2 weeks ago
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and wider crisis in the Middle East. Here’s a snapshot of the latest to bring you up to speed.
Thousands of Israelis have protested across the country after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu sacked Yoav Gallant, calling on the defense minister’s successor to prioritise a deal to return the hostages in Gaza.
Demonstrators gathered in central Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening, blocking the city’s main highway and crippling traffic, while several thousands also protested outside the Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the city.
In Tel Aviv some protesters held up signs with slogans such as “We deserve better leaders” and “Leaving no one behind!” while some wore T-shirts saying “Bring them home now!” in reference to the hostages.
Foreign minister Israel Katz took over the defense portfolio on Tuesday, after Netanyahu fired Gallant over what the prime minister said was eroded trust between them over the past months of the Gaza war.
In other developments:
Gallant said after his dismissal that he believed “everyone of conscription age must serve in the IDF and defend the state of Israel” – including the Ultra-Orthodox – and that it was Israel’s “moral obligation and responsibility” to bring Israeli hostages home “with as many alive as possible”, adding there would not be any atonement for abandoning the captives and for “those leading this mistaken path”. He also spoke of the need for a state inquiry into any security failures that enabled the 7 October attacks
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, called Gallant’s dismissal “the last thing Israel needs”. Opposition leader Yair Lapid said the move was an “act of madness” in the middle of a war and that “Netanyahu’s is selling Israel’s security and the Israeli army soldiers for a disgraceful political survival”. The far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, praised Netanyahu for firing the defence minister, saying that “with Gallant … absolute victory cannot be achieved”
Israel Katz vowed to prioritise the return of Israel’s hostages and the “destruction” of Hamas and Hezbollah, in his first post on X since accepting the defence minister’s role
An Israeli strike targeting a residential building in the town of Barja, about 20km south of Beirut, killed at least 20 people on Tuesday, Lebanon’s health ministry said. The ministry said an earlier strike on the coastal town of Jiyeh killed one person and wounded 20
Hezbollah claimed on Tuesday it fired rockets and drones into northern Israel and targeted Israeli troops near the border inside Lebanon
Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians in the West Bank in separate operations, Palestinian officials said. The Israeli military told AFP it had targeted “terrorists”
The Syrian town of Al-Qusayr came under air attack for the second time in a week, with the Israeli military saying it carried out “an intelligence-based strike on weapons storage facilities used by Hezbollah’s munitions unit”. Syria’s official Sana news agency said Al-Qusayr industrial zone was hit and Israel also targeted residential buildings surrounding the zone, near Lebanon’s border
The World Health Organisation said a large-scale medical evacuation was planned from Gaza this week, with as many as 113 seriously ill and injured patients set to be evacuated on Wednesday and be taken to the United Arab Emirates or Romania. If it went ahead, it would be the largest evacuation from Gaza since October 2023, according to UN health agency data
Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
The Palestinian Quds news network is carrying a statement from Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip.
He told them:
The situation is still very difficult and we are still besieged inside the hospital. Ten days ago, most of the medical staff were arrested, and I am left with only two doctors and a number of nurses.
Unfortunately, we lost a number of wounded people due to the lack of surgical specialties, as most cases come on foot and require surgical intervention. After the crews were arrested, the occupation did not allow surgical crews to enter, and there is not a single ambulance in the northern Gaza Strip. As a result, many of the injured die in the streets because they are unable to reach us. This is very dangerous.
In addition, in the past two days, the occupation directly and randomly bombed the hospital buildings, and hospitalised children and crews providing services in the place were injured.
Unfortunately, we appealed to the world and international and humanitarian institutions, but we did not receive an answer.
New Israeli defense minister Katz says Trump presidency will 'bring back the hostages' and defeat Iran
Israel Katz has been so freshly appointed defense minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, that his social media account still describes him as foreign minister, which he was until yesterday. He has also offered warm congratulations to Donald Trump, posting:
Congratulations to president-elect Donald Trump on his historic victory. Together we’ll strengthen the US-Israel alliance, bring back the hostages, and stand firm to defeat the axis of evil led by Iran.
