Israeli military pushes further into Gaza City
The Israeli military moved deeper into Gaza City on Wednesday, with soldiers and tanks pushing into Sheikh Radwan, one of the urban centre’s largest and most crowded neighbourhoods, reports Reuters.
In recent weeks, Israeli forces have advanced through Gaza City’s outer suburbs and are now just a few kilometres from the city centre despite international calls to halt the offensive.
Gaza City residents told Reutes thar the military had destroyed homes and tent encampments that had housed Palestinians displaced by nearly two years of war. At least 24 Palestinians, some of them children, were killed by the military across Gaza on Wednesday, most of them in Gaza City, according to local health officials.
“Sheikh Radwan is being burnt upside down. The occupation destroyed houses, burnt tents, and drones played audio messages ordering people to leave the area,” said Zakeya Sami, 60, a mother of five, referring to the Israeli military. “If the takeover of Gaza City isn’t stopped, we might die, and we are not going to forgive anyone who stands and watches without doing anything to prevent our death,” she told Reuters.
The military dropped grenades on three schools in the Sheikh Radwan area that had been used to shelter displaced Palestinians, setting tents ablaze, according to residents, who said the Palestinians fled before the bombing. The military also detonated armoured vehicles laden with explosives to destroy homes in Sheikh Radwan’s east and bombed a medical clinic, destroying two ambulances, according to witnesses that spoke to Reuters.
The Israeli military said in a statement on Wednesday it would continue to operate against “terrorists organizations” in Gaza and to “remove any threat” posed to Israel.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the military to take the city, which he describes as the last stronghold of Hamas, whose October 2023 attack on Israel ignited the war.
Netanyahu insists that Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades but now only controls parts of the territory, must be defeated if it will not lay down its arms and surrender. Israel’s military has urged the country’s political leadership to instead reach a ceasefire agreement, warning that the assault would endanger hostages held in Gaza and soldiers carrying out the offensive, Israeli officials previously said.
Reuters reports that in Israel, public sentiment is largely in favour of ending the war in a deal that would see the release of the remaining hostages. In Jerusalem on Wednesday, protesters climbed the roof of Israel’s national library, displaying a banner that read ‘You have abandoned and also killed’.
Key events
Those who have left Gaza City over the past few months have found dire conditions elsewhere in Gaza, reports the Associated Press (AP). Their arrival has crowded already overflowing tent camps and sent prices of basic goods up.
Iman El-Naya, from Khan Younis, fled Gaza City three months ago. El-Naya told the AP:
The beach is crowded. Everywhere is crowded. There’s no hygiene. It’s a struggle to get water and food.
I go and stand in line for water. Getting bread is a struggle. Everything is even more expensive after the people from the north came here.
Shorouk Abu Eid, a pregnant woman from Gaza City, was displaced to Khan Younis four months ago, reports the AP. She said the arrival of more people from the north is creating an even more tragic situation:
There is no privacy, no peace of mind. Places I used to walk to in five or 10 minutes are taking me around an hour now because of the congestion. There’s barely 10 centimeters between tents.
Jamal Abu Reily lamented that the bathrooms are overflowing and that there’s so little room for new arrivals:
How are we going to all fit here? Where are they going to stay? In the sea?
Since Israel declared Gaza City a combat zone on Friday, a small fraction – 14,840 Palestinians of the nearly 1 million the UN estimates are in Gaza City – have left their homes in the city as of Monday, most to flee south, according to the Site Management Cluster, a joint humanitarian body that coordinates assistance for people in displacement sites, reports the Associated Press (AP).
A fraction of them, about 2,200, have moved to new places within Gaza City after being displaced by Israeli attacks.
Alkurdi, a project manager and consultant, told the AP that he can hear Israeli forces from the apartment where he’s sheltering as they “erase the area completely.”
Zeitoun was once Gaza City’s largest neighbourhood, filled with markets, schools and clinics. Over the last month, large swaths of it and the neighboring area of Sabra have been flattened, according to satellite photos reviewed by the AP from early August and early September. The photos show that entire blocks that have been pummeled or bulldozed into empty, sandy lots, says the news agency.
“It’s not something partial like before. It’s 100%,” Alkurdi told the AP. “The house, I’m telling my friends, it keeps dancing all the day. It keeps dancing, going right and left like an earthquake.”
Many of the people in the city moved back to the north during a ceasefire in January, hoping to find their homes intact. Alkurdi’s home was completely destroyed, so he is now living alone in a western area of the city. His children and wife were able to leave Gaza last year. He told the AP that he would flee south if his home fell under an evacuation order.
