Dozens are feared killed or injured in Jabalia after a house owned by the Khatib family was hit. Many are still missing.
• At least 10 people were reported killed and dozens injured by air attacks on a residence in al-Zawayda and nearby Maghazi in central Gaza.
• At least seven people were killed and several others wounded following an Israeli air attack on a house owned by the Kurd family in southern Gaza.
• Khan Younis in southern Gaza also came under heavy air strikes and artillery shelling.
• The Gaza City area is under heavy Israeli bombardment but the number of casualties cannot be immediately determined.
• Al-Shati refugee camp, Shujaiya and Zeitoun in central Gaza have also faced new waves of Israeli bombardments.
  

  

Colin Clark of the Soufan Group, a security consultancy firm, says fighting at the Beit Hanoon crossing, known as Erez to Israelis, between Israel and Hamas is part of the next phase of the war when he expects the Israeli military to ramp up its offensive.

“We see the elite tank and engineering units [of the Israel military] attempting to pave the way. Hamas has been prepared and will be prepared to launch ambushes, and I think the hard fighting is probably imminent. We’re going to see some pretty intense counterinsurgency,” Clark said.

Clark said that until now, it has been “a very slow, deliberate fight”. “That’s what urban combat is,” he added.

“Much will depend on what happens with Hezbollah in the north. If Hezbollah is able to draw away Israeli personnel and resources, this is going to drag out the conflict even longer.”

Cross-border exchanges between Israel and armed groups in southern Lebanon have continued for the past three weeks but have remained relatively contained.

More children have now been killed in Gaza in the last three weeks than the total killed in conflicts around the world in every year since 2019, the non-governmental organisation Save the Children has said.

Figures released by the NGO on Sunday, referencing Palestinian health authorities, show that at least 3,324 children have been killed in Gaza since October 7, while 36 have died in the West Bank.

According to reports from the UN secretary general on children and armed conflict, a total of 2,985 children were killed across 24 countries in 2022, 2,515 in 2021, and 2,674 in 2020 across 22 countries, Save the Children said.

You can read more on this story here.

Pro-Palestinian protests were held across the world over the weekend, both in the Arab world and elsewhere.

In London, protests on Saturday drew at least 100,000 people.

Protesters said they were calling for a ceasefire and a free Palestine.

Here’s a roundup:

Daoud Shehab, a senior leader in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, has pledged that its fighters will continue to fight as Israeli forces carry out ground operations within Gaza.

In an interview with Al Jazeera Arabic, Shehab said that the “enemy” was now stationed in empty areas on the outskirts of Palestinian territory and “is getting attacked” by “resistance groups”.

“Israel will not score a victory at the expense of the Palestinian people,” Al Jazeera Arabic quoted him as saying.

Jordan says it has asked the US to deploy its Patriot air defence missile system to aid in the defence of its border as regional tensions continue to escalate.

“We asked the American side to help bolster our defence system with Patriot air defence missiles systems,” Jordan’s army spokesperson, Brigadier General Mustafa Hiyari, told state television.

Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza threatens to spill over to regional countries. US forces have also been attacked by pro-Iranian groups in Syria and Iraq.

A pro-Palestinian anthem has been making the rounds on social media and in demonstrations in solidarity with the people of Gaza.

Ana Dammi Falastini (My blood is Palestinian) was widely used in 2021 to protest Israel’s forced removal of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem.  The song was written in 2015 by Palestinian singer Mohammed Assaf, who grew up in Gaza’s Khan Younis.

To learn more about the back story of the song, watch AJ+’s video below:

The story of “Ana Dammi Falastini,” the song anti-occupation supporters are playing to support Palestinians. pic.twitter.com/RnO4admSA5

— AJ+ (@ajplus) October 29, 2023

Speaking to Face the Nation on CBS News earlier on Sunday, the US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that Israel has obligations under international law to protect the lives of civilians.

“We have seen thousands of Palestinian civilians killed in this conflict. That is a tragedy. Each and every one of those individual deaths is a tragedy, and that the life of every civilian – Palestinian, Israeli – is sacred and has to be protected,” he told the US media outlet.

He accused Hamas of using people as “human shields”, but added that it did not “lessen the responsibility” on Israel to try and protect civilians.

“It is important for Israel to distinguish between going after terrorist targets, to take out terrorists who continue to threaten Israel, and going after civilians. That is an obligation and a responsibility for Israel. And it’s something that we will continue to press them on,” Sullivan asserted.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on the need to engage with regional leaders to prevent the spread of conflict in the area, the release of captives, and aid into Gaza, says US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.

“The Secretary shared President Biden’s announcement that the United States will provide $100m in humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank,” Miller said.

Israeli drones are hovering above and Israeli jets are moving from one area of the Gaza Strip to the other.

In the north, a residential building was flattened and 16 Palestinians were killed. Attacks are also continuing in central Gaza, where two residential buildings were hit in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood.

The Israeli air force has renewed attacks in the surrounding areas of Al-Quds Hospital to intimidate people at the hospital … [and to force them] to evacuate and leave the facility.

In the southern part of the territory, a residential building was levelled to the ground.

Russia’s aviation authority is now saying that a pro-Palestinian crowd that had reportedly stormed the Makhachkala airport before the scheduled arrival of a flight from Israel has been removed.

Rosaviatsia said that all “unauthorised citizens” had been removed by 10:20pm Moscow time (19:20 GMT).

The authority added that the airport would be closed until November 6.

The Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari says rockets were launched from Syria towards Israel, falling in an open area.

The Israeli military responded by striking back, he added in a post on X.

Israeli media outlets reported earlier that a flight from Israel had to divert from its initial destination of Makhachkala, in the Russian Republic of Dagestan, after groups of pro-Palestinian protesters entered the airport apparently searching for Israelis.

All flights have been suspended at the airport and riot police have arrived at the scene.

“We’re getting reports that now, protesters are trying to overturn a police car at Makhachkala Airport,” said Yulia Shapovalova, reporting from Moscow. “Police reportedly fired into the air to try and disperse the crowd.”

Dagestan is one of Russia’s majority-Muslim republics.

The Palestinian envoy to the UN says the Security Council is completely “paralysed” and “has not carried out its duties” to secure a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

“We will go back to the UN Security Council tomorrow [Monday] with the General Assembly decision on a ceasefire,” said Ambassador Riyad Mansour.