Israel-Hamas conflict as it happened: UN says 3000 children killed, Gaza ‘overflowing with sewage’ as basic services crumble

That brings us to the end of our live coverage for today, day 25 in the fighting of the Israel-Hamas war.

A brief look back at the day’s developments:

• Israel said its forces have attacked Hamas gunmen inside the Islamists’ vast tunnel network beneath Gaza, while pushing further into the enclave and focusing efforts on the north.

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to reject calls for a ceasefire, saying the war will be long and difficult and the calls are asking “for Israel to surrender to Hamas”.
• The humanitarian situation in Gaza is growing increasingly dire by the day, with aid agencies warning streets will soon be “overflowing with sewage”. Nearly 672,000 Palestinians are sheltering in schools and other facilities, which have reached four times their capacity, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
• UNICEF says approximately 420 children are dying in Gaza every day, while the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, estimates more than 3400 children have been killed in Gaza to date.
• A female soldier captured during Hamas’ wide-ranging October 7 attack inside Israel is assisting authorities with intelligence about her time in captivity after she was released during its ground operation.
• Hamas released a short video on Monday purporting to show three other female captives. One of the women delivers a brief statement – likely under duress – criticising Israel’s response to the hostage crisis.

You can find all our news, comment and analysis on the war here. I’m Lucy Cormack. Thank you for joining us. Good night.

A group of Australian journalists has been shown footage of Hamas terrorists murdering Israelis during the October 7 killing spree.

The footage included videos filmed by Hamas, which is regarded as a terrorist organisation by the Australian government, as well as CCTV vision, videos taken by terrified victims and first responders arriving in the aftermath, AAP has reported.

Einav Moshebarda, the niece of Adina, who was kidnapped by Hamas militants during their attack.Credit: Getty

Among disturbing scenes shown in the compilation were images of murdered small children and babies that had been burnt, videos of Hamas fighters disguised in Israel Defence Forces uniforms and shooting dogs in Israeli neighbourhoods.

Pathways of blood led to a pile of bodies in the homes of Israeli civilians who had been butchered alongside their families.

A spokeswoman from the Israeli embassy in Australia said it was an “obligation” for the footage to be shared. She said Israel was not embarking on a “narrative war” but was telling the truth about the depravity of the attack.

A military advisor to the embassy said it was with a “heavy heart” the footage was being shown.

AAP

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has told police and security services to prepare for the prospect of a terror attack amid tensions over the Israel-Hamas war, the London Telegraph is reporting.

Police and security agencies are said to be war-gaming scenarios in “table-top” exercises anticipating possible terrorist attacks triggered by rising community tensions.

The UK newspaper has reported on an emergency meeting of ministers, police chiefs and security officials, chaired by Sunak on Monday, which assessed the “accelerated” threat of domestic terrorism and the risk of disorder.

A protest in support of Palestinians in London.Credit: AP

It follows a 50,000-strong pro-Palestine protest in London at the weekend, in which five people were charged with public order offences by the Metropolitan Police.

The protest included chants calling for an intifada “from London to Gaza”, as well as a display of a blood-soaked effigy of a dead baby.

We’ve heard a lot about the extensive network of Hamas tunnels that honeycomb subterranean Gaza, exploiting the underside of civilian buildings like hospitals, schools and mosques.

In their most recent update, the Israeli Defence Forces have shown a 3D video impression of the ground below Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital, where they say Hamas is endangering Palestinians by storing weapons and planning operations.

IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus said the illustration depicted above and below the hospital, including “storage of weapons, command and control facilities, offices and places” used by Hamas.

“This is all underneath the hospital. This is a violation of international law. This is despicable, and it puts the people that are being treated in the hospital at risk.”

The IDF update also included details about the situation in northern Gaza, where an estimated 800,000 civilians are estimated to have responded to Israeli evacuation warnings.

Conricus also celebrated the release of Israeli soldier Private Ori Megidish overnight, adding that she was providing intelligence that would be useful in future operations.

“We are 25 days into the fighting. We didn’t start this, we didn’t want it, but we are definitely going to end it. And it will end with a totally dismantled Hamas in a totally different security situation in the south,” he said.

You can watch the IDF update below.

With the time now just past 9am in Gaza and Tel Aviv, here’s where the situation stands:

• The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, says over 3000 children have been killed in Gaza to date. He told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council there is no safe place anywhere in Gaza, warning that basic services are crumbling, medicine, food, water and fuel are running out, and the streets “have started overflowing with sewage, which will cause a massive health hazard very soon.”
• Also at the security council meeting, UN special envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen said the risk of the Israel-Hamas conflict spilling over into the country “is not just a risk; it has already begun”.
• In Melbourne, journalists gathered outside the ABC’s headquarters in Southbank this afternoon to hold a silent vigil for Palestinian photojournalist Roshdi Sarraj, who was killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza earlier this month.
• Meanwhile, the watchdog Reporters Without Borders said that the strikes that hit a group of journalists in southern Lebanon earlier this month, killing one, were targeted rather than accidental.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to reject calls for a ceasefire, saying the war will be long and difficult and doing so would effectively mean Israel surrenders to Hamas.

My name is Angus Thomson, thank you for your company this afternoon. I will now hand over to Lucy Cormack who will take you through the rest of this evening’s developments.

In a continued effort to establish a safe humanitarian corridor out of Gaza, Foreign Minister Penny Wong has held phone calls with International Committee of the Red Cross president Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, Lebanon’s caretaker foreign minister Bou Habib and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.

Senator Wong spoke to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi earlier in the week.

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

But a spokeswoman for Wong said efforts to secure a humanitarian passage through the Rafah crossing connect Egypt with Gaza “have not yet been successful”.

The department is in contact with 88 Australians in Gaza who have no way to exit the region, which is being blockaded by Israel.

Earlier this morning, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government remained concerned about Australians trapped in Gaza and would continue to push for exits to be opened into Egypt.

“We want Australians and other citizens to be able to leave, and we’re continuing to work through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to try to achieve that,” he said.

With AAP

The Israel-Hamas war is spilling into Syria, fuelled by growing instability, violence and a lack of progress toward a political solution to its 12-year conflict, the United Nations special envoy for the country said.

Geir Pedersen told the Security Council that, on top of violence from the Syrian conflict, the Syrian people now face “a terrifying prospect of a potential wider escalation” following Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel and the ongoing retaliatory military action.

United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen in 2021.Credit: AP

“Spillover into Syria is not just a risk; it has already begun,” Pedersen said.

Pedersen described Israel-linked airstrikes airports in Aleppo and Damascus, and retaliation by the United States against Iran-backed forces in Syrian territory, as fuel “being added to a tinderbox that was already beginning to ignite”.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States Ambassador to the UN, accused Syria of allowing Iran and terrorist groups to use its international airports for military purposes.

“We call on the regime to curb the activities of Iran-backed militias in Syria, stop the flow of foreign arms and fighters through its territory, and cease escalatory actions in the Golan Heights,” she said.

AP

More on that concept paper from Israel’s Intelligence Ministry detailing a proposal to relocate 2.3 million people from the Gaza Strip to tent cities in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

In this Al Jazeera interview from two weeks ago, former Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon elaborates on the plan, saying there was “almost endless space” in the Sinai desert just over the border from Gaza.

“The idea is for them to leave over to the open areas where we [Israel] and the international community will prepare the infrastructure … tent cities with food and with water,” he said.

He compared the plan to camps set up in Turkey for Syrian refugees fleeing the Assad regime, and said Egypt would “have to play ball” for it to work.

As we wrote earlier, that is unlikely. Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah El-Sissi, has proposed Israel instead house Palestinians in its Negev Desert, which neighbours the Gaza Strip, until it ends its military operations.

Earlier we reported on comments from the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, who told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday that an immediate humanitarian ceasefire had become “a matter of life and death for millions” o Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

In another clip from the meeting (shown above), Philippe Lazzarini says more than 3000 children and 64 of his colleagues have been killed in the last three weeks.

“An entire population is being dehumanised,” he said. “The atrocities of Hamas do not absolve the state of Israel from its obligation under international humanitarian law.

“Every war has rules, and this one is no exception.”

Jerusalem: An Israeli government ministry has drafted a wartime proposal to transfer the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, drawing condemnation from the Palestinians and worsening tensions with Cairo.

In its report from October 13, the Intelligence Ministry – a junior ministry that conducts research but does not set policy – proposed moving Gaza’s civilian population to tent cities in northern Sinai, then building permanent cities and an undefined humanitarian corridor.

The Sinai Peninsula sits between Egypt’s Suez Canal and its border with Israel and the Gaza Strip. Credit: AP

A security zone would be established inside Israel to block the displaced Palestinians from entering. The report did not say what would become of Gaza once its population is cleared out.

Its conclusions deepened long-standing Egyptian fears that Israel wants to make Gaza into Egypt’s problem, and revived for Palestinians memories of their greatest trauma – the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of people who fled or were forced from their homes during the fighting surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said a mass displacement of Palestinians would be “tantamount to declaring a new war”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office played down the report compiled by the Intelligence Ministry as a hypothetical “concept paper”.

Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, has said a mass influx of refugees from Gaza would eliminate the Palestinian nationalist cause and would risk bringing militants into Sinai, where they would be able to launch attacks on Israel.

AP