Israel-Hamas conflict as it happened: Netanyahu praises IDF advance into Gaza City; UN says Palestinians at risk of genocide

Thank you for joining me on the blog this afternoon. I’m Caitlin Fitzsimmons and I’m signing off for the evening. My colleagues will keep you updated with any major events.

One thing to look out for, along with any details from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Israel today and Jordan tomorrow, is a key signal on Hezbollah’s direction expected late tonight.

The Washington Post reports that Hezbollah’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, is expected to make a speech tonight. He has so far been publicly silent on whether he favours reining in the attacks or expanding them.

The Lebanese militant group, which like Hamas is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Australia, has seemed increasingly ready to escalate its own fight. In the past week, the militant group has deployed new weapons and struck harder and deeper into Israel, fanning fears of a full-blown war.

Yesterday Hezbollah announced it had struck 19 positions in Israel simultaneously. It also announced its first use of self-detonating drones.

For those just catching up, here are the main developments today.

• The Israeli military says it has encircled Gaza City - its forces are on three sides and the fourth side is the sea.
• Israeli soldiers have started pushing into the city, encountering mines and other booby traps as Hamas militants make the most of their network of tunnels.
• The death toll since October 7 stands at 9061 Palestinians (according to Hamas) and about 1400 Israelis (according to Israel). More than 200 people are believed to be held hostage in Gaza.
• Two more Australians made it across the Rafah crossing when it opened for the second time, and it’s opening for a third time today.
• US Republicans approved military aid for Israel but no humanitarian aid for Palestinians, in a bill that will face defeat in the Senate or ultimately a veto by President Joe Biden.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has landed in Tel Aviv for his second trip to the Middle East since the October 7 Hamas attacks.

Before leaving Washington, Blinken said he would discuss concrete steps to minimise harm to civilians in Gaza, and is expected to formally call for humanitarian causes.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaking to reporters before leaving Washington DC.Credit: Reuters

The White House said any pauses in fighting should be temporary and localised, and insisted they would not stop Israel defending itself.

Blinken told reporters in Washington his discussions with officials in Israel and Jordan would also broach issues of post-war planning.

“We’re focused on the day of. We also need to be focused on the day after,” Blinken told reporters.

The foundation for a lasting peace, he said, is a path toward eventual Palestinian statehood, a goal that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long resisted.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi will tell Blinken in Amman on Saturday that Israel must end its war on Gaza where he said it was committing war crimes by bombing civilians and imposing a siege.

In a foreign ministry statement, Safadi warned that Israel’s unreadiness to end the war was pushing the region rapidly towards a regional war that threatened world peace.

With agencies

France has passed messages to Hezbollah and Israel to not destabilise the United Nations’ Lebanon peacekeeping force UNIFIL and said that any broadening of the Hamas-Israel war to Lebanon would plunge the country “into an abyss”.

France has sought to use its historical relationship with Lebanon to try to defuse tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, but violence has spiked. Some 700 French soldiers are part of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) established in 1978 following violence on the Israel-Lebanon border.

French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu.Credit: AP

Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu told France Info radio said: “It is clear that we must not put UNIFIL in an untenable situation in which it will not be able to carry out the mission that the United Nations has given it.

“This is the message we are sending to the various actors, on the Lebanese side as well as on the Israeli side.”

Speaking after meeting the French contingent in Lebanon and ahead of a much-anticipated speech by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday (Saturday AEDT), Lecornu said all of Lebanon’s leaders needed to understand the risk of going to war.

“The war here in Lebanon would plunge part of the Middle East into an abyss, … which we would have difficulty collectively to get back up from,” Lecornu said.

Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces across the Israeli-Lebanese border since Hamas and Israel went to war on October 7, in the deadliest violence at the frontier since a 2006 war.

Reuters

Posters highlighting the kidnapping of hostages by Hamas have been torn down by North Sydney Council, while other Sydney councils are leaving them in place to avoid exacerbating tensions in the community.

A North Sydney Council employee removing illegally placed posters highlighting the hostages believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza.Credit: James Brickwood

A council ranger was on Friday seen removing “Kidnapped” posters showing the names and faces of people believed to be imprisoned in Gaza after the terrorist attack in Israel on October 7. A council spokesperson said it was policy to remove all posters from council properties.

By contrast, a spokesperson for the City of Sydney said he was aware of posters supporting both Israeli and Palestinian civilians, but the city had decided to leave them in place “in an effort to avoid inflaming tensions”.

Read the full story by Julie Power and Angus Thomson.

Gulf Arab power the United Arab Emirates has warned that there was a real risk of a regional spillover from the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, adding that it was working “relentlessly” to secure a humanitarian ceasefire.

Noura al-Kaabi, a minister of state for foreign affairs, told a policy conference in the capital, Abu Dhabi: “As we continue working to stop this war we cannot ignore the wider context and the necessity to turn down the regional temperature that is approaching a boiling point.

“The risk of regional spillover and further escalation is real, as well as the risk that extremist groups will take advantage of the situation to advance ideologies that will keep us locked in cycles of violence.”

Reuters

The Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt was due to open for a third day on Friday for limited evacuations under a Qatari-brokered deal aimed at letting some foreign passport holders, their dependents and some wounded Gazans out of the enclave.

According to border officials, more than 700 foreign citizens left for Egypt via Rafah on the two previous days.

