Gaza: Arab foreign ministers to meet Blinken as Israel strikes hospital, ambulances

Talks are being held on a "very significant" pause in the Gaza war to win the release of dozens of hostages taken by Palestinian group Hamas, a senior White House official said Friday.

"It is something that is under a very serious and active discussion. But there is no agreement as of yet to actually get this done," the official said, as fighting between US ally Israel and Hamas raged in the Gaza Strip.

The United Nations' agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said in a joint statement with other UN agencies that 420 Palestinian children are being killed and injured every day by Israel's indiscriminate attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The head of UNRWA warned the Security Council on Monday that Palestinians in the besieged Palestinian enclave were being subjected to forced displacement and collective punishment.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini also said a communication blackout over the weekend had accelerated the breaking down of civil order and warned that if that breakdown worsened it "will make it extremely difficult, if not impossible" for the UN to continue operating in Gaza.

Israel renewed orders to civilians to move from the north of Gaza to the south as it began an advance late on Friday in an attempt to surround Gaza city.

According to Ministry of Health data, 2326 women and 3760 children have been killed in the📍#GazaStrip

This means that 420 children are killed or injured every day - some of them only a few months old

🛑 Joint Statement @UNRWA @WHO @UNFPA @UNICEF ⬇️https://t.co/3R87TNzlI5 pic.twitter.com/Ig7PJgORDt

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) November 3, 2023

Honduras' government is recalling its ambassador to Israel for consultations due to the humanitarian situation affecting Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the country's top diplomat announced on social media on Friday.

"Amid the grave humanitarian situation the Palestinian civilian population suffers in the Gaza Strip, the government of President Xiomara Castro has decided to immediately call Mr. Roberto Martinez, Ambassador of the Republic of Honduras in Israel, to consultations in Tegucigalpa," Foreign Minister Enrique Reina said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The decision from leftist President Castro's government follows similar moves in the region earlier in the week.

Chile's Gabriel Boric and Colombia's Gustavo Petro also recalled their countries' ambassadors to Israel for consultations over events surrounding the conflict in Gaza, while Bolivia moved to sever diplomatic ties to Israel.

(Reuters)

Ante la grave situación humanitaria que sufre la población civil palestina en la franja de Gaza, él Gobierno de la Presidenta @XiomaraCastroZ ha decidido llamar inmediatamente a consultas a Tegucigalpa al Señor Roberto Martinez, Embajador de la República de Honduras en Israel.

— Enrique Reina (@EnriqueReinaHN) November 3, 2023

At least 20 people have been killed in an Israeli strike on the UN-run Osama Ben Zaid school, in the Saftawi neighbourhood in the north of Gaza city, the Gaza Health Ministry has said.

Scores of other people have been injured.

The school has been hosting displaced people from the besieged and bombed Palestinian enclave who had been hoping they would be safe in the UN-run facility.

Survivors of the strike have been taken to the Indonesian Hospital.

 Jordan said on Friday the kingdom will host a meeting on Saturday between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Saudi, Qatari, Emirati and Egyptian counterparts, along with participation of the Palestinians.

The ministers will stress during the talks the "Arab stance calling for an immediate ceasefire, delivering humanitarian aid and ways of ending the dangerous deterioration that threatens the security of the region", a foreign ministry statement said.

Israel has struck Gaza indiscriminately from the air, imposed a "complete siege" and launched a ground assault, stirring global alarm over civilian casualties and humanitarian conditions in the enclave, with food scarce, medical services collapsing and a death toll that has surpassed 9,000.

The Arab ministers will hold a meeting ahead of their discussions with Blinken as part of their diplomatic drive to lobby with major powers to put pressure on Israel to end its military campaign, officials said.

"This coordination meeting is part of their efforts to bring an end to the Israeli war on Gaza that is causing a humanitarian catastrophe," the statement said.

France reacted to an Israeli strike on a French institute in Gaza with "astonishment" and "incomprehension", Paris's Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said on Friday, demanding a full investigation into why the building was hit.

"We made public today that the French Cultural Institute in Gaza was hit a few days ago in a way that caused astonishment, incomprehension and which led France to call for explanations from the Israeli authorities," Colonna told French media on a visit to Nigeria's capital Abuja.