Amjad Shawa, the director of the Palestinian NGO network, left his home in the Rimal neighbourhood in the early days of the war and also returned there with his family in January. He, like Al Kurdi, said his family would probably leave Gaza City if their area receives an evacuation order. But leaving this time would be different, he said. “Gaza will be leveled and destroyed. Last time, I had my car. There was fuel. Everyone had his income, his money.”
Back then, the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis still stood in southern Gaza. Now, after months of bombardment, “there is no Rafah. Almost no Khan Younis,” Shawa told the AP.
Yemen’s Houthis have claimed responsibility for a missile launched at Israel (see 8.17am BST), saying they fired two ballistic missiles at Tel Aviv in what they said was an initial response to Israeli attacks on Yemen.
Israeli military pushes further into Gaza City
The Israeli military moved deeper into Gaza City on Wednesday, with soldiers and tanks pushing into Sheikh Radwan, one of the urban centre’s largest and most crowded neighbourhoods, reports Reuters.
In recent weeks, Israeli forces have advanced through Gaza City’s outer suburbs and are now just a few kilometres from the city centre despite international calls to halt the offensive.
Gaza City residents told Reutes thar the military had destroyed homes and tent encampments that had housed Palestinians displaced by nearly two years of war. At least 24 Palestinians, some of them children, were killed by the military across Gaza on Wednesday, most of them in Gaza City, according to local health officials.
“Sheikh Radwan is being burnt upside down. The occupation destroyed houses, burnt tents, and drones played audio messages ordering people to leave the area,” said Zakeya Sami, 60, a mother of five, referring to the Israeli military. “If the takeover of Gaza City isn’t stopped, we might die, and we are not going to forgive anyone who stands and watches without doing anything to prevent our death,” she told Reuters.
The military dropped grenades on three schools in the Sheikh Radwan area that had been used to shelter displaced Palestinians, setting tents ablaze, according to residents, who said the Palestinians fled before the bombing. The military also detonated armoured vehicles laden with explosives to destroy homes in Sheikh Radwan’s east and bombed a medical clinic, destroying two ambulances, according to witnesses that spoke to Reuters.
The Israeli military said in a statement on Wednesday it would continue to operate against “terrorists organizations” in Gaza and to “remove any threat” posed to Israel.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the military to take the city, which he describes as the last stronghold of Hamas, whose October 2023 attack on Israel ignited the war.
Netanyahu insists that Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades but now only controls parts of the territory, must be defeated if it will not lay down its arms and surrender. Israel’s military has urged the country’s political leadership to instead reach a ceasefire agreement, warning that the assault would endanger hostages held in Gaza and soldiers carrying out the offensive, Israeli officials previously said.
Reuters reports that in Israel, public sentiment is largely in favour of ending the war in a deal that would see the release of the remaining hostages. In Jerusalem on Wednesday, protesters climbed the roof of Israel’s national library, displaying a banner that read ‘You have abandoned and also killed’.
Opposition leaders in Israel have condemned the torching of bins, cars and tyres in Jerusalem by anti-government protesters, reports the Times of Israel.
Yair Lapid, opposition leader, posted on X:
I condemn the torching of vehicles in Jerusalem, but I condemn much more a government that abandons hostages to their deaths in Gaza.
According to the publication, protesters set several recycling bins alight, damaging cars, near prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem’s Rehavia neighbourhood and burned tires near the prime minister’s office in the Givat Ram neighbourhood.
Israeli politician Benny Gantz responded by saying:
The protests and solidarity with the families of the hostages today are a democratic right and a moral duty of every citizen – burning vehicles and any form of violence, by an unrepresentative minority, does not advance the return of the hostages and only harms the determined and important public struggle.
Jason Burke
Tens of thousands of reservists in Israel will return to active service in the coming weeks amid an intense debate in their ranks over the war in Gaza, which reflects wider divisions in the country.
Some will be forced to make their decision within days. The Israel Defense Forces began mobilising tens of thousands of reservists on Tuesday after calling up 60,000 for an expanded offensive in Gaza City, one of the few places in the devastated territory outside its control. More will be ordered to report to military bases if the fighting continues for many months, as analysts expect.
Many reservists interviewed by the Guardian last week said they would face “a hard choice” when asked to serve again, citing personal and ideological reasons. Few said they would refuse the call-up, however.
“We are willing to give up our lives … but the obvious truth is that we are dying now for no reason,” said Aviad Yisraeli, a combat medic who was in Gaza last month. “Militarily, there is nothing more to gain … but then it also seems a bad choice to end this war with Hamas with some part of power in Gaza and [holding] some of the hostages and with the kibbutzim [in southern Israel] still vulnerable. So these are hard questions.”
Many oppose the coalition government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and want the war to end now to bring back hostages still held by Hamas.
“I never trusted [this government] … Every time I’ve gone back to serve since March 2024, I’ve gone with a heavy heart,” said a 47-year-old paratrooper who has served 450 days since the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 in which militants killed about 1,200 people and abducted 250. “So if I go, it will be out of commitment to my battalion – because it’s like family, and I feel a huge responsibility toward them.”
A poll in July found that three-quarters of Israelis favoured a deal to release the hostages and more than half said Netanyahu’s war leadership had been bad.
More than 63,000 people, mainly civilians, have been killed by the Israeli offensive in Gaza and most of the 2.3 million population have been displaced many times. Much of the Palestinian territory has been reduced to rubble.
Israeli drones drop grenades near UN peacekeepers in Lebanon in what Unifil describe as ‘serious’ attack
Israeli drones dropped four grenades close to UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel as they were working to clear roadblocks, the force said on Wednesday, adding that no one was hurt in the attack.
The peacekeeping force known as Unifil described the Tuesday morning incident as “one of the most serious attacks on Unifil personnel and assets” since the cessation of hostilities in November that ended the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment, according to the Associated Press (AP).
Unifil said Israeli drones dropped four grenades close to the peacekeepers, who were working to clear roadblocks that hindered access to a UN position along the border line. One grenade hit within 20 meters and three others within approximately 100 meters of UN personnel and vehicles, it said, adding the drones were observed returning toward Israel.
According to the AP, Unifil said the Israeli military had been informed in advance of the peacekeeping force’s road clearance work in the area, southeast of the village of Marwahin less than a kilometer from the border line. Unifil said:
Out of concern for the safety of peacekeepers following the incident, yesterday’s work was suspended.
The attack came after the UN security council voted unanimously last week to terminate the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon at the end of next year after nearly five decades, bowing to demands from the United States and Israel.
The multinational peacekeeping force has played a significant role in monitoring the security situation in southern Lebanon for decades, including during the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. The force has also drawn criticism from both sides and from officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, which has moved to slash US funding for the operation as Trump remakes the US’s approach to foreign policy.
Unifil said any actions that endanger UN peacekeepers and assets or interfere with their tasks are unacceptable and a serious violation of international law and the resolution that ended the war. It added it is the Israeli military’s responsibility to ensure the safety and security of the peacekeepers performing security council-mandated tasks.
Here are some of the latest images coming in via the newswires:
Israel has launched a new spy satellite that defense officials described as a strategic cornerstone, saying it will strengthen their surveillance capacity across the Middle East in the years ahead, reports the Associated Press (AP).
Military officials and defence minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that the satellite, launched late on Tuesday, will enhance Israel’s ability to collect images like the 12,000 gathered over Iran during a 12-day war earlier this year.
“This is also a message to all our enemies, wherever they may be – we are keeping an eye on you at all times and in all situations,” Katz said in a post on X.
The AP reports that in addition to monitoring Iran, Israel gains reconnaissance capabilities in other parts of the Middle East as it conducts what prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called a “seven-front war,” with Israeli forces striking targets in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq throughout the 23 months of war in Gaza.
Maj Gen Amir Baram said the satellite, called Ofek 19, was part of a broader effort “to maintain persistent, simultaneous surveillance of any point throughout the Middle East”.
Israel’s decades-old space programme has expanded its fleet with several satellite launches in recent years and is one of the few nations globally with high resolution monitoring and intelligence gathering capabilities.
The aerospace and defence industry is a pillar of Israel’s economy and the satellite’s manufacturer, Israel Aerospace Industries, builds and sells satellites, missile systems, drones and aircraft to Israel as well as countries in Europe, Asia and North America.
Israel’s military did not say from where the satellite was launched on Tuesday evening, according to the AP.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen, as sirens were activated in Tel Aviv and several other areas across the country, reports Reuters.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have been launching missiles and drones thousands of kilometres up north towards Israel, in what the group says are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.
Israel has retaliated by bombing Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, including the vital Hodeidah port. Its latest blow killed senior Houthi officials, including the head of the government.
The Houthis, who control the most populous parts of Yemen, have also been attacking vessels in the Red Sea since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023.
Spanish prime minister says Europe’s response to war in Gaza has been a ‘failure’
Sam Jones
Europe and the west’s double standards over the wars in Ukraine and Gaza threaten to undermine its global standing, the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has warned, describing the response to Israel’s assault on the Palestinian territory as one of the darkest episodes of international relations in the 21st century.
In an interview with the Guardian before talks with UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, in London on Wednesday, the socialist leader also said the US under Donald Trump was trying to end the post-second world war, rules-based global order it had originally created.
He also defended the benefits of migration and blamed traditional rightwing parties for breaking the consensus over the response to the climate emergency by copying the policies of their populist rivals.
Sánchez – the first senior European leader to accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza – said he was pleased that other European nations were following Spain’s lead in recognising a Palestinian state, but accepted Europe’s response had been poor. He said:
It is a failure. Absolutely. It is also the reality that, within the European Union, there are countries that are divided when it comes to how to influence Israel. But in my opinion, it’s not acceptable and we can’t last longer if we want to increase our credibility when it comes to other crises, such as the one we face in Ukraine.
The roots of these wars are completely different but, at the end of the day, the world is looking at the EU and also at western society and asking: ‘Why are you doing double standards when it comes to Ukraine and when it comes to Gaza?’
Speaking as he attempts to reassert himself on the international stage and move past a series of damaging corruption allegations that have battered his administration and fuelled calls for a snap general election, Sánchez said he was pushing Europe to do more, including punishing Israel financially. He said:
What we’re now witnessing in Gaza is perhaps one of the darkest episodes of international relations in the 21st century, and in this regard what I have to say is that Spain has been very vocal within the EU and also within the international community. Within the EU, what we have done so far is advocate to suspend the strategic partnership that the EU has with Israel.
Gaza is ‘becoming the graveyard of international humanitarian law’, says Unrwa chief
The commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) has warned that Gaza is “becoming the graveyard of international humanitarian law”.
In an interview with El País, Philippe Lazzarini, said Unrwa had been “warning about the signs of famine and sounding the alarm bells for months” but that its warnings had “fallen on deaf ears”. He added that through its health centres, Unrwa had seen the number of acutely malnourished children in Gaza City had increased “sixfold in the last [six] months”.
He also described the West Bank as seeing “unprecedented levels of violence and forced displacement, which would surely be making today’s headlines if they hadn’t been overshadowed by the disaster in Gaza”.
Asked about international humanitarian law and for multilateral cooperation in future conflicts, Lazzarini said:
Gaza is becoming the graveyard of international humanitarian law. Everything has been so blatantly disregarded … Including the provision ruling of the international court of justice urging a significant increase in unimpeded assistance. That was in January 2024, and look where we are today.
Impunity prevails, and there’s a growing sense in the region that international humanitarian law is not universal. Today, it’s difficult to teach Palestinians anything about human rights in schools.
We have made the Geneva convention[s] almost irrelevant. What is happening and being accepted today in Gaza is not something that can be isolated; it will become the new norm for all future conflicts.
In an interview with the Guardian, the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, described Europe’s response to the war in Gaza as a “failure”. He described the response to Israel’s assault on the Palestinian territory as one of the darkest episodes of international relations in the 21st century.
Here are some other key developments:
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Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez has told the Guardian that he was pushing Europe to do more about the war in Gaza, including punishing Israel financially. Sánchez – the first senior European leader to accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza – said he was pleased that other European nations were following Spain’s lead in recognising a Palestinian state, but accepted Europe’s response had been poor.
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Tens of thousands of reservists in Israel will return to active service in the coming weeks amid an intense debate in their ranks over the war in Gaza, which reflects wider divisions in the country. Some will be forced to make their decision within days.
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Belgium’s foreign minister, Maxime Prévot, has said his country will recognise a Palestinian state at the UN general assembly later this month, adding to international pressure on Israel after similar moves by Australia, Britain, Canada and France. The decision comes “in light of the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Palestine, particularly in Gaza, and in response to the violence perpetrated by Israel in violation of international law,” Prévot said in a post to social media.
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Israeli president Isaac Herzog will travel to the Vatican on Thursday to meet Pope Leo XIV, who recently demanded that Israel stop its “collective punishment” of the population in Gaza. The one-day visit is being made at the invitation of the pope, Herzog’s office said in a statement on Tuesday.
