Israel Hamas conflict: Israeli family of five found dead in an embrace
A family of five has been found dead while huddled together as harrowing accounts emerge about unprecedented attacks by Hamas.
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A humanitarian crisis is developing in Gaza with Egypt claiming the only escape route is being blocked by Israel.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister, Sameh Shoukry, put the blame on the Israeli government for not opening the Rafah crossing in remarks made on Monday.
He also called the situation in Gaza “dangerous”.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has said any move by Israel to occupy the Gaza Strip again would be a “big mistake”.
It comes as Israeli troops prepare for a ground invasion as they seek vengeance for an attack by Hamas on October 7, which killed 1,300 people.
Israel has warned more than a million people in northern Gaza to move south ahead of the operation.
Scroll down for more live updates.
Israeli family of five found dead in an embrace
Harrowing accounts continued to emerge about the unprecedented attack by Hamas terrorists on Israel, including a couple who were killed three days before their planned engagement — and a family of five whose bodies were found in a tragic embrace.
Aviv Kutz, 54, was found embracing his wife, Livnat, 49, daughter, Rotem, 19, and sons Yonatan, 17, and Yiftach, 17, as they lay dead in a bed at their Kfar Aza home on Oct. 7, the day the terrorists invaded Israel, according to the Times of Israel.
“On the day they were murdered, we were supposed to visit them,” the children’s aunt, Adi Levy Salama, said of the family that had returned to Israel after living in Boston for several years.
“Aviv organised an annual kite festival along the fence with Gaza to show them that we just want to live in peace,” Ms Salama told the outlet.
Livnat, a graphic designer who was about to turn 50, was born during the Yom Kippur War — the 1973 conflict that has been compared to the current crisis in terms of Israel’s intelligence failure.
Her husband was deputy director of a consulting firm and also worked in agriculture, the Times of Israel reported.
Rotem was an IDF soldier who trained new recruits, while Yonatan and Yiftach attended the Kfar Hayarok boarding school in Ramat Hasharon near Tel Aviv and played basketball in the Hapoel youth program.
“They were all amazing kids with huge hearts. They had their whole lives ahead of them,” their heartbroken aunt said.
‘They’re here’
The lives of another couple from Kfar Aza — IDF officers Niral Zini, 31, and his girlfriend, Niv Raviv, 27 — were cut short right before their planned engagement, Ynet reported.
Mr Zini planned to propose to Ms Raviv on October 10, but the ring he planned to present to her was found in the burned house at the kibbutz, according to the outlet.
On the day of the invasion, Mr Zini sent his family the message: “They’re here. I’m putting the phone down — pray.”
He grasped a knife as he held the door to the shelter while Raviv hid under a bed, according to the outlet.
The couple remained missing until Friday, when the family received the shattering news that their bodies had been found after the massacre.
Mr Zini and Ms Raviv were both in the military reserves — he a major and she a captain.
On Oct. 10, 2015, Zini was injured during an operational activity in Hebron — and the couple celebrated his survival with a special meal on the same date ever since, according to the outlet.
He planned to begin studying law to help soldiers who were physically and mentally injured. Raviv was studying to become a clinical psychologist.
Putin calls Israeli PM
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday called Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time since the deadly Hamas attack, and briefed him on several talks with leaders from the region and Palestinian Authority.
“The Israeli side was in particular informed of the essential points of telephone correspondences that took place today with the leaders of Palestine, Egypt, Iran and Syria,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
According to Moscow, the discussion focused on “the crisis situation resulting from the brutal escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.
Putin expressed “his sincere condolences to the families and friends of the deceased Israelis,” the Kremlin said.
He also told the Israeli president of the steps Russia has taken to “promote the normalisation of the situation, prevent a further escalation of violence and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.” Putin spoke in telephone calls with the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.
The Russian leader also told Netanyahu that Russia had a “fundamental desire to continue its targeted action aimed at ending” the conflict and finding “a peaceful settlement through political and diplomatic means,” according to the government’s statement.
Moscow has traditionally maintained good relations with both Israeli and Palestinian authorities, as well as several regional players such as Syria, Egypt and Iran.
Cardinal representing Pope Francis offers himself to Hamas
Pope Francis’ top representative in the Middle East said Monday he was willing to trade places with Israeli children taken hostage by Hamas terrorists.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, 58, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, proposed the swap in response to a question during a video conference with journalists in Italy.
“I am ready for an exchange, anything, if this can lead to freedom, to bring the children home. No problem. There is total willingness on my part,” he said.
