Israel-Hamas war live: Hamas releases two more hostages, Red Cross says; Biden administrat

Washington is concerned that Israel lacks achievable military objectives in Gaza and does not yet have a workable plan for a ground invasion, the New York Times has reported, citing senior officials in the Biden administration.

Defense secretary Lloyd J Austin has stressed the need for careful consideration of how a ground invasion would be conducted in conversations with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant, the paper wrote.

It added that Biden officials still insist they support an invasion and that they are not telling Israel what to do.

However the NYT also said that in conversations with Israeli officials about prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aim of eradicating Hamas, the Americans had not yet seen an achievable plan of action and there were concerns that a ground operation could be extremely bloody for civilians as well as troops.

“The first thing that everyone should know, and I think everyone does know, is that urban combat is extremely difficult,” Austin told ABC News’s This Week on Sunday.

There was no immediate Israeli response to the report but a diplomat from the Israeli Embassy denied that the US government was advising the Israelis to delay the ground invasion, as the paper reported on Sunday.

Here’s a bit more from Obama’s statement on the Israel-Hamas conflict, in which he said that it is important that “Israel’s military strategy abides by international law, including those laws that seek to avoid, to every extent possible, the death or suffering of civilian populations”. He wrote:

Upholding these values is important for its own sake – because it is morally just and reflects our belief in the inherent value of every human life.

Upholding these values is also vital for building alliances and shaping international opinion – all of which are critical for Israel’s long-term security.

He noted that this presented an “enormously difficult task”, one at which the US “had at times fallen short of”. And after an attack that evoked “some of the darkest memories of persecution against the Jewish people”, Israeli citizens were understandably demanding their government do “whatever it takes to root out Hamas and make sure such attacks never happen again”, he said. However, he continued:

In dealing with what is an extraordinarily complex situation where so many people are in pain and passions are understandably running high, all of us need to do our best to put our best values, rather than our worst fears, on display.

That meant opposing anti-semitism and “efforts to minimize the terrible tragedy that the Israeli people have just endured as well as the morally-bankrupt suggestion that any cause can somehow justify the deliberate slaughter of innocent people”.

It also meant rejecting anti-Muslim, anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian sentiment, he said.

It means refusing to lump all Palestinians with Hamas or other terrorist groups. It means guarding against dehumanizing language towards the people of Gaza, or downplaying Palestinian suffering – whether in Gaza or the West Bank – as irrelevant or illegitimate.

Israel’s siege and bombardment of Gaza following the Hamas attack of 7 October risks backfiring and ultimately undermining long term efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region, Barack Obama has said.

“Even as we support Israel, we should also be clear that how Israel prosecutes this fight against Hamas matters,” the former US president said in a statement that also emphasised Israel’s “right to defend its citizens against such wanton violence”. He continued:

The world is watching closely as events in the region unfold, and any Israeli military strategy that ignores the human costs could ultimately backfire.

Thousands of Palestinians, including many children, had already been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza, while hundreds of thousands had been forced from their homes, Obama wrote.

The Israeli government’s decision to cut off food, water and electricity to a captive civilian population threatens not only to worsen a growing humanitarian crisis; it could further harden Palestinian attitudes for generations, erode global support for Israel, play into the hands of Israel’s enemies, and undermine long term efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region.

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi has said Beijing is “deeply concerned” by the escalating war between Israel and Hamas and called on Israel to respect humanitarian law in a phone call with his Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen, Chinese state media has reported.

All countries have a right to self-defence but China condemns all acts that harm civilians and opposes any violation of the international law, Wang said, according to Xinhua.

The conflict affects the whole world, he added, and “involves a major choice between war and peace”. Xinhua wrote that he stressed:

The painful lesson of the repeated cycle of Palestinian-Israeli conflict fully demonstrates: only adhering to the concept of common security can help achieve sustainable security, and only adhering to the direction of political settlement can facilitate the thorough resolution of Israel’s legitimate security concerns.

The two-state solution is the consensus of the international community.

Wang said he hoped both sides could consider “ long-term interests of peace and security shared by future generations” and that they would resume peace talks.

Israel struck a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip late on Monday, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, Reuters has reported. The Israeli military did not immediately provide comment.

In a statement on Facebook, health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said the Israeli bombardment targeted Gaza’s Al-Shati camp, which abuts the Mediterranean coastline.

Palestinian media reported that five people were killed in the camp. Reuters could not immediately confirm the reports.

The wires have sent through some pictures of the hostages newly released by Hamas:

I’m Helen Livingstone, taking over from my colleague Richard Luscombe.

