Israel launches controversial online campaign featuring confronting images of Hamas attack
The World Health Organisation has warned that a “public health catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip is “imminent” as the conflict continues.
The United States has backed Israel’s refusal to a ceasefire in Gaza, despite the humanitarian toll of its conflict with Hamas rising.
An estimated 70 per cent of Palestinians killed in less than four weeks are women and children, the United Nations reports, and the region is rapidly running out of drinking water.
Earlier, a chilling video circulating online appeared to show the moment an Israeli tank fired on a family in a car in Gaza.
It comes as the Israeli Defence Forces ramps up its ground offensive in Gaza, but it faces a major challenge in the form of an intricate 500km network of Hamas tunnels.
Meanwhile, US officials have expressed concern at repeated attacks on US troops scattered across the Middle East, fearing further escalation in other parts of the region.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said that at least 8,525 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the start of the war .
The ministry said at least 3,542 children and 2,187 women were among the dead,
Follow along for the latest live updates.
‘Imminent catastrophe’: Grim new Gaza warning
The World Health Organisation has warned that a “public health catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip is “imminent”.
While the mass displacement of civilians is obviously of concern, the greater threat is reportedly the degradation of water infrastructure, which has left Gaza with just 5 per cent of its regular water supply.
That increases the risk of children dying due to dehydration.
“It’s an imminent public health catastrophe that looms with the mass displacement, the overcrowding, the damage to water and sanitation infrastructure,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said at a briefing.
“Child deaths from dehydration, particularly infant deaths due to dehydration, are a growing threat,” added James Elder, a spokesman for the UN children’s agency.
Israel targets home of Hamas second-in-command
The Israeli army has demolished the West Bank home of exiled Hamas number two Saleh al-Aruri.
The Israeli military said forces entered the village of Arura, near Ramallah, and shot at people who were “hurling” rocks towards them during the demolition.
Aruri is accused by Israel of masterminding numerous attacks.
He was elected deputy to Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in 2017, before being officially named the group’s number two.
Iran-backed rebels claim responsibility for drones over Israel
Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels fired drones towards Israel on Tuesday in retaliation for its war against Hamas, a senior official from the group told AFP.
“These drones belong to the state of Yemen,” Abdelaziz bin Habtour, prime minister of the Huthi government, said when asked about drones launched towards Eilat in southern Israel.
It came as US security officials warned that repeated attacks on American troops in the Middle East risk drawing the United States into a conflict with Iran.
The United States has blamed the spike in rocket and drone attacks -- at least 14 in Iraq and nine in Syria since October 17 -- on Iran-backed forces, and carried out strikes last week in Syria on sites the Pentagon said were linked to Tehran.
“We are concerned about all elements of Iran’s threat network increasing their attacks in a way that risks miscalculation, or tipping the region into war,” a senior US defense official said Monday.
“Everybody loses in a regional war, which is why we’re working through partners, with allies, working the phone lines, increasing posture to make clear our desire to prevent regional conflict,” the official said.
Hospital workers collapsing under ‘physical and psychological stress’
Healthcare workers at Al Quds Hospital in Gaza have claimed “the whole building was shaking” overnight during another Israel’s continued assault on the city.
According to Marwan Jilani, director general of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, staff “didn‘t know whether they were going to hit the hospital”.
Two nearby buildings, an emergency medical centre and main warehouse, were “severely damaged and are now out of service”.
Workers are now “collapsing due to the...physical and psychological stress” as they reportedly continue to await aid from humanitarian groups.
“Imagine the stress on the people staying there, taking care of the patients, sheltering there - it is just immense,” Jilani told the BBC.
Israel launches controversial online campaign
Israel has launched a hard-hitting online campaign featuring shocking images and testimonies from the attacks carried out by Hamas on October 7.
Dozens of clips of burnt bodies, bereaved families, fast-cuts of screams and sirens, rescue workers and pathologists are featured on the Israeli foreign ministry’s official social media channels and in paid advertising campaigns.
The online campaign comes as Israel continues its bombing and movements into Gaza, which has killed more than 8,300 people, including over 3,000 children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Some of the videos are graphic: in one clip, a pathologist describes photos of a child’s burnt body.
But experts say the campaign risks alienating some audiences.
There has already been some pushback, with Google limiting access to one graphic clip and a gaming firm demanding the ads be removed.
