Israel Hamas war live updates: Israel to increase attacks, top Hamas official killed
Israeli forces have targeted a bunker under a mosque in an aerial strike as the leader of a militant group issues a stark warning. Follow the updates. Warning: Graphic
Israeli forces have bombed a bunker under a mosque in the West Bank it believed was being used to plot a terror attack.
The Israeli Defence Forces announced the aerial strike early on Sunday, which was targeted based on intelligence from the Israeli Securities Authority.
“The IDF & ISA just conducted an aerial strike on a Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist compound in the Al-Ansar Mosque in Jenin,” a statement said.
“Recent IDF intel revealed that the Mosque was used as a command centre to plan and execute terrorist attacks against civilians.”
The mosque was in a refugee camp 160km north of Jerusalem, with Al-Jazeera reporting that two medical workers were killed in the blast.
Israeli forces also launched attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Hezbollah fighters fired a rocket at an Israeli drone, but it was intercepted by Israeli’s Iron Dome defence system.
The attacks came as the United States continued diplomatic efforts overnight.
The IDF & ISA just conducted an aerial strike on a Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist compound in the Al-Ansar Mosque in Jenin.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 22, 2023
Recent IDF intel revealed that the Mosque was used as a command center to plan and execute terrorist attacks against civilians. pic.twitter.com/gQfyv6wUAV
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke with Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani to “thank him” for his help in getting American hostages Judith and Natalie Raanan released.
There are at least 10 more Americans among the 200 being held hostage in Gaza by Hamas.
Qatar has become a key player in the conflict as it has direct links to Hamas, with some of its key leaders living in the Persian Gulf state.
A summit in Cairo including leaders from Arab countries, as well as Britain, France, Germany and South Africa, called for an end to the violence on Sunday.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for a deal to stop the “human catastrophe”.
Jordan’s King Abdullah urged Israel to stop its bombing campaign in Gaza and allow more aid.
The Rafah Crossing was briefly opened on Saturday, with 20 aid trucks carrying food and medicine allowed into the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
However, no fuel was part of that convoy and it was unclear whether more trucks would be allowed through on Sunday.
FOLLOW THE UPDATES BELOW:
HEZBOLLAH’S CHILLING WARNING
The deputy leader of Hezbollah has issued a chilling warning if Israel starts a ground offensive in Gaza, saying the Iran-backed militant group based in Lebanon is already “in the heart of the battle”.
Hezbollah said six of their fighters were killed on Saturday, as the Israeli military traded fire with Hezbollah on the Lebanon-Israel border.
“We are trying to weaken the Israeli enemy and let them know that we are ready,” Hezbollah’s deputy leader Sheikh Naim Kassem said, according to the Associated Press.
In northern Israel, a strike in the Margaliot area of the border wounded two Thai farm workers, Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency medical service said.
One was wounded in the chest and the other sustained a limb injury, the service said of the workers, who are among the 30,000 Thai labourers in Israel.
PALESTINIANS PAYING ‘HORRIBLE PRICE’
Industry Minister Ed Husic says Palestinians are paying a “horrible price” for Israel’s military retaliation arguing there must be a better way to target Hamas.
Mr Husic told Sky News members of the Labor caucus were concerned about both Israelis and innocent Palestinian families caught up in the conflict.
He said the Australian government must continue to push for de-escalation in the region and for Israel to defend itself in a much more “strategic and precise way”.
Mr Husic called for an unconditional release of hostages by Hamas and doubled down on calls for the Israeli government to ensure innocent Palestinians were not harmed.
CONGRESSMAN MOURNS RELATIVES
The first Palestinian American to serve as a congressman on the US Capitol has revealed several of his family members were killed at the Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza that was struck by Israel on Friday.
An Israeli airstrike hit the grounds of the historic Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, which was sheltering displaced people, according to church officials and witnesses.
Writing on X, Justin Amash shared the loss of his relatives, saying:
“I was really worried about this. With great sadness, I have now confirmed that several of my relatives … were killed at Saint Porphyrius Orthodox Church in Gaza, where they had been sheltering, when part of the complex was destroyed as the result of an Israeli airstrike.”
AID TRUCKS ENTER GAZA THROUGH RAFAH CROSSING
A convoy of 20 trucks carrying aid has moved through the Rafah border crossing into Gaza from Egypt after days of diplomatic wrangling to get food, water and medicine into the enclave.
The US welcomed the arrival of the trucks, which the United Nations said were loaded with “life-saving supplies”, and urged all parties to keep the Rafah crossing open.
“The opening of this essential supply route was the result of days of diplomatic engagement at the highest levels,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement.
“I made it clear from the outset of this crisis — in both my public statements and private conversations — that humanitarian assistance was a critical and urgent need that had to get moving,” he said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier urged “all parties to keep the Rafah crossing open to enable the continued movement of aid that is imperative to the welfare of the people of Gaza.”
ISRAEL ENTERS ‘NEXT PHASE OF WAR’
Israel is to immediately step up its strikes in Gaza to increase pressure on Hamas, a military spokesman told a press conference as top officers warned troops to be ready to enter the besieged Palestinian territory.
Israel has massed tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks along the Gaza border for a widely anticipated ground invasion.
“We have to enter the next phase of the war in the best conditions, not according to what anyone tells us,” military spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari told a press conference in the early hours of Sunday (AEDT).
“From today, we are increasing the strikes and minimising the danger. “We will increase the attacks and therefore I called on Gaza City residents to continue moving south for their safety,” Admiral Hagari added.
TOP HAMAS COMMANDER KILLED
A senior Hamas commander and his wife have been killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Talal al-Hindi, a field commander in brutal al-Qassam brigades - Hamas’ military wing - was said to have been killed in a strike in the Gaza Strip, according to a news agency linked to the terrorist group.