“The first thing to do is to try to win the release of the hostages, otherwise there will be no way of stopping [an escalation]. We are willing to help, even me personally,” the monsignor continued.
Mr Pizzaballa noted, however, that he and his office had not yet had any direct communication with Hamas since the horror attack of Israel on Oct. 7 that killed at least 1,300 people.
“You can’t talk to Hamas. It is very difficult,” he said.
At least 199 people were taken hostage, including many children.
On Friday, Hamas released disturbing footage that showed armed men cradling kidnapped Israeli babies and toddlers.
Mr Pizzaballa oversees Roman Catholic activities in Israel and the Palestinian territories as well as Jordan and Cyprus, a region that is home to some 300,000 Roman Catholics.
Iran says Hamas ready to release hostages if Israel stops air strikes
Iran tried to pressure Israel into ending its revenge air strikes on Gaza by claiming Monday that the Hamas terrorists long sponsored by Tehran would be willing to free the 199 hostages now known to have been taken during the slaughter of more than 1,400 people.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Nasser Kanaani claimed that Hamas is “ready” to release the hostages, but doing so would be “impossible” under Israeli air strikes in the region.
He claimed that the terror group “stated that they are ready to take necessary measures to release the citizens and civilians held by resistant groups, but their point was that such measures require preparations that are impossible under daily bombardment by the Zionists against various parts of Gaza,” Mr Kanaani said.
Despite this, Hamas has yet to make such an offer publicly.
The terror group did, however, speak out Monday to maintain that its unprecedented October 7 attack was a solo effort not driven by Iran, despite widespread belief among Israeli and Western officials.
The war in Gaza is “a Palestinian battle and the decision to enter it was a Palestinian decision” made by Hamas and its military wing, the Izz ad-Din al Qassam Brigades, “together with the Palestinian resistance factions,” according to Hamas’ rep in Lebanon, Ahmed Abdul-Hadi. Although no government worldwide has offered direct evidence to support the widely held belief that Iran orchestrated the attack, Tehran has long sponsored Hamas, including training, funding and providing it with weapons.
Netanyahu denounces ‘evil axis’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has addressed the Knesset, which is his country’s equivalent to our parliament.
“There are many questions surrounding the disaster that befell us ten days ago. We will investigate every aspect thoroughly,” Mr Netanyahu said.
“The nation is united towards one goal: victory. We will triumph because it’s about our very existence in this region, which is fraught with dark forces.
“Hamas is part of the evil axis of Iran and Hezbollah. They aim to plunge the Middle East into an abyss of chaos.
“Many around the world understand who Israel is facing. They comprehend that Hamas represents a new version of Nazism. Just as the world united to defeat the Nazis and ISIS, so it must unite to defeat Hamas.”
Israeli ambassador says there’s ‘no humanitarian crisis’
Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Tzipi Hotovely, was interviewed on Britain’s Sky News on Monday morning, where she was asked for her position on the “humanitarian crisis” unfolding in the Gaza Strip.
“There is no humanitarian crisis,” Ms Hotovely responded.
“There isn’t?” interjected host Kay Burley, who was taken aback.
“There is no (crisis),” said the ambassador.
“Israel is in charge of the safety of the Israelis. Hamas is in charge of the safety of the Palestinians.”
Burley countered that her channel had been “showing pictures that would indicate there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza”.
“Can I ask you something? Are you a mother?” said Ms Hotovely. Burley answered in the affirmative.
“What would you think if your children would have been executed in front of your eyes? Would you expect your government to think about those Nazis committing those crimes? And to think, ‘First of all, we need to think about protecting the enemy, and then to protect my children.’ Your children come as the priority to your prime minister.”
Kay Burley: "Whats the view on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza this morning?"
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) October 16, 2023
The Israeli ambassador to the UK: "There is no humanitarian crisis..."
"There isn't?"
"There isn't" pic.twitter.com/mvLIHHtTST
“We have been showing images this morning that show there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” Burley repeated.
“So blame Hamas. And ask Hamas why they started those atrocities,” said the ambassador.
“So you’re acknowledging there is a humanitarian crisis?” Burley asked.
“I’m saying there is no (crisis),” said Ms Hotovely.
“So what is happening?” said Burley.
“What is happening is that there’s a war in Gaza, a war that Hamas started by committing a horrible massacre of Israelis.
“Those people committed crimes that are worse than ISIS.
“Israel is better than any other army in the world. We are alerting, we are giving them an opportunity to take shelter. We are doing things that no other Western army did in the past.”