Wounded Palestinians enter the Rafah crossing yesterday to receive medical care for the first time since the war began.Credit: Getty

That includes 23 Australian citizens, permanent residents, visa holders and their family members who left in the first crossing and are now in Cairo, and another two who left at the second opportunity. About 60 Australians remain in the territory.

Dozens of critically injured Palestinians were to cross too. Israel asked foreign countries to send hospital ships for them.

Over a third of Gaza’s 35 hospitals are not functioning, with many turned into impromptu refugee camps.

Charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, describing packed corridors and many medics who were themselves bereaved and homeless, said “the situation is beyond catastrophic”.

With Reuters

Turning now to a military update on Gaza, Israel says its troops have completely encircled Gaza City, but it is tough going on the ground.

Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters his country’s “troops completed the encirclement of Gaza City, which is the focal point of the Hamas terror organisation”.

Brigadier General Iddo Mizrahi, chief of Israel’s military engineers, said troops were encountering mines and booby traps.

“Hamas has learned and prepared itself well,” he said.

Abu Ubaida, spokesperson for the armed wing of Hamas, said in a televised speech yesterday (Gaza time) that Israel’s death toll in Gaza was much higher than the military had announced.

“Your soldiers will return in black bags,” he said.

Israel has said it has lost 18 soldiers and killed dozens of militants since ground operations expanded on Friday.

Hamas and allied Islamic Jihad fighters were emerging from tunnels to fire at tanks, then disappearing back into the network, residents said and videos from both groups showed.

Two US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the US was flying intelligence-gathering drones over Gaza to help locate hostages. One of the officials said they had been carrying out the drone flights for over a week.

Reuters

In case you missed it earlier, Kooyong independent MP Monique Ryan has defended her stance on the Israel-Hamas war after the principal of a prominent Jewish school in her electorate published a letter criticising her stance.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Ryan wrote: “We have no greater responsibility than protecting our children. As a paediatrician, I find the human suffering in Gaza intolerable.

“I join my medical colleagues from around the world in calling for a humanitarian pause so that aid can reach people in desperate need.”

Monique Ryan said the principal’s statement misrepresented her positions on the Israel-Hamas conflict.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Yesterday Bialik College principal Jeremy Stowe-Lindner said it was “unacceptable” that Israel’s suffering wasn’t mentioned in the teal MP’s social media post calling for a humanitarian pause in Gaza.

“Perhaps a reference to the intolerable suffering of the families of 1400 Israeli civilians on October 7 who were murdered, raped and beheaded would be appropriate too?”

But Ryan rejected the principal’s two-page statement, saying it misrepresented her positions taken publicly after Hamas’ initial attacks last month.

She said she unequivocally condemned Hamas and antisemitism, and her voting record on Israel was the same as the Coalition’s.

Read the full story by Lachlan Abbott.

In a quote usually attributed to Aeschylus, the father of Greek tragedy, it’s often said that truth is the first casualty of war.

In that vein, let’s take a closer look at the latest misinformation spreading online – and the facts.

Children look at photographs of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas.Credit: AP

CLAIM: Yemen has declared war against Israel.

THE FACTS: Yemen’s internationally recognised government has not declared war on Israel. Houthi rebels backed by Iran, which control the country’s capital, launched missiles at Israeli targets and threatened further attacks, but also did not declare war.

CLAIM: Pro-Palestinian rallies at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Pennsylvania called for “Jewish genocide”.

THE FACTS: The chant uttered in videos of recent demonstrations is being misrepresented. Protestors aren’t saying “We want Jewish genocide” but rather “Israel, we charge you with genocide”. Experts and advocates say it’s a typical refrain heard at pro-Palestinian rallies.

CLAIM: An ad for British department store Marks & Spencer shows a Palestinian flag burning in a fireplace.

THE FACTS: The image shows paper Christmas hats burning in a fireplace in red, green and silver, which are traditional Christmas colours. It’s an outtake from a Christmas commercial filmed in August that was meant to “playfully” illustrate how people don’t enjoy some Christmas traditions, including donning the hats.

Widely shared social media posts falsely claimed the image depicted a burning Palestinian flag. Others took offence that the colours chosen were from the Palestinian flag. M&S has now removed the image.

CLAIM: A video showing bodies moving after being covered by white cloths is evidence that deaths are being faked by Palestinians and Hamas during the Israel-Hamas war.

THE FACTS: The video is from 2013 and shows students protesting at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt.

AP

As reports trickle in about Australia and other countries working to bring their citizens and residents home, spare a thought for Thailand.

Chris Barrett and Nuttakarn Sumon report that there were more than 30,000 mostly Thai farm labourers in Israel when Hamas carried out its deadly attacks on October 7.

Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has urged them to return home, and nearly 9000 have done so on government-arranged repatriation flights.

Anucha Angkaew, a Thai farm worker captured by Hamas from an Israeli kibbutz on October 7. He is pictured with his daughter, who is now 7.

Thavisin has said 32 of its citizens were slain, a greater toll than any nationality besides Israelis and Palestinians. And of more than 200 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, 22 are Thai farmworkers.

His government has called on Hamas to release the Thai hostages while a delegation from the Muslim-majority deep south region of Thailand, where a low-level separatist insurgency has been waged for decades, is also lobbying for a favourable outcome.

This week they flew back from Iran, which sponsors Hamas, where they met representatives from the Islamist group as well as leadership figures in Tehran.

Among the hostages is Anucha Angkaew, a 28-year-old avocado farmer who was working in Israel to help support his wife and child in north-eastern Thailand.

Read the full story.