"(We seek) to understand how a French cultural institute can be the target of an Israeli strike. We are therefore in dialogue with our Israeli partners at different levels."

 The White House said on Friday that 100 US citizens and family members left the Gaza Strip on Thursday and said another large group of Americans were expected to leave on Friday.

Speaking to reporters as President Joe Biden flew to Maine, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said negotiations are "intense" on getting foreign nationals out of Gaza and that it is a fluid situation.

(Reuters)

The Israeli military confirmed it targeted an ambulance outside Gaza's largest hospital Friday, claiming it was being used by Hamas militants while health officials said it was transporting the wounded.

Israeli "aircraft struck an ambulance that was identified by forces as being used by a Hamas terrorist cell in close proximity to their position in the battle zone," a military statement alleged.

Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra called on the International Committee of the Red Cross to accompany ambulances in the Gaza Strip to protect them from Israeli aggression.

The health ministry in Gaza said Friday that an Israeli strike killed 14 Palestinians who were fleeing from the bombarded territory's north to its south.

"The occupation committed a new massacre against displaced civilians and killed 14 citizens, children and women," ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said in a statement.

Witnesses said the strike hit Gaza's coastal road, which the Israeli military has previously told civilians to take to travel south.

The French Institute in Gaza was hit by an Israeli air strike, but no injuries were reported among staff at the site, the French Foreign Ministry said on Friday, while the Gaza office of news organisation Agence France-Presse (AFP) was also hit.

The French ministry added it had asked Israeli authorities to provide the "tangible" reasons that motivated the strike on the institute "without delay."

In a separate statement, the ministry also expressed "very strong concerns" over the number of civilian victims in Gaza.

The @AFP bureau in the Gaza Strip, which has been relentlessly bombed by Israel, was significantly damaged by a strike on the building, according to a staff member who visited the site. [1/5] pic.twitter.com/a5sO7NrN38

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) November 3, 2023

AFP said on social network X that its office in the Gaza strip was shelled by the Israeli army and seriously damaged on Thursday by a strike.

In a statement AFP said that they condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms," whilst detailing that the location of its office "has been pointed out several times over the past few days, precisely to prevent such an attack and to allow us to continue to provide images on the ground."

None of the eight AFP staff members or permanent employees normally based in Gaza were on site at the time of the impact. All were evacuated to the south of the Gaza Strip on October 13, it added.

(Reuters & The New Arab)

The Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza was hit by an Israeli airstrike.

The facility director, Atef al-Kahlout, told Al Jazeera that the hospital received more than 50 people in recent Israeli bombings, with 40 percent of those killed and wounded in the bombings being children.

He also stated that the hospital's main generator had stopped working and that there was shortage of medical personnel on site.

"I appeal to the international community to provide protection to the medical convoy scheduled to leave tomorrow for the Rafah crossing."

Palestinian news organisation Quds News Network have reported that a former journalist at the organisation, Haitham Hararahm, was killed in the Israeli airstrike that hit the gate of al-Shifa hospital in southern Gaza.

#BREAKING| We mourn our colleague Journalist Haitham Hararah, a former QNN journalist, who has been killed in the Israeli airstrikes in front of Al Shifa Hospital. #Gaza pic.twitter.com/rWBFL3FHgY

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) November 3, 2023

Supporters of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah told The New Arab about why they had come to watch the Nasrallah speak and spoke of their expectations of the then upcoming speech.

This includes Fatima, who said that "We came here to say that we are standing with Gaza and Palestine and standing against Zionism and as a sign of resistance we will not leave with Palestine and we are stronger than before, and we will tell the fascist Israeli government to leave Palestine alone."

Israeli airstrikes hit the front gate of al-Shifa hospital where ambulances were carrying wounded people into the hospital.

Footage of the attack shows bodies strewn across the ground next to a damaged ambulance by the front gate of the hospital. 

According to Ashraf al-Qudra, the Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman in Gaza, the ambulances were part of a medical convoy destined for Egypt through the Rafah border crossing. 

He stated that there were between 15 to 20 patients in the ambulances and that "these were critically wounded victims we cannot attend [to] at the hospital."