Horrifying footage shows Hamas killing female soldiers
Extremely confronting footage which allegedly shows Hamas terrorists murdering injured female soldiers has been posted by an Israeli Telegram channel.
“These videos were incredibly difficult to post. But we feel the world must know about the brutality of the terrorists who attacked Israel,” the channel, South First Responders, said.
The footage, recovered from one of the militants’ head cameras, showed the Hamas fighters inside a border posts, occupied by young, wounded Israeli Defence Force recruits.
Having thrown a grenade into the room, the militants shoot the Israeli women dead. One of the ADF recruits is heard screaming before she is shot.
“The conscripts are hiding under a table covering their heads,” said South First Responders.
“Rather than take the soldiers prisoner, as would be required by international law, the terrorist moves a chair aside to fire at point blank range and execute them.
“It doesn’t end here. The terrorists fire again. Amid the last gasps of the conscripts, the terrorists fire a final kill shot to execute them.
“Hamas terrorists carried out intentional executions of injured soldiers in direct violation of basic international law.”
We are choosing not to show the footage and some of the graphic images.
Aussie erects ‘death to Israel’ sign near primary school
Masoud Rahmani, 31, posted a sign outside his Adelaide home which read: “You don’t need to be Muslim to stand up for Gaza. You just need to be human. Death to Israel and it’s (sic) allies.”
His home is 100m from a primary school.
Mr Rahmani, who grew up in Afghanistan, told the Advertiser: “As an Australian I feel ashamed. In Gaza and Palestine, people are getting killed on a daily basis.
“I’m Afghan, I grew up in Afghanistan, I’ve been through terrorist attacks, I know how it feels to not be able to live and get out of the house and saying goodbye to your family not knowing if you’ll come back tonight.
“Innocent people shouldn’t be killed, but years and years of pushing them back into the corner – they’ll just lose it.”
He later conceded that he had gone to far with the words “death to Israel” and removed it.
Message of hope after raver‘s slaughter
Friends of a 23-year-old woman who was killed in a kibbutz have vowed to rebuild the community as a symbol of the strength of “peace and love” in the face of terror.
Dorin Atias was originally scheduled to work as a bartender at the Supernova festival and arrived early to enjoy some dancing before her shift.
But when rockets started flying overhead at around 6am, she immediately sensed danger. She grabbed two friends and drove to a nearby kibbutz in Re’im, where they believed they could find shelter or a bunker.
Tragically, her and her friend Leo were killed, while one friend named Eden remains missing.
Friends of Dorin are determined to take a stand as the next generation of Israelis and continue living for those who have died.
They believe that they must protect their land and the precious souls of everyone, stressing the importance of choosing peace and love in the face of darkness and violence.
“As twenty-somethings here … as Israel goes to war, it teaches you something: you have to move on, you have to keep alive for everyone who has died,” a friend named Saban said.
Scores of foreigners killed in the conflict
According to an AFP count of the conflict’s mounting toll, more than 160 foreigners have been confirmed dead by their national authorities.
Many of them also held Israeli nationality.
The list includes 30 Americans, 28 Thai citizens, 19 French nationals, 16 Russians, 10 Nepali citizens, seven Argentinians, seven Ukrainians, five Canadians, and smaller numbers from dozens of other countries.
In addition to the dead, an unknown number of foreigners were abducted by Hamas.
Egypt blames Israel as border crossing stays shut
Egypt says it wants to open the only crossing along its border with the Gaza Strip to allow civilians to escape, but Israel has not allowed it.
The country’s Foreign Minister, Sameh Shoukry, put the blame on the Israeli government in remarks on Monday. He also called the situation in Gaza “dangerous”.
Meanwhile the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, has called for an immediate end to all military operations in Gaza.
“We demand the immediate end of military operations and the opening of safe corridors to bring aid to the population,” he said.
The Arab League has 22 members, spread across the Middle East and northern Africa.
199 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza
Israel Defence Force has revealed 199 people are still being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, revising up an earlier number of 155 given yesterday.
Spokesman Daniel Hagari said the military has “updated the families” of all hostages.
Israel plans bloody end for Hamas
Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, has declared his country will wipe Hamas from the region after the terrorist organisation’s open act of war.
“This is war that Hamas started, and Israel will finish,” she told BBC Radio 5 Live.