Lebanon’s army has issued a warning to residents in the Ghobeiry area of the southern suburbs of Beirut that today between 10.30am and 1.30pm it will “detonate unexploded ordnance” in the area.
Netanyahu says a Trump victory offers 'powerful recommitment' to alliance between US and Israel
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered his congratulations to Donald Trump, who appears on course for re-election in the US.
In a post to social media, Netanyahu, who yesterday fired Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant, triggering protests across Israel, said:
Dear Donald and Melania Trump, congratulations on history’s greatest comeback! Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America. This is a huge victory! In true friendship, yours, Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu.
Democratic party president Joe Biden, and the party’s candidate for election, Kamala Harris, have repeatedly backed Israel in public since the 7 October attack in 2023, and faced domestic criticism for it.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that a woman and three children have been killed by an Israeli strike on a house in Beit Lahia, in the north of the Gaza Strip.
It stated “Local sources reported that the occupation’s warplanes bombed a house belonging to the infant’s family, which led to the death of the mother and her three children, noting that her husband is detained in the occupation’s prisons.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Yesterday Israel’s military ordered an evacuation of the area, telling civilians they must flee into the south of Gaza.
About 100 people expected to be evacuated from Gaza today for medical reasons
Images sent to us over the news wires indicate that a scheduled medical evacuation from Gaza was taking place this morning.
Yesterday the World Health Organization announced that about 100 patients were to be evacuated from Gaza into Israel via the Kerem Shalom border crossing, and then taken on to the UAE and Romania for healthcare. A spokesperson for the organisation said that as many as 12,000 people in Gaza were awaiting transfer for medical reasons.
In an opinion piece in the Times of Israel, David Horovitz has described the firing of defense secretary Yoav Gallant as “reckless, divisive and dangerous to Israel”. He writes:
Gallant was … the most important advocate of maximal efforts to secure a hostage-ceasefire deal in Gaza, arguing, with the support of the nation’s security chiefs, that Israel should be pursuing a wide arrangement that would both end the fighting in the north — where Hezbollah has been greatly degraded, though certainly not destroyed — and in Gaza, where Hamas no longer functions as an organized fighting force.
Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners, however, bitterly oppose any such arrangement, and have repeatedly threatened to bolt the coalition were it to advance what they have denounced as a “reckless” deal. With Gallant out of the way, Netanyahu considers that his ultra-Orthodox and far-right partners can be accommodated, his most irritating critic will be gone, and his hold on power will be secure for the foreseeable future.
Lebanese media has reported Israeli strikes on several locations overnight, with a report that in Bayut Al-Siyad seven bodies were recovered from the rubble of a building.
Here are some more of outgoing Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant’s words yesterday evening about his sacking from Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. He said:
I will continue to uphold my principles.
Throughout my long years in the IDF, during operations and training – on land, above the water, and below it – I learned that in conditions of darkness and fog, one must navigate by the conscience.
In our current situation, when the fog of battle is thick and an ethical darkness surrounds us, I am bound by my conscience.
My hope is that, in addition to the people of the defense establishment, who have always followed this path, the public’s elected officials will also adopt this approach. It is the right thing to do.
Gallant, who had been considered in some quarters a more moderate element in Netanyahu’s cabinet, had said in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas 7 October attack that Israel was fighting “human animals”, and at the time said he was imposing a complete siege. “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” he said. His words from 9 October 2023 were cited in the case presented by South Africa before the Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide.
In the last few minutes Palestinian news sources have said there has been a new Israeli airstrike on the Halima Saadia school in Jabalia, northern Gaza. The school, which has been sheltering displaced Palestinians, has been targeted before. Israel has claimed that Hamas has been using the building as a command and control centre. At least eight people were reported killed there by a strike in September.