It’s 2am Tuesday in Gaza and Tel Aviv, midnight in London, and 7pm Monday in Washington DC. Here’s what we’ve been following:

• Hamas released two hostages from those it’s holding in Gaza. The group named them as Israeli women Nurit Yitzhak (also known as Nurit Cooper), 79, and Yocheved Lifschitz, 85, and said they were released on “humanitarian and poor health grounds”. The women were transported by the Red Cross to Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Israel, then taken for medical care and a reunion with their families. Earlier, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it believed Hamas was still holding 222 hostages in Gaza.

• The United Nations warned of an increasingly dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, with small amounts of food, water, medicines but not fuel being delivered in a convoy of 20 trucks on Monday. Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, has called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” for more aid to be sent in. The UN, meanwhile, says only two days of fuel are left for its agency assisting Palestinians, and that water desalination and electricity generating plants will cease to function, affecting hospitals and other critical services.

• The White House, however, says the “time is not right” for a ceasefire. John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council, told CNN the US position was that all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza must be released first. “The message was pretty clear to Hamas: ‘release all the hostages’. That needs to be the first move here. We’re not talking about a ceasefire right now. In fact, we don’t believe that this is the time for a ceasefire,” he said.

• Kirby also said Iran was behind attacks by proxy on US troops in the Middle East after a barrage of drone and missile attacks over the weekend. At a media briefing, he said the US was ramping up its military capabilities in the Middle East and warned Iran or other nations seeking to use the conflict as an excuse to attack US interests: “Don’t do it.”

• Reports from Israel suggested that the release of about 50 hostages held by Hamas could be imminent. The Tel Aviv news channel I24 reported “sources within Gaza” as saying “the finalization of a potential deal” brokered by Qatari was under way for the release of about 50 abductees who hold dual citizenship. Officials of Red Cross were believed to on their way to receive the group, I24 said, and the release could be concluded “in the hours ahead” if there were no obstacles. But there was no further news by Monday night.

• Almost 20,000 people have been internally displaced in south Lebanon and elsewhere since early October, a United Nations agency said, reflecting escalating violence on the Lebanese-Israeli border. The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said 19,646 people had been displaced inside Lebanon since it began tracking movements on 8 October, the day after the assault on Israel by Hamas militants, the AFP news agency reported.

• The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has said at least 5,087 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since 7 October. It said the dead included 2,055 children. Additionally, it said 15,273 people had been wounded. The ministry put the death toll in the past 24 hours at 436, including 182 children. It said most of the fatalities had occurred in the southern Gaza Strip, to where Israel’s military has ordered Palestinians to evacuate. The claims have not been independently verified.

• Israel’s military said that ground forces mounted limited raids into the Gaza Strip overnight to fight Palestinian gunmen, and that airstrikes were being focused on sites where Hamas was assembling to attack any wider Israeli invasion. The IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said: “During the night there were raids by tank and infantry forces. These raids are raids that kill squads of terrorists who are preparing for our next stage in the war. These are raids that go deep.”

• The leaders of the US, UK, France, Canada, Germany and Italy called on Israel to adhere to international law and protect civilians, while reiterating Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism. In a statement, the leaders’ offices said: “The leaders reiterated their support for Israel and its right to defend itself against terrorism and called for adherence to international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians.”

• Benjamin Netanyahu thanked the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, for his country’s support as the latter visited Tel Aviv. Israel’s prime minister said of the conflict: “It’s a battle against civilization. It’s civilization against barbarism. We’re on the side of civilization. We have to unite, all together, against Hamas, which is Isis.”

• A Palestinian photojournalist, Roshdi Sarraj, was killed in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, Radio France reported. The French broadcaster said Sarraj was killed on Sunday in Israeli strikes on Tel al-Hawa, in Gaza City. His wife and one-year-old daughter were injured.

• Turkey sent two cargo planes to Egypt on Monday carrying further medical equipment and supplies for Gaza, the health minister Fahrettin Koca said. He said two more aircraft would be sent with more supplies.

• A 33-year-old Dutch woman was killed in an explosion in Gaza, the Dutch foreign ministry said. Named locally as Islam al-Ashqar, she was visiting relatives at the Nusairat refugee camp in central Gaza and was one of 22 Dutch nationals that the ministry was trying to help leave, the broadcaster NOS said.

A coalition of six human rights groups has petitioned Israel’s high court for the release of “thousands” of Palestinian workers from Gaza it says are being held illegally and without charge in detention centers.

They asked the court on Monday to instruct the Israeli military, prison service and police to “disclose the names and whereabouts of all Gaza residents being held in Israeli detention centers and release any persons unlawfully detained to the West Bank until they are able to return to Gaza”.

