Israel war updates: Australians among foreigners in Gaza released by Hamas
US President Joe Biden has lent his support to calls for a truce in Israel’s war on Hamas after being confronted by a protester. Follow updates. Warning: Graphic
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Joe Biden is backing calls for a truce in the Israel Hamas war amid global outrage at the civilian toll.
“I think we need a pause. A pause means give time to get the prisoners out,” the US President said when confronted by a protester at a campaign event in Minneapolis on Wednesday local time.
“I’m the guy that convinced Bibi to call for a ceasefire to let the prisoners out. I’m the guy that talked to Sisi to convince him to open the door,” he said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Mr Biden was referring to the release of 335 foreigners and 76 wounded Palestinians from Gaza - including 20 Australians - via the Rafah border crossing into Egypt on November 1.
The protester, who identified herself as Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg, said she wanted the president to call for a ceasefire.
“Mr President, you care about Jewish people. As a rabbi I need you to call for a ceasefire right now,” she said.
After the crowd tried to quiet her, she said, “I would love for you to answer my question,” and was followed by Mr Biden’s response.
Israel has relentlessly pounded Gaza in retribution for the worst attack in the country’s history on October 7, when Hamas militants stormed across the border, killing 1400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Its bombing campaign has killed 8796 people, mostly civilians and many of them children, according to Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.
Biden was just interrupted by a rabbi during a fundraiser in Minneapolis: "Mr. President, If you care about Jewish people, as a rabbi, I need you to call for a ceasefire."
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) November 1, 2023
Jewish Voters for Peace, which organized it, identified her as Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg
Video via them -> pic.twitter.com/7h4IYK5Bec
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AUSSIE WOMAN ESCAPES GAZA WITHOUT FAMILY
Mona, an Australian citizen via marriage, was among the group that escaped Gaza via Egypt.
She made the the trip to the Rafah crossing alone and is now haunted by the thought of leaving her family trapped in Gaza.
“I’m not happy at all, because I’m leaving my other part, my brothers and sisters, my whole family is still here,” she said.
“I wish, God willing, they would all be in a safe place. The situation is terrible there, it’s very very bad.”
REFUGEE CAMP BOMBED AGAIN
Israeli strikes have targeted the Jabalia refugee camp twice in two days, killing and wounding dozens, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that the blast in the Falluja neighbourhood of the Jabalia refugee camp was due to an air strike.
“Hamas terrorists were eliminated in the strike,” the IDF said, CNN reports.
The Israeli military also conducted air strikes in Jabalia on Tuesday in an area near Falluja.
This combination of handout satellite images released by Maxar Technology and created on November 1 shows from left an overview of the Jabalia refugee camp on October 31, 2023 and the destruction in the same camp after it was hit by an Israeli strike.
AUSSIE EVACUEES TO RETURN ON COMMERCIAL FLIGHTS
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said a group of Australians evacuated from Gaza via Egypt on Wednesday were met at the Rafah crossing by their staff, who provided assistance including onwards travel to Cairo.
“The group will be further supported with short term accommodation in Cairo and return flights to Australia on commercial airlines,” a spokesperson said.
DFAT added Australia is providing ongoing support to 65 individuals, including Australians and their family members, who remain in Gaza.
“The situation in Gaza continues to be highly challenging and can change rapidly. We are doing all we can to facilitate their departure a soon as possible,” the spokesperson said.
“DFAT will also continue to provide support to any individuals registered with us who are unable or do not want to depart Gaza.”
AUSSIES ESCAPE FROM GAZA
Australians were among a group of 335 foreigners and 76 wounded Palestinians allowed to cross from the war-torn Gaza Strip into Egypt.
Twenty Australians plus two family members and a permanent resident were able to make a safe passage through the Rafah crossing on Wednesday local time.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong could not say whether any of the evacuees required medical attention.
“I’m so relieved we have seen some Australians able to leave. (There’s been) a lot of work in the international community to open the Rafah crossing up … but there is a lot more to do,” she told ABC Melbourne.
Rafah is the sole border crossing between Gaza and Egypt and is the only Gazan border crossing that isn’t controlled by Israel.
Israel closed its border crossings with the territory following Hamas’ assault on October 7.
Americans were also among the group that escaped after weeks of US diplomacy involving Egypt and Qatar.
“Today, thanks to American leadership, we secured safe passage for wounded Palestinians and for foreign nationals to exit Gaza,” Mr Biden said on X, formerly Twitter.
FRANCE CALLS FOR ‘IMMEDIATE TRUCE’
France said it was “deeply concerned” about Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip’s largest refugee camp, calling for a humanitarian pause to allow aid through.
“France is deeply concerned about the very heavy toll on the Palestinian civilian population from the Israeli strikes against the Jabalia camp, and expresses its compassion for the victims,” the government said in a press release.
Paris reiterated a call for “an immediate humanitarian truce so that aid can reach those who need it in a sustainable, safe and adequate way”.