According to a report in The Sun, he is understood to have been blown up at his home while sheltering with his wife Fadwa, his daughter Israa, and her daughter Baraa.
Israel is currently striking at Hamas’ leadership following the deaths of 1400 Israelis by the terror group on October 7.
Al-Hindi’s reported death comes just days after fellow Hamas commander, Jehad Mheisen, was also blown up after an Israeli airstrike on his house.
The top commander was killed with his family in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Radwan, a Hamas-aligned news agency said.
A third Hamas top commander, Ayman Nofal, was also killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Ayman Nofal, who was in charge of the Central Gaza area in the armed wing Izz el-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades, the most high-profile Hamas militant to be assassinated so far.
Nofal’s death came hours after the IDF confirmed it had killed senior Hamas official Dr Osama Mazini.
‘WE WON’T LEAVE’: ABBAS ISSUES WARNING
A defiant Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has claimed the Palestinian people would not be displaced, in an address at a peace summit in Cairo aimed at preventing the Israel-Gaza crisis from escalating into a regional war.
“We will never accept this forcible displacement and will stand tall on our land,” he added.
“We warn of the danger of [the] displacement of our civilians from their houses or their displacement from the West Bank or from Jerusalem,” said Mr Abbas, who leads the PA, which is in charge of semi-autonomous parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
GAZA’S HEALTHCARE SYSTEM FACING COLLAPSE
Gaza’s healthcare system is “facing collapse,” Doctors Without Borders said in a series of tweets on Saturday local time, adding the organisation said that Gaza’s hospitals are “overwhelmed and lacking resources.”
“We recently made a large donation of medical stock, including medicines, narcotics and medical equipment to Al Shifa hospital, the main surgical facility in the Strip,” the organisation added.
We stand ready to provide further support to medical facilities in Gaza as soon as a window will be opened for the delivery of desperately needed aid.
— Doctors w/o Borders (@MSF_USA) October 20, 2023
“We delivered everything we had left, all our medical supplies, to Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, two days ago. We saw hundreds of people taking shelter and it was difficult to walk inside,” Loay Harb, an MSF nurse in Gaza said.
100,000 JOIN PRO-PALESTINIAN MARCH IN LONDON
It comes as 100,000 people joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration in central London on Saturday local time, according to estimates by the city’s Metropolitan Police.
“As of 2pm (12am AEDT) we now estimate the numbers in the demonstration to be up to 100,000; the front remains on Whitehall,” police said.
Our colleagues at @NPASLondon really are invaluable on days like today giving us a real time overview of events as they take place on a #PublicOrder day! ðŸš
— Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) October 21, 2023
As of 1400 hours we now estimate the numbers in the demonstration to be up to 100,000; the front remains on Whitehall. 👀 pic.twitter.com/waFUXWBXTo
A picture posted by the Metropolitan police on social media shows demonstrators gathered at the Whitehall area, where a number of government buildings are located.
Protests have erupted globally this week, particularly around the Arab world, with thousands of demonstrators taking the streets in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and the West Bank after Islamic Friday prayers yesterday to protest Israel’s actions in its war on Hamas.
UN CEASEFIRE CALLED AS AID ENTERS GAZA
UN chief Antonio Guterres called for a “humanitarian ceasefire” in the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas and called for global “action to end this godawful nightmare”.
The war has left thousands dead and displaced a million Palestinians, who Mr Guterres said need “much more” than the 20 trucks that were entering the besieged territory of 2.4 million people.
The Palestinians need “a continuous delivery of aid to Gaza at the scale that is needed”, he told regional leaders at Cairo’s Summit for Peace.
The call comes after the first of 20 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered the war-torn and besieged Gaza Strip on Saturday through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said he was “confident that this delivery will be the start of a sustainable effort to provide essential supplies... to the people of Gaza” and warned that “this first convoy must not be the last”.
HEZBOLLAH TO PAY HEAVY PRICE
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant says the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group has been paying “a heavy price” for its missile, rocket, and shooting attacks against Israeli military sites, troops, and Israeli towns in northern Israel in recent days.
“Hezbollah has decided to participate in the fighting, we are exacting a heavy price from it,” he said.
IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari also said that in the past day, a fifth of rockets launched by Palestinian terror groups in Gaza have fallen short.
“More than 550 rockets launched by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad have failed, killing innocent civilians in Gaza. They are killing their own civilians,” he said.
FATE OF HOSTAGES IN LIMBO AMID WAR DELAY
The fate of the remaining 200 hostages hangs in the balance, as Israel masses troops on its border with the Gaza Strip.
Uri Raanan’s daughter, Natalie, and ex-wife, Judith, were the first hostages released following Hamas’ terror attack on Israel’s border with Gaza.
United States President Joe Biden spoke with the released hostages on Saturday, while separately claiming the original terrorist attack happened because Saudi Arabia was close to recognising Israel.
Hamas has vowed to release more civilian hostages if the Israeli government “stops their aggression”.
There were reports last night that Israel’s allies were urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay a ground invasion.
They wanted more time to negotiate the release of hostages, who were likely being held in tunnels that were difficult to access without significant bloodshed.
More than 1.4 million of Gaza’s 2 million people have been forced to move from their homes as Israeli forces work towards ensuring terrorist organisation Hamas “ceases to exist”.
ISRAEL BLAMES IRAN FOR HAMAS TERRORISM
The Israeli Defence Force released a video blaming Iran for funding Hamas’ terrorism.
The video also claimed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was living in luxury in Qatar, while the Palestinian people were “impoverished” in Gaza.
- with AFP
Originally published as Israel Hamas war live updates: Israel to increase attacks, top Hamas official killed
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