The groups say that Israel started detaining an unknown number of about 18,500 Palestinian residents of Gaza who hold work permits issued by the Israeli authorities. How many were in Israel when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, or immediately thereafter, is unknown.

On 10 October, the Israeli government revoked all the permits, instantly turning Palestinians who had lawfully present in Israel into illegal aliens, say the groups.

The Biden administration does not believe the time is right for a ceasefire in Gaza, a senior official said on Monday evening.

Speaking to CNN, John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council, said the US position was that all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza must be released first.

His words echoed comments from Joe Biden earlier on Monday that “we should have those hostages released and then we can talk”. Kirby said:

I thought the message was pretty clear to Hamas: ‘release all the hostages’. That needs to be the first move here. We’re not talking about a ceasefire right now. In fact, we don’t believe that this is the time for a ceasefire.

Israel has a right to defend themselves. They still have work to do to go after Hamas leadership. We’re gonna keep supporting them … our focus is on making sure that they have what they need to carry on this fight.

China’s top foreign minister Wang Yi will visit Washington DC later this week, and will meet US secretary of state Antony Blinken, Reuters reports.

The rare three-day visit to the US by a senior Chinese diplomat, from 26 to 28 October, will include discussions about the Israel-Hamas conflict, the news agency said.

The United Nations says a third convoy of humanitarian aid, consisting of 20 trucks, delivered water, food and medicine to Gaza on Monday, but warned that fuel was not included and reserves will run out within the next two days.

Humanitarian deliveries through the Rafah crossing from Egypt began on Saturday. According to UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, cited by Reuters, 54 trucks have entered in the three days since then.

UN officials have said about 100 aid trucks would be needed daily to meet essential needs in Gaza, home to 2.3 million people, some 1.4 million of which are now homeless. Wrangles over procedures for inspecting the aid, and ongoing aerial attacks in Gaza, left the aid stuck in Egypt.

Joe Biden received an update on the situation during a briefing at the White House on Monday afternoon.

The US president, who has submitted a $106bn request to Congress including humanitarian aid for Ukraine and Gaza, tweeted his government’s commitment to sending humanitarian relief.

“The United States remains committed to ensuring that civilians in Gaza will continue to have access to food, water, medical care, and other assistance, without diversion by Hamas,” Biden said.

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Turk, meanwhile, has called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to allow more aid in. No fuel will mean water desalination and energy generating plants cannot function, and hospitals and other essential services will be without power, the UN said.

Dujarric said the UN was pushing for fuel deliveries that were essential to its agency providing aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

“They can see the bottom of the fuel tank. We’re talking days. And when that happens, that will be truly devastating, on top of what is already a devastating humanitarian situation,” he said.

Two Israeli women released in Gaza by Hamas earlier on Monday are in the care of the Israeli military and on their way to a medical facility in Israel, the office of Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.

Nurit Cooper (also known as Nurit Yitzhak), 79, and Yocheved Lifschitz, 85, were kidnapped along with their husbands from kibbutz Nir Oz, near the Gaza border, on 7 October. Their husbands are still being held by Hamas.

Harrowing footage of killings and mutilations during Hamas’s rampage in southern Israel earlier this month was shown to journalists by Israeli authorities earlier on Monday.

The 43-minute compilation was screened privately at a military base in Tel Aviv to hundreds of international reporters, many of whom were visibly shaken by what they saw.

Its purpose, Israel officials said, was to counter what it saw as a growing denial of Hamas atrocities.

00:01:11

This is a report by the Guardian’s Rory Carroll. It contains accounts of a number of distressing incidents:

Volker Türk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, called on Monday for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza.

In a statement, he said “far too many civilian lives, many of them children, have already been lost”:

The first step must be an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, saving the lives of civilians through the delivery of prompt and effective humanitarian aid.

This violence will never end unless leaders stand up and take the brave and humane choices that are required by fundamental humanity.

Israel has launched repeated airstrikes against Hamas in Gaza in response to its attack on the country that killed more than 1,400 earlier this month and appears to be preparing a massive ground invasion.

Palestinian authorities have said more than 5,000 civilians have been killed from the Israeli bombardment, while the international community remains divided over halting the fighting to facilitate an infusion of aid.

Türk’s statement continued:

Far too many civilian lives, many of them children, have already been lost – on both sides – as a consequence of these hostilities. And unless something changes, coming days will see more civilians on the brink of death from continuing bombardment.

Joe Biden’s earlier abrupt departure from an economic policy speech to urgently head for the White House situation room was entirely innocuous, it seems.

There was speculation the US president was called away to deal with a rapidly developing issue, possibly connected to the release Monday of hostages held captive by Hamas in Gaza.

Not so, it seems: