Day: October 7, 2023

— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) October 7, 2023

While the Israeli authorities have yet to confirm reports that Israeli citizens are being held in Gaza, local media is already discussing fears that the country is facing a long hostage crisis.

Israel’s Channel 12 reports that the death toll has risen to at least 40 and that 74o people are injured.

Israeli media is reporting that at least 40 people have been killed in the country. Photograph: Channel 12

Bethan McKernan

Shehab news agency, which is affiliated with Hamas, says that a five-storey building has been destroyed after an Israeli strike.

Al Jazeera reports there are “intense and ongoing” Israeli drone and artillery attacks in Gaza’s eastern areas.

There are also strikes in Jabalia, Beit Lahia, Bureij, Khan Younis and Rafah, according to the report.

Speaking at the beginning of a cabinet meeting, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the country would now focus on three goals:

• To clear the impacted areas from militants and restore security

• To impose a vast cost on Israel’s enemy

• To shore up other areas so that no one would make the mistake of joining the war

“I call on all of Israel’s citizens to unite,” he said, so that the country would reach its aim of winning the war.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad have both claimed to be holding Israeli soldiers hostage.

There are images of an alleged Israeli soldier being held hostage circulating on social media, but these images are not verified and Israeli authorities have not confirmed that military personnel have been seized by militant groups.

Al Jazeera reports that “dozens of casualties” have been brought to Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza and that “a large number of grieving families rushed to the hospital after receiving the news”.

US White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said that Washington condemns the attack and extends condolences.

The US unequivocally condemns the unprovoked attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians. There is never any justification for terrorism. We stand firmly with the government and people of Israel and extend our condolences for the Israeli lives lost in these attacks.

The national security adviser ,Jake Sullivan, has spoken to Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, the spokesperson said.

Ruth Michaelson

Egypt’s foreign ministry said their officials “are making intensive contacts at all levels to contain the current crisis,” in order to “spare the region from further tension and instability and prevent the situation from spiralling out of control.”

Foreign ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid said that Egypt’s top diplomat, the foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, began consulting with the Jordanian foreign minister Ayman al-Safadi, “to consult…regarding efforts to stop the escalation between the Palestinian and Israeli sides.”

“The two ministers agreed to continue consultation and close coordination during the coming hours,” he added.

Shoukry also spoke with the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, which signed an agreement to recognise and establish formal relations with Israel in 2020.

According to a statement from the Egyptian side, Shoukry “was keen to inform his Emirati counterpart of the communications that Egypt is conducting to stop the escalation and try to contain the crisis. The two sides agreed on the seriousness of the current situation and the necessity of making every effort to prevent the security situation from getting out of control and exposing the lives of civilians to further risks and threats.”

The Egyptian foreign ministry also hinted at possible further contact between Egyptian officials and other actors involved, a nod towards the frequent contact between Egyptian intelligence officials and Hamas as well as the Islamic Jihad, a line of negotiations that has often proved more effective in scaling back action from Palestinian militants than talks between diplomats.

Egypt brokered a ceasefire that ended three days of fighting between Israel and the Islamic Jihad militant faction in Gaza last August, including Israeli airstrikes on Gaza which killed at least 49 people.

Top Egyptian intelligence official Abbas Kamel has long remained the face of Egyptian consultations with militant factions in Gaza, despite rarely if ever discussing these negotiations publicly. Kamel, currently the head of Egypt’s general intelligence service, visited the besieged coastal enclave of Gaza two years ago to bolster the terms of a ceasefire to a previous round of fighting between militants and Israeli forces.

Delegations from both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad also held talks in Egypt last June chaired by Hamas’s senior political leader Ismail Haniyeh and Ziad al-Nakhala, leader of the Islamic Jihad, where they discussed Israeli control of Jerusalem including the incursions by settlers into al-Aqsa Mosque compound, one of Islam’s holiest sites.

The talks followed a visit by the Palestinian prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, to Egypt to discuss the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.

Israeli media are continuing to broadcast interviews with relatives of Israelis who appear to be missing.

In the meantime, the Israeli authorities are still not fully in control of multiple communities, with reports that some civilians are being held hostage by Hamas militants.

Bethan McKernan

A ground infiltration by Hamas gunmen into Israeli towns and villages on the periphery – an unprecedented development in the 16 years since the Islamists took over the strip – is ongoing, with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) saying seven villages and towns are under Hamas control. The Israeli army also put the number of projectiles at around 2,000.

Unconfirmed initial reports and graphic pictures and video appeared to show that gunmen had opened fire in the border town of Sderot, killing several Israeli civilians and soldiers. One elderly woman was confirmed dead in a rocket attack, and another four people in Bedouin villages in Israel’s south killed by rocket fire.

Twenty-two Israelis have been confirmed dead so far and 545 injured, with the death toll likely to rise.

At least one person has been killed in Gaza in retaliatory Israeli airstrikes, and five Hamas militants killed inside Israel.

Read the full story here.