“Subjecting people to images that are literally unbearable is a risky strategy,” communications expert Arnaud Mercier said via AFP.
“It could be counterproductive with an audience who didn’t ask to be exposed to it.”
Bombshell ‘plan’ for Gaza surfaces
A draft plan to permanently relocate 2.3 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Egypt has surfaced, which critics say they fear is the Israeli’s government true desire.
Israel’s Intelligence Ministry devised the wartime proposal, which outlines the transfer of the entire population of the disputed territory to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the report was “a concept paper” drafted as part of a hypothetical exercise.
But critics say even discussing the idea should be out of the question.
“We are against transfer to any place, in any form, and we consider it a red line that we will not allow to be crossed,“ Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said.
“What happened in 1948 will not be allowed to happen again.”
Efforts for a mass displacement of Palestinians would be “tantamount to declaring a new war”, he said.
A copy of the report, which said it was drafted on 13 October, just days after the Hamas massacres of 7 October, offers strategies “to effect a significant change in the civilian reality in the Gaza Strip”.
It proposes moving the millions of people who reside there to tent cities in Sinai while permanent cities in a humanitarian corridor are constructed.
A security perimeter would then be established on the Israeli border to prevent displaced Palestinians from returning to Gaza.
The document talks about the need for Israel to garner support from regional players like Turkey, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia for the plan to succeed.
Some of those nations could be encouraged to take displaced Palestinians in as refugees or permanent citizens, it added.
And the document describes Canada as another potential source of support given its “lenient” immigration policies.
Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, told NBC News in the US that the paper threatened to damage relations between Israel and Egypt.
“If this paper is true, this is a grave mistake,” Mr Guzansky said. “It might cause a strategic rift between Israel and Egypt. I see it either as ignorance or someone who wants to negatively affect Israel-Egypt relations, which are very important at this stage.”
After the report emerged Mr Netanyahu’s office said it was merely a “concept paper, the likes of which are prepared at all levels of the government and its security agencies”.
“The issue of the ‘day after’ has not been discussed in any official forum in Israel, which is focused at this time on destroying the governing and military capabilities of Hamas,” a spokesperson said.
‘Dumb white dogs’ sign costs dearly
A Melbourne wine bar embroiled in controversy for hosting an event for pro-Palestine demonstrators to make protest banners has copped a new hit.
Last week, arts precinct Collingwood Yards, home to Hope St community radio station and its popular restaurant and bar, was the site of a workshop organised by Indigenous group This Mob Arts Collective.
A number of people gathered to make signs and banners ahead of a demonstration outside Victoria’s Parliament in support of Palestinians amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
Images from the event show signs being painted that have now been deemed offensive by members of Melbourne’s Jewish community.
One reads: “Free Palestine from the colonising dumb white dogs!! Abolish Israel!! Pussy ass baby killing bitch ass Bibi.”
Bibi is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nickname.
Dvir Abramovich, chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission, slammed the poster’s open call for the “destruction of the Jewish state”.
“I never thought I would see such hate-fuelled events taking place in the country that I love, and the ripple effects of such demonisation are being felt deeply by us,” Dr Abramovich said.
“This venomous poster, calling for Israel to be erased, fans the flames of hostility at a dangerous time when anti-Semitism in Australia is skyrocketing, when young Jewish students are being called ‘bombers’ and are harassed schools and when Jews are singled out for abuse online.
“Words matter and such incitement can lead to verbal and physical attacks and those who crafted the banner bear responsibility.”
Hope St Radio and Collingwood Yards both issued statements after anger erupted online, apologising for the offence caused.
But now, the Australian Financial Review has revealed one of the main financial backers of the space has pulled its support.
Major law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler has written to Collingwood Yards to cease the partnership, the newspaper reports.
“I and my partners are deeply disappointed that Collingwood Yards was not prepared to demonstrate the requisite moral clarity and condemn Hamas and the atrocities it committed on October 7,” Arnold Bloch Leibler senior partner Mark Leibler wrote.
“Accordingly, and with great despair on our part that it has come to this, we have made the difficult decision to end our partnership with Collingwood Yards, including our representation on the board.”
Following the decision, Neil Aykan, the acting chief executive of Collingwood Yards, told the AFR that banners didn’t refer to the Hamas massacres in Israel because of “word count”.
“It was really a matter of keeping it succinct and keeping the word count down, otherwise it becomes beyond people’s attention span,” Mr Aykan said.
Devastating toll of Israel-Hamas conflict
An estimated 70 per cent of Palestinians killed during the Israel-Hamas conflict in less than four weeks are women and children, the United Nations reports.
Philippe Lazzarini, chief of the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), described the level of destruction in Gaza as “unprecedented”.
As Israeli Defence Forces intensify a ground assault in the disputed territory, seeking to wipe out the Hamas terrorist organisation, the number of civilian casualties is rising.
Compounding what Mr Lazzarini called a “human tragedy unfolding under our watch” is a worsening humanitarian crisis as vital aid trickles in.
“Most of the people of Gaza felt abandoned,” Mr Lazzarini told a special session of the UN Security Council.
“They feel the world is equating all of them to Hamas. This is dangerous, an entire population is being dehumanised.”
The UN believes more than 8300 Palestinians have died so far, largely due to Israeli air strikes across Gaza. Aid organisations say at least 3400 children have been killed.
“The atrocities of Hamas do not absolve the state of Israel from its obligations under international humanitarian law,” Mr Lazzarini said.
“Every war has rules and this one is no exception.”
Air strike on hospital condemned
Turkey has slammed the bombing of a hospital it helps to funds in Gaza by the Israeli Defence Forces.
The Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital suffered significant damage during an air strike earlier today.
Vision of the aftermath of the attack shows the building’s third floor significantly impacted, with smoke billowing into the sky.
Israeli warplanes bombed the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in Gaza, which was functioning as the only place for the treatment of cancer patients in the region pic.twitter.com/W6E0d3vE3F
— TRT World (@trtworld) October 30, 2023
In a statement, Turkey’s foreign ministry accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in violation of international law.
“As all necessary information, including the coordinates of the institution in question — which is the only cancer hospital in Gaza — was shared with the Israeli authorities in advance, there is no explanation for such an attack,” the statement read.
“The siege and these inhumane attacks, which aim to deprive the Palestinian people in Gaza of their most basic rights, clearly violate international law.
“Israel must stop targeting Gaza residents en masse, without discrimination.”
The IDF has not commented on the air strike. It is not clear if there were any fatalities as a result of the blast.
Famed Palestinian activist’s sick message
A young Palestinian woman who rose to fame after slapping an Israeli soldier in the face when she was a teenager has posted a graphic and disturbing message about the Israel-Hamas conflict.
In 2017, a video of Ahed Tamimi, then 16, lashing out the soldier went viral, sparking a renewed focus on the plight of those in Palestine, particularly children.
Ms Tamimi was arrested and charged with four offences, eventually sentenced to eight months in an Israeli prison.
She became the face of the Palestinian resistance as a result.
She rose to international prominence, making frequent media appearances and authoring a book. Some commentators compared her to Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai.
Earlier today, Ms Tamimi took to her Instagram account to share a graphic message via her Stories to Israelis in the wake of the current conflict gripping Gaza.
“Our message to the settler flocks,” a translation reads.
“We are waiting for you in all the cities of the West Bank, from Hebron to Jenin. We will slaughter you and we will say [that] what Hitler did was a joke.
“We will drink your blood and eat your skulls. Come forward. We are waiting for you.”
The remarks have sparked condemnation on social media. Ms Tahimi’s Instagram account appears to have been suspended.
Gaza on the verge of ‘catastrophe’
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is worsening, with United Nations organisation UNICEF warning the water supply in the region has dwindled.
UNICEF chief Catherine Russell addressed a special meeting of the UN Security Council and said the situation on the ground is on the verge of “becoming a catastrophe”.
“What little clean water remains in Gaza is quickly running out, leaving more than two million people in dire need,” Ms Russell said.
“We estimate that 55 per cent of the water supply infrastructure requires repair or rehabilitation.
“Only one desalination plant is operating at just five per cent capacity, while all six of Gaza’s water-waste treatment plants are now non-operational due to the lack of fuel or power.”
More civilians will likely die from dehydration of disease if clean water isn’t available, she warned.
Aussies hit up for Hamas donations
Australians are being urged to donate to Hamas on the social media platform Telegraph, according to reports.