‘ISRAEL NOT FIGHTING PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS’
Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, the IDF spokesman, addressed the civilian casualties during an interview on Sky News.
“We are not fighting against the Palestinian civilians and my only wish would have been to the people you are showing on the screen now who are unfortunately paying the price for Hamas aggression against us, that they would have heeded our warning and evacuated the area,” he said.
“And all of this could have been avoided if they had listened to our warnings and evacuated south.”
He denied Hamas was winning the propaganda war, saying the world was becoming increasingly polarised and that many people were “ill-informed”.
IDF WARNS LEBANON HAS 'EVERYTHING TO LOSE’
IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus IV told Sky News Australia that Lebanon “stands to lose everything and gain absolutely nothing from allowing Hezbollah to drag them into a war”.
When asked if Israel could defend itself, he said the IDF was currently only using a third of its air force while admitting that Hezbollah was a “far more powerful military enemy than Hamas”.
“The short answer is yes, we can and yes we will. We do not want additional war, not with Hezbollah, not with the Iranians, not with anyone else.
“If it is brought upon us and forced upon us, we will do and we will defend ourselves just as we are now defending ourselves against Hamas.”
“Because Lebanon stands to lose everything and gain absolutely nothing from allowing Hezbollah to drag them into a war for the sake of Iranian masters in Tehran or for saving the ISIS lookalike in Gaza, which is Hamas.”
AUSTRALIANS IN LEBANON TOLD GET OUT
More than 15,000 Australians remain in Lebanon despite repeated warnings from the government for them to leave amid fears the war could spiral into a wider regional conflict.
There are currently no plans for repatriation flights from Lebanon.
“Our strong advice to Australians in Lebanon is to take the option to leave now,” Australia’s assistant minister for foreign affairs Tim Watts said.
“We can‘t make any guarantees that Beirut airport will remain open if the conflict spreads to the south of Lebanon and departure options become much more complex.”
‘NEVER EVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT’
The United Nations will remain steadfast in supporting Palestinians in Gaza, a top aid official said during the first such trip to the territory since the war with Israel erupted.
“I was shocked by the fact that everyone there was asking for food, was asking for water,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), told journalists in Gaza on Wednesday local time.
The most senior UN official to visit the territory since the war began said he had “never ever seen” anything like it before in Gaza.
He said all those who he met in Gaza were concerned about shortages in food, water and fuel. “They were drawing my attention today about the real lack of food, the lack of water, the lack of fuel,” he said.
“Fuel here in Gaza is absolutely everything because without fuel we do not have generator, we do not have functioning bakery, we do not have functioning hospitals and you cannot pump water.
“UNRWA will stay with the Palestinian refugees in Gaza, with the Palestinians here in Gaza,” Lazzarini added.
The UNRWA has seen 70 of its staffers killed in the war so far.
‘GAZA HAS BECOME A GRAVEYARD FOR CHILDREN’
The Gaza Strip is now a graveyard for thousands of children UNICEF has said, as it warned of the prospect of more dying of dehydration amid Israel’s war on the besieged enclave.
“Our gravest fears about the reported numbers of children killed becoming dozens, then hundreds, and ultimately thousands were realised in just a fortnight,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder, from Australia, said.
“The numbers are appalling; reportedly more than 3450 children killed; staggeringly this rises significantly every day.
“Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It’s a living hell for everyone else.
“And if there is no ceasefire, no water, no medicine, and no release of abducted children? Then we hurtle towards even greater horrors afflicting innocent children.”
The UN child rights committee earlier warned that “grave” human rights violations against children are “mounting by the minute” in the Gaza Strip.
US CONGRESSMAN COMPARES PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS TO NAZIS
A US congressman and former Israeli soldier has said there are no “innocent Palestinian civilians” and compared Palestinian civilians to Nazis.
Republican congressman from Florida Brian Mast spoke in the House of Representatives as it debated a measure that would impose sanctions on people who support groups, such as Hamas, that the bill deems “terrorist organisations”.
The bill’s original text included a provision that exempted humanitarian aid to Gaza civilians from broader restrictions has since been removed.
The amended version would require US President Joe Biden to issue a case-by-case waiver to approve humanitarian aid.
“I would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of innocent Palestinian civilians, as is frequently said,” Mr Mast said.
“I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term ‘innocent Nazi civilians’ during World War II.”
REFUGEE CAMP HIT ‘COULD AMOUNT TO WAR CRIMES’
Deadly Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip’s largest refugee camp “could amount to war crimes”, the UN Human Rights Office said.
Israeli strikes have targeted the Jabalia refugee camp twice in two days, killing and wounding hundreds.
AFPTV images from Wednesday’s strike on the Jabalia camp showed extensive damage and rescuers clawing through rubble to extract bloodstained casualties.
The large death toll from the strikes has drawn a chorus of international condemnation, with Bolivia severing diplomatic ties with Israel in protest.
Jordan recalled its ambassador to Israel “to condemn the Israeli war that is killing innocent people in Gaza”.