More details soon …
Israel claims to have killed a Hezbollah commander amid 70 airstrikes on Lebanon and Gaza
Israel’s military has claimed to have killed another Hezbollah commander inside Lebanon, and said its air force had carried out 70 strikes on targets in Lebanon and Gaza in the last 24 hours.
It a statement posted to the official IDF Telegram channel, Israel’s military named Hussain Abd Al-Haleem Harb as killed, and said he had been Hezbollah’s Khiam region Commander, who they claimed “directed and executed many rocket attacks against communities in the Galilee, and against the area of Metula specifically.”
On Monday Israel’s military allowed a limited media presence into the empty Metula to show damage claimed to have been caused by Hezbollah rockets. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced from their home in northern Israel by repeated rocket fire from inside Gaza.
The message from Israel’s military continued:
Over the past day, the IAF struck approximately 70 terror targets belonging to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, including terrorist cells, terror infrastructure sites, weapons storage facilities, missile launchers, and additional terror infrastructure. In Gaza, IDF troops continue operational activity in Jabalia, and have eliminated approximately dozens of terrorists over the past day.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and wider crisis in the Middle East. Here’s a snapshot of the latest to bring you up to speed.
Thousands of Israelis have protested across the country after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu sacked Yoav Gallant, calling on the defense minister’s successor to prioritise a deal to return the hostages in Gaza.
Demonstrators gathered in central Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening, blocking the city’s main highway and crippling traffic, while several thousands also protested outside the Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the city.
In Tel Aviv some protesters held up signs with slogans such as “We deserve better leaders” and “Leaving no one behind!” while some wore T-shirts saying “Bring them home now!” in reference to the hostages.
Foreign minister Israel Katz took over the defense portfolio on Tuesday, after Netanyahu fired Gallant over what the prime minister said was eroded trust between them over the past months of the Gaza war.
In other developments:
Gallant said after his dismissal that he believed “everyone of conscription age must serve in the IDF and defend the state of Israel” – including the Ultra-Orthodox – and that it was Israel’s “moral obligation and responsibility” to bring Israeli hostages home “with as many alive as possible”, adding there would not be any atonement for abandoning the captives and for “those leading this mistaken path”. He also spoke of the need for a state inquiry into any security failures that enabled the 7 October attacks
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, called Gallant’s dismissal “the last thing Israel needs”. Opposition leader Yair Lapid said the move was an “act of madness” in the middle of a war and that “Netanyahu’s is selling Israel’s security and the Israeli army soldiers for a disgraceful political survival”. The far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, praised Netanyahu for firing the defence minister, saying that “with Gallant … absolute victory cannot be achieved”
Israel Katz vowed to prioritise the return of Israel’s hostages and the “destruction” of Hamas and Hezbollah, in his first post on X since accepting the defence minister’s role
An Israeli strike targeting a residential building in the town of Barja, about 20km south of Beirut, killed at least 20 people on Tuesday, Lebanon’s health ministry said. The ministry said an earlier strike on the coastal town of Jiyeh killed one person and wounded 20
Hezbollah claimed on Tuesday it fired rockets and drones into northern Israel and targeted Israeli troops near the border inside Lebanon
Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians in the West Bank in separate operations, Palestinian officials said. The Israeli military told AFP it had targeted “terrorists”
The Syrian town of Al-Qusayr came under air attack for the second time in a week, with the Israeli military saying it carried out “an intelligence-based strike on weapons storage facilities used by Hezbollah’s munitions unit”. Syria’s official Sana news agency said Al-Qusayr industrial zone was hit and Israel also targeted residential buildings surrounding the zone, near Lebanon’s border
The World Health Organisation said a large-scale medical evacuation was planned from Gaza this week, with as many as 113 seriously ill and injured patients set to be evacuated on Wednesday and be taken to the United Arab Emirates or Romania. If it went ahead, it would be the largest evacuation from Gaza since October 2023, according to UN health agency data