“Every Israeli is traumatised by the Hamas massacre in innocent people. As the days go by, the atrocities are exposed,”
“We heard that 80% of the bodies were tortured, young women being raped, young babies being beheaded, those kind of atrocities, barbarism – pure evil the world hasn‘t seen since World War Two.
“Hamas won‘t exist in the Gaza Strip. Israel cannot afford a terror organisation in its borders.”
Fears of all-out war grow
More than one million people have now fled their homes in Gaza in scenes of chaos and despair as Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled territory and continued massing troops today in preparation for a full-blown ground invasion.
The move has sparked fears of an all-out war erupting in the region as Israel today evacuated civilians living in villages close to the border with Lebanon after the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah vowed to ‘respond’ to any move to invade Gaza.
Israeli authorities issued the order to residents living within two kilometres of the Israeli-Lebanese border as Israel fears a reactionary attack from Hezbollah.
The Israeli army Monday noted in a statement “the implementation of a plan to evacuate residents of northern Israel who live in the area up to two kilometres from the Lebanese border to state-funded guesthouses”.
The move affects thousands of people living in 28 communities. Many have already left the area after repeated cross-border fire in recent days has claimed lives on both sides of the UN-patrolled border between Lebanon and Israel which remain technically at war.
Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said his country had “no interest in a war in the north, we don’t want to escalate the situation”.
“If Hezbollah chooses the path of war, it will pay a very heavy price,” he said on Sunday. “But if it restrains itself, we’ll respect the situation and keep things the way they are”.
Aussie news crew rushes to bomb shelter
A Channel 7 crew has been caught in a tense moment near the Gaza border after a warning siren started blaring midway through a live broadcast.
Barely three minutes into his report, 7NEWS Chief Reporter Chris Reason and his crew had to be rushed into a nearby bomb shelter as blasts could be heard outside the frame.
After about a minute, the crew briefly stepped out of the shelter, but then returned inside because there were indications of further attacks.
“I don’t know if you can still hear us,” Reason said.
“We’re obviously inside the shelter across the road where we deliberately set up in case that sort of thing happened.
“Our producer on the ground here is saying that the indications are that something might still be about to happen, that we’re not clear yet, so we’ll stay inside this concrete bunker.”
Palestine President’s Hamas comment censored
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority made comments criticising Hamas during a phone call with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
However the comments, originally published by the Palestinian Authority‘s official news agency (WAFA), were later suspiciously redacted to remove the reference to the terrorist organisation.
The original statement emphasised that Hamas’ policies and actions “do not represent the Palestinian people”, with the PLO being the sole legitimate representative.
The revised statement instead stressed that the policies, programs, and decisions of the PLO represent the Palestinian people as their sole legitimate representative, without mentioning any specific organisation.
It is unclear why the reference to Hamas was removed, and there were no immediate comments from Abbas‘ office, WAFA, or Hamas.
President Abbas has a longstanding opposition to Hamas, which controls Gaza and ousted Fatah party forces loyal to Abbas in 2007. Reconciliation talks between the two factions have so far been unsuccessful.
Biden says Palestine still needs an authority
When asked if Hamas — whom Biden described as “a bunch of cowards” — must be eliminated entirely, he replied: “Yes I do.” “But there needs to be a Palestinian authority.
“There needs to be a path to a Palestinian state,” he continued, reiterating the longstanding US call for a two-state solution.
60 Minutes journalist Scott Pelley also asked Biden if he could foresee US troops joining the war.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Biden, who pulled US troops out of Afghanistan and has insisted that none will be sent to aid Ukraine as it holds off a Russian invasion, replied.
The US has already deployed two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean in a powerful show of support for Israel.
Door-to-door arrests
As the conflict continues, ex-senior diplomat and security adviser to the Israeli Government, Nimrod Novik, said some military and political leaders want Israeli troops to undertake an 18 month-long operation of door-to-door arrests in Gaza.
“Others, I think, are far more sober and not talking about demolishing Hamas, but rather depriving Hamas of their ability to threaten us,” he said.
Meanwhile, Golan Vach, the colonel of the Israel National Search and Rescue Unit said Hamas and their supporters “must die”.
“Not only have I seen a baby beheaded by Hamas, I held it in my hands,” he told The Sun.
“We must wipe this evil off the face of the earth, once and for all.”
The Hamas attack saw fighters shoot, stab and burn to death more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.
Israel’s reprisal attacks in the days since have flattened neighbourhoods and killed at least 2,670 people in Gaza, the majority ordinary Palestinians.
Originally published as Israel Hamas conflict: Israeli family of five found dead in an embrace
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