The militant group, which Australia recognises as a terrorist organisation, is asking for financial support in the form of cryptocurrency – a move that could land donors in jail.
Ari Redbord, the global head of policy at blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs, told ABC News 24 said cryptocurrency is a small part of the Hamas terror financing operation.
“But it is a part nonetheless and needs to be cut-off,” Mr Redbord said in an interview.
“Hamas was an earlier adopter of crypto. We saw Hamas fundraising in cryptocurrencies in about 2019. They did it on Telegram channels and stood up website infrastructure to solicit donations in crypto.”
In 2020, the United States Justice Department seized some 150 crypto wallets associated with Hamas, he said.
Australia’s financial crime watchdog AUSTRAC is working with the Australian Federal Police to counter donation appeals on Telegram.
The Australian Financial Review reported one channel on the network, titled Support Palestine, was urging Aussies to donate to “help our fighters, as well as civilians”.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said Australians who contribute financially to Hamas are breaking strict anti-terror laws.
“It’s illegal under Australian law to provide material support to Hamas, a listed terrorist organisation, including by providing any form of monetary support,” Ms O’Neil told the AFR.
“Australians who want to send support to civilians in Gaza should do so through a reputable aid organisation like the Red Cross, who will make sure that money assists people in need and not a terrorist organisation that is engaged in horrific violence against innocent men, women and children.”
Israeli tank ‘fires on civilian car’
A disturbing video circulating on social media appears to show the moment an Israeli tank fires on a car full of civilians in Gaza.
The BBC has worked to independently verify the video, geolocating it to the sole highway linking Gaza’s north to the south, Salah- al-Din Road.
In it, photographers in another vehicle down the street can be seen observing the white vehicle as it comes to a stop and begin to turn around to travel away from the tank.
It’s then the car is fired on as it drives in the opposite direction, engulfed in plumes of smoke. The photographers watching yell and speed away from the scene.
They can be heard screaming that “a whole family” was in the car when it was shot at.
The Wall Street Journal reports the car was a taxi with a white flag draped on its bonnet.
Freelance photographer Bashar Talib told NBC News he filmed the incident, saying the car appeared to see the tank “at the last minute”.
“He was close to the tank and the bulldozer,” Mr Talib told the US network. “He stopped his car to go back, but he was targeted before driving.”
A journalist in the car, Yousaf Al Saifi, told Sky News it appeared the occupants of the white vehicle were killed.
“They fired on him,” Mr Al Saifi told the UK news service. “The driver tried turning back, he had a family with him. I saw the family in the car. They struck [the car] with a shell and they died. We saw it with our own eyes.”
The road is one of two routes Israel told Palestinians to use to evacuate northern Gaza heading south.
Israeli Defence Forces Major Nir Dinar told The Wall Street Journal that “terrorists use civilian infrastructure like cars”.
He added: “The IDF was not shown any proof that this is a civilian car and there’s no information on who is inside.”
A local told the newspaper that the tank quickly left the area after the incident.
Chilling look inside the ‘Hamas Metro’
If Israel is to succeed in ridding Gaza of the Hamas terrorist network, it faces a significant challenging in finding and destroying a vast tunnel system that runs beneath the disputed territory.
Known as the ‘Hamas Metro’, the tunnels are believed to have played a central role in moving militants into surprise attack positions to carry out horrifying massacres on Israeli citizens on 7 October.
Intelligence service Mossad now believes many of the 230 Israeli hostages still held by Hamas are captive deep underground.
In public statements made in 2021, Hamas political leader Yehia Sinwar said the group had 500km of tunnels. To put that into perspective, the Gaza Strip itself is about 360 square kilometres.
If true, the size of that tunnel system is vaster than London’s Underground train network.
Yocheved Lifshitz, an 85-year-old Israeli hostage who was freed by Hamas after a fortnight of captivity, said she was held within the tunnels.
“Eventually we went underground and walked for kilometres in wet tunnels, for two or three hours, in a spider‘s web of tunnels,” Ms Lifshitz told reporters.
“We went through the tunnels until we reached a large hall.”
Construction of the tunnel system began 20 years ago and was initially designed to connect Gaza with Egypt in order to smuggle banned goods and weapons.
At some point in recent years, Hamas pivoted and ramped up the spread of tunnels for the specific use of waging war.