"In the name of the civilians and the mosques and the churches and the hospitals and in the name of everyone that has morals and humanity, that they demand an end to the end of the aggression"

"I tell to the Palestinian people and our family in Gaza, we are since the beginning of the resistance the entity, our battle will reach victory, we still need time to be realistic, but we can be victorious in specific domains, that's what happened in Lebanon in 2000 and 2006, and that's what is happening with the resistance in Palestine and Iraq and what happened in Afghanistan

"The battle is one of patience and steadfastness and the culmination of achievements, and in that way we will be victorious. That's what we must do as a people to allow Gaza to win. I tell you to have faith."

"They say that the US boats are here to deter us and that the US planes will bomb us."

"These threats will not change our positions at all. We started our work on this front and we escalated it and developed it, there are two main points here. The first point is the fate of Gaza, and how the situation develops there. The second point is the behavior of the Zionist entity towards Lebanon.

"The civilian will be traded for the civilian. If you kill civilians we will kill civilians.

"I will say in all transparency and honesty, all of the possibilities on the Lebanese front are open. All options are available and we might utilise them at any time. Everyone must be ready and prepared for all the upcoming possibilities

"I say to the Americans, the threats towards us. They want to not only bomb us in lebanon but also bomb Iran. Your boats in the Medittarenean don't scare us. And they never will.

"I will tell you with all honesty your boats that you threaten us with we will sink them. We will remind you of your humiliations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"You Americans are able to stop the Israeli aggression on Gaza because it is your aggression. You must stop the aggression on Gaza, you will know well Americans that if a war starts in the region, you will pay the price. Your boats and your soldiers, will be targeted."

"The blood of the martyrs and our operations on the border is the biggest episode in the entity’s existence"

"When the Lebanese look at Gaza we have seen this before these massacres also happened in Lebanon in Qana and Sabra and Shatila

"What is happening in Gaza makes us more steadfast

"These operations are an expression of solidarity with Gaza, to lighten the pressure on them, and is precautionary in case the Israeli leadership loses their minds"

"The displacement of tens of thousands of the settlements in the north [of Israel], there are 34 settlements in the north that have been evacuated. Those in the north are now just soldiers not civilians."

"This is a big political and economic and morale pressure on Israel

"This operation on the border and on the Shebaa farms created a state of fear and confusion in the political and military leadership of the enemy

"The anxiety among the Americans that this front will turn into a further confrontation and a greater conflict, this is a real possibility and it would defeat the enemy.

"From all the American letters and the Arab ambassadors from 7 October, this is a result of the state of anxiety and suspense among the enemy. This has made the enemy think twice about attacking Lebanon."

They started withdrawing their troops after October 7 from their northern borders because they need all their resources in Gaza. The operations that started and day after day they escalated forced the enemy to to leave their troops on their border.

"The Lebanese front has lightened a big part of the forces that were attacking Gaza and directed them towards our front and here we repeat ourselves, there are a lot of people that are saying we are being mysterious, yes it’s true, but this is useful for us. If our plan was just to show political solidarity and have rallies, then all of their soldiers would have gone to Gaza, so the Lebanese front managed to attract a third of the Israeli army to the Lebanese front.

"Half of the Israel naval force is facing us. A lot of their air force is concentrating on Lebanon. About a third of their logistical might is focused on Lebanon"

"As for our Lebanese front, some are saying we will announce the start of the conflict today. I say today that we started that battle on 8 October"

"Those who expect and demand that Hezbollah enter the war completely, but you will find that what happens there will be big. What's happening on the southern border is unprecedented in the history of the entity.

"Even in the July war what is happening today didn’t happen then. All across the Lebanese border there are daily operations and attacks and targeting of equipment and drones and soldiers and their gatherings and their technical equipment which are their ears and eyes

"What's been achieved on the border, with the 57 martyrs… Those martyrs spilt blood, it's improper and this wasn't in vain, we have to complete the battle."

"The Iraqi resistance started to take its responsibility, our honorable friends in Yemen the oppressed and the army announced officially despite all the US and foreign friends tried a number of times to send missiles towards Israel. Eventually these will hit southern Palestine and Eilat and the Israeli's based in Palestine"

"The victory of Gaza is a [Lebanese] national interest, and a Jordanian national interest and a Syrian national interest."

"The responsibility is on all of the whole world, the states and the Arab governments have to take all of their efforts to stop the Israeli aggression. Your consciousnesses and religions require you to do so.

