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Welcome to our rolling coverage of the conflict

Good morning, David Estcourt here.

Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip.Credit: AP

I’ll be bringing you the latest developments from the conflict in Israel and Gaza. Here’s a summary of where things stand:

• It is just after 10.30pm in the affected region, bringing the 18th day of the conflict to a close.
• AP report overnight that Israel was escalating its bombardment of targets in the Gaza Strip ahead of an expected ground invasion against Hamas militants. The war is rapidly raising the death toll in Gaza, and the US fears the fighting could spark a wider conflict in the region.
• Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been running out of food, water and medicine since Israel sealed off the territory following the Hamas attack on Israeli towns on October 7. The aid convoys allowed into Gaza so far have carried a fraction of what’s needed, and the UN said distribution will have to stop if there’s no fuel for the trucks.
• The conflict is the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Health Ministry said at least 5791 Palestinians have been killed and 16,297 wounded. In the occupied West Bank, 96 Palestinians have been killed and 1650 wounded in violence and Israeli raids since October 7.
• Late last night Hamas freed two elderly women hostages.
• One of those, 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz, a peace activist who has helped Gazans obtain medical help, said was kidnapped from her kibbutz but once imprisoned by Hamas, was treated well
• Four hostages have been freed so far, Hamas is holding more than 200 people, including children.
• French president Emmanuel Macron became the latest leader to visit Israel – he called for the international coalition that decapitated ISIS to fight Hamas
• The Pentagon sent advisers to Israel ahead of the long-awaited ground invasion of Gaza. Israel’s military said it was ready but awaiting political instruction.
• At home, the opposition called for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to call Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and send Foreign Minister Penny Wong.

We will be bringing you updates throughout the day, thanks for joining us this morning.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN calls on Secretary-General to resign over ceasefire call

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said at a meeting of the Security Council that the October 7 attacks by Hamas — which he described as appalling — cannot justify “the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

The attacks by Hamas, which Israeli officials said killed more than 1,400 people and led to the abduction of more than 200 others, “did not happen in a vacuum,” Guterres said, adding that Palestinians had been subjected to 56 years of “suffocating occupation.”

His comments prompted fierce backlash from Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, who called on Guterres to resign in a post on social media.

Israeli military officials say they are well prepared for a ground assault in Gaza, but it remains unclear when and if such an invasion will occur.

US officials have said Israel’s military is not yet ready with a plan for a successful invasion, and have also urged Israel to give more time for hostage negotiations and aid deliveries.

New York Times

Death toll climbs in Gaza as Israel intensifies airstrikes

The Israeli military said Tuesday that it had stepped up its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian officials said that hundreds of people had been killed, adding to the devastating toll as Israel faces pressure to delay a ground invasion in response to the October 7 assault by Hamas.

Israel said it had struck more than 400 targets in the past 24 hours — on top of more than 320 a day earlier — in some of the most intense aerial attacks on Gaza in recent days.

António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations.Credit: Getty

The Gaza Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, said that it had recorded the highest single-day death toll of the war: at least 704 people killed in dozens of strikes on homes, a refugee camp and other places. It was not possible to independently verify the toll.

The attacks by Hamas, which Israeli officials said killed more than 1,400 people and led to the abduction of more than 200 others, “did not happen in a vacuum,” Guterres said, adding that Palestinians had been subjected to 56 years of “suffocating occupation.”

New York Times

Israeli hostage describes the ‘hell’ of harrowing Hamas attack and capture

Jerusalem — Eighty-five-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz spoke of a “hell that we never knew before and never thought we would experience” as she described the harrowing Oct. 7 assault on her kibbutz by Hamas militants and the terror of being taken hostage into the Gaza Strip.

Lifshitz was the first of the four hostages released so far to speak of their experience, from the initial attack through the more than two weeks of captivity.

Yocheved Lifshitz speaks to the media outside Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv after being released by Hamas.Credit: Getty

“Masses swarmed our houses, beat people, and some were taken hostage,” said Lifshitz, speaking softly from a wheelchair as she briefed reporters on Tuesday at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital, a day after Hamas released her and 79-year-old Nurit Cooper. “They didn’t care if they were young or old.”

Her 83-year-old husband, Oded, remains a hostage in Gaza.

Lifshitz, a member of Kibbutz Nir Oz, was among the more than 200 Israelis and foreigners seized after heavily armed Hamas militants broke through Israel’s multibillion-dollar electric border fence and fanned across southern Israel, overrunning nearly two dozen communities, military bases and a desert rave. More than 1,400 people died in the daylong killing rampage that followed.

Israel’s military has launched a devastating war on Gaza in an effort to crush Hamas and its airstrikes into Gaza after the attack have killed more than 5,000 people, according to the Hamas-led Gaza Health Ministry. Lifshitz’s captors hustled her onto a motorcycle, removed her watch and jewelry and beat her with sticks, bruising her ribs and making it difficult to breathe, she said.

Once in Gaza, she walked several kilometers to a network of tunnels that she described as “looking like a spider web.” She reached a large room where 25 people had been taken but was later separated into a smaller group with four others.

The people assigned to guard her “told us they are people who believe in the Quran and wouldn’t hurt us.”

Lifshitz said captives were treated well and received medical care, including medication. The guards kept conditions clean, she said. Hostages were given one meal a day of cheese, cucumber and pita, she said, adding that her captors ate the same.

AP

Welcome to our rolling coverage of the conflict

Good morning, David Estcourt here.

Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip.Credit: AP

I’ll be bringing you the latest developments from the conflict in Israel and Gaza. Here’s a summary of where things stand:

• It is just after 10.30pm in the affected region, bringing the 18th day of the conflict to a close.
• AP report overnight that Israel was escalating its bombardment of targets in the Gaza Strip ahead of an expected ground invasion against Hamas militants. The war is rapidly raising the death toll in Gaza, and the US fears the fighting could spark a wider conflict in the region.
• Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been running out of food, water and medicine since Israel sealed off the territory following the Hamas attack on Israeli towns on October 7. The aid convoys allowed into Gaza so far have carried a fraction of what’s needed, and the UN said distribution will have to stop if there’s no fuel for the trucks.
• The conflict is the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Health Ministry said at least 5791 Palestinians have been killed and 16,297 wounded. In the occupied West Bank, 96 Palestinians have been killed and 1650 wounded in violence and Israeli raids since October 7.
• Late last night Hamas freed two elderly women hostages.
• One of those, 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz, a peace activist who has helped Gazans obtain medical help, said was kidnapped from her kibbutz but once imprisoned by Hamas, was treated well
• Four hostages have been freed so far, Hamas is holding more than 200 people, including children.
• French president Emmanuel Macron became the latest leader to visit Israel – he called for the international coalition that decapitated ISIS to fight Hamas
• The Pentagon sent advisers to Israel ahead of the long-awaited ground invasion of Gaza. Israel’s military said it was ready but awaiting political instruction.
• At home, the opposition called for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to call Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and send Foreign Minister Penny Wong.

We will be bringing you updates throughout the day, thanks for joining us this morning.

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