They are concrete-reinforced and connected to electricity and telecommunications.
Some sections are metres high, allowing militants to comfortable walk upright, while parts are wide enough to drive missile-loaded trucks through, according to reports.
In 2004, Israeli Defence Forces formed the Samur unit, colloquially known as the ‘Weasals’, to infiltrate and destroy tunnels beneath Gaza.
Troops enter wearing oxygen masks and plant C4 explosives. Remote-controlled robots are also dispatched.
Ben Milch was part of the squad in 2014 and tole the Mail Online that he uncovered tunnels leading directly into Israel from Gaza.
“One telltale sign was sometimes a pulley system fixed to the side of a house for moving the excavated earth, and when we dug below, we‘d find the tunnel usually about 15-foot deep,” Mr Milch told the outlet.
“In other places, there would be a steel trapdoor inside a room in a house or mosque. Our job wasn‘t to enter the tunnels, just to destroy them.”
Last week, the IDF said a Hamas underground command centre next to the Al-Shifa Hospital – Gaza’s largest health facility – was discovered and bombed.
Multiple air strikes throughout the region over the past week have specifically targeted tunnels.
In an interview on Russian state television last week, senior Hamas figure Mousa Abu Marzouk said the tunnels were built to protect terrorists – not Palestinian civilians.
Israel is reported to have developed a weapon called a “sponge bomb” as part of its operations targeting the Hamas tunnels.
The IDF has not commented on the existence of the devices, but UK newspaper The Telegraph reported they are chemical weapons that explode and spray out foam that hardens.
German tattoo artist confirmed dead
German tattoo artist Shani Louk, whose plight inspired attention around the world after she was thought to have been abducted from a music festival by Hamas, has been found dead.
Ms Louk, 22, was paraded semi-naked through Gaza on the back of a truck in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ 7 October attacks.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the death of my sister, Shani Nicole Z.L., who was on October 7, 2023, at the party massacre in Re’im,” her sister Adi wrote on Instagram.
While Ms Louk’s full remains have yet to be found, her mother Ricarda said she was told by the Israeli military that a DNA sample, taken from a skull bone, proved to be hers.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Ms Louk had been beheaded.
“These barbaric, sadistic animals simply chopped off her head as they attacked, tortured and killed Israelis,” Mr Herzog said.
“It is a great tragedy and I extend my deepest condolences to her family.”
Ms Louk’s father told Israeli news site N12 that authorities believe she was shot and killed 10 minutes after fleeing the music festival.
It suggests she was dead in the Hamas footage showing her lying motionless in the back of a truck.
“Until about 6.45am [on 7 October], Shani was still dancing, cheering and going wild at the party and was surrounded by all her best friends,” Mr Louk told N12.
“She was killed on the spot, and not only did she not suffer, but 10 minutes earlier she was still enjoying herself.”
Eerie installation honours hostages
Israelis have gathered to honour the more than 200 hostages who remain captives of Hamas in Gaza, at a moving public art installation in Jerusalem.
The Installation of Empty Beds in Safra Square was organised by survivors of the 7 October massacre and loved ones of those kidnapped by militants.
It features 239 beds, mattresses, cots and bassinets arranged outside the Jerusalem Municipality building, symbolising the missing men, women and children.
Horrors in Gaza hospitals revealed
International charity Save The Children says one child is being killed every 10 minutes during the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza.
And of the 20,000 Palestinian civilians who have been injured so far, the group’s director of operations in Palestine Jason Lee said one-in-three are kids.
In an interview with the BBC, he also spoke of the horrific conditions doctors in Gaza hospitals are working under.
“Surgeons are doing surgeries without anaesthetic, people are using mobile phones as flashlights to have lights in health facilities,” Mr Lee told the British broadcaster.
Substandard hygiene practices and overcrowding have also seen a surge in communicable diseases among patients, he said.
Turkish Palestinian Hospital in Gaza was reportedly damaged by an Israeli air strike overnight, with the oxygen system and water supply affected.
Meanwhile, Catherine Russell, head of the United Nations’ agency UNICEF estimated some 420 children are being killed each day.
The death toll “quickly adding up” with “rampant grave violations” being committed, Ms Russell told a sitting of the UN Security Council overnight.
UNICEF believes more than 3400 children have died in Gaza since 7 October. Some 6300 have been injured, it estimates.
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