‘BODY BAGS PILE UP’ AFTER ISRAEL AIR STRIKE
Rescuers have desperately combed through layers of a tangled mass of concrete and steel with their bare hands, which had been homes in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza.
They were searching for survivors, or the bodies of victims, which the immense force of an Israeli air strike had left near the surface. Those trapped deeper may be entombed for months.
Body bags quickly piled up at the morgue of the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia, and then outside the building. The wounded filled its beds or were raced to Dar al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where medics from the Médicins Sans Frontiers aid group struggled to find space even for badly injured children.
IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari declined to comment on how many munitions were used to target the camp. He said Israel would provide some of these details at a later date.
However, a visual analysis by the Guardian identified at least five craters in the densely populated refugee camp, which weapons experts said were left by the use of multiple JDAMs – joint direct attack munitions – in the air strike.
HAMAS LEADER VOWS TO REPEAT ISRAEL ATTACKS
A Hamas official has vowed to repeat the horrific terror attacks on Israel “again and again” until the country is completely destroyed, insisting it has “no place on our land.”
Ghazi Hamad, a member of the militant group’s decision-making political bureau, warned that Gaza leadership would replicate the co-ordinated October 7 attack, referred to by the terrorists as Operation al-Aqsa Flood.
“The al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time and there will be a second, a third, a fourth because we have the determination, the resolve and the capabilities to fight,” Hamad said in an interview on Lebanese television.
Hamad said the terrorist organisation is willing to “pay a price”, the New York Post reported.
“We are called a nation of martyrs and are proud to sacrifice martyrs,” Hamad said.
“Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country because it constitutes a security, military and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nations, and must be finished.”
“We are not ashamed to say this, with full force. We must teach Israel a lesson and we will do this again and again.”
‘APPALLING’: UN SLAMS ISRAELI STRIKES
The United Nations has slammed Israel’s strikes on Gaza’s largest refugee camp, which killed at least 80 people in attacks.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “is appalled over the escalating violence in Gaza,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
This includes “the killing of Palestinians, including women and children in Israeli air strikes in residential areas of the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp,” Mr Dujarric said.
Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian chief, also expressed his shock in a statement: “This is just the latest atrocity to befall the people of Gaza where the fighting has entered an even more terrifying phase, with increasingly dreadful humanitarian consequences.”
He added “the world seems unable, or unwilling, to act,” adding “this cannot go on. We need a steep change.”
Hamas said seven hostages, including three foreign passport holders, had died in the bombing, a claim impossible to verify.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said a second Israeli bombing raid killed or wounded dozens of people.
ISRAEL STANDS BY REFUGEE CAMP HIT
Israel said its warplanes had hit a “vast” tunnel complex at the site the Jabalia refugee camp, killing “many Hamas terrorists,” including local battalion commander Ibrahim Biari.
Biari “was one of the leaders of the murderous terrorist attack on October 7”, the IDF said.
It added Biari was behind the attack on the port of Ashdod in 2004, in which 13 Israelis were murdered, and was responsible for directing rocket fire at Israel for two decades.
IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said they had been successful in the “elimination” of Biari, and many other terrorists that were with him.
“During the ground activity, the troops eliminated approximately 50 terrorists, as well as destroyed entrances to terrorist tunnels and weapons,” Rear Admiral Hagari said.
ISRAELI SHIPS IN RED SEA
The IDF announced it had now positioned its warships in the Red Sea.
“In accordance with the assessment of the situation and as part of the strengthening of the defence effort in the area, missile ships of the Sea Arm arrived in the Red Sea area,” it said on Wednesday.
It comes amid fears the conflict will spread in an already unstable region were heightened with Yemen’s Houthis sending long-range missiles from their seat of power in Sanaa.
Part of an “Axis of Resistance” backed by Iran, the Houthis have rallied behind the Palestinians and military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a televised statement there would be more such attacks to come “to help the Palestinians to victory”.
ISRAELI TROOP TOLL RISES
IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari confirmed two Israeli soldiers were killed during what he described as “complex hand-to-hand combat” as the IDF pushed further into Gaza.
Another nine soldiers aged between 19 and 24 – were killed in a separate battle when the armoured personnel carrier they were in was hit by an antitank missile.
“In the fierce battles that took place today, we lost troops,” Rear Admiral Hagari said.
In a recorded message posted to social media, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late on Wednesday night paid tribute to the fallen IDF soldiers and vowed “we will continue until we fulfil the mission”.
“It will be a long war. We have important achievements in it, but also painful losses.” Mr Netanyahu said.
“ We know – each of our soldiers is a whole world. The entire nation of Israel embraces you, the families, from the bottom of our hearts,” he said.
“We are all with you in your time of great sorrow.
“Our soldiers fell in an unjust war, the war for the house” he said.
“I promise you citizens of Israel; we will continue until we fulfil the mission – we will continue until victory”.
- with AFP and NewsWire
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