"Withdraw your ambassadors and break your relations with Israel.

"Unfortunately in the past wars, they would cut off the gas to the US. Today we are dreaming of the Arab states cutting off gas and food to Israel.

"We are not asking for your armies or your weapons, we are asking you to open the Rafah border crossing and open the door aid and those who have been injured."

"Our first goal is to stop the aggression on Gaza."

"The second goal is the victory of the Islamic resistance in Gaza and Hamas in particular

"The first goal to stop the aggression has a moral and humanitarian imperative and there is no discussing it.

"The second goal, it is in the interest of the Palestinian people but there are people here that are playing a game, they say if Hamas wins that Iran wins. If Gaza is victorious then Palestine is victorious

"It is a victory for the whole region and particularly for [a] neighbouring state"

"In 1948, the Palestinian people and the region paid the price and the pain from the sins of the entity. Lebanon is the state that suffered the most from this aggressive state. Today it's the same thing what is happening in Gaza that a not isolated from the previous war. It's not like the last wars though, it is a historical unprecedented war, what happens after it will not be the same as what happened before it."

"They are doing the same thing in Gaza today, they are telling the world that they won't do a big ground operation, but this is because they are scared and are unable. When the resistance destroys their tanks, how will the army fight? They fight with confusion and fright and weakness.

"The scenes of the women and children being trapped under the rubble, this shows that Gaza will win. Yes brothers and sisters, all of that is happening in Gaza shows us once again and confirms to us again, the brutal nature of this entity of Israel that was planted in our area of Palestine by the Balfour declaration whose anniversary was yesterday.

"We are fighting a just fight, the defense of the people in Gaza is a humanitarian imperative."

"Is there any time that the Israelis would give up prisoners without an exchange or a negotiation? In 2006 in Lebanon it was the same thing. They said that they wanted to destroy Hezbollah and they had the US and other Arab states with them. They fought for 33 days and they weren't able to destroy Hezbollah, and today is the same thing."

"In 2006 they destroyed hundreds of thousands of houses, but the Lebanese were still standing strong. What is happening today in Palestine is showing the Israeli inability and their stupidity. Most of the martyrs are women and children. Most of them are from civilians. They destroy churches and mosques and hospitals and schools.

"Is this really the actions of the strongest air force in the world? Any army in the world could do this.

They are doing the same thing in Gaza today, they are telling the world that they won’t do a big ground operation , but this is because they are scared and are unable. When the resistance destroys their tanks, how will the army fight? They fight with confusion and fright and weakness."

"Israel is lost, Saturday night everyone was sleeping and was drunk, all of the leaders woke up to what happened."

"In front of Gaza, the government of Israel has not benefited from its response to [Operation] al Aqsa Flood. Especially in the case of what it’s doing in Palestine and Lebanon."

"Don't accuse Hamas of the massacres [that] happened, those were the Israeli soldiers in their rage and confusion when they went to reclaim their settlements."

"These achievements and these results deserve all of these congratulations because we have entered a new phase of the fate of Palestine and the region and the states of the region. There hasn't been any other option and there is no other option, the other option is remaining silent and waiting for death and waiting for the death of prisoners for the death of the West Bank and Gaza."

"It will take courage and boldness at the right time and it will deserve whatever actions happen then."

"The US is supporting the entity which was shaking, it gives it support and protection in every way. The US supports Israel and this showed how weak this entity is, imagine from the first day of [Operation] al Aqsa Flood, the government of the enemy needed from the first day needed the American boats to come to the Mediterranean Sea, ok, where are your navy and your army, what happened to the supposedly strongest army in the region? It needed the US to come in and save it."

"Israel from the first day demanded new weapons from the US, on the first day it asked for $10 billion from the US. Is this really a strong government that needs such support from the US?"

On operation al-Aqsa Flood and ongoing war between Hamas and Israel: 

"What did this great work lead to? It led to a shaking [of] a security and psychological and moral and political earthquake in Israel."

"Many facts were exposed, that we will talk about later. The Israelis is weaker than a spider’s web, and that was proven by operation of al Aqsa flood."

"Iran does not exercise any control over the Lebanese resistance and our leadership though it supports us, what happened so far and in [Operation] al Aqsa flood proves this. The owners of the decision is the leadership and the participants in the resistance."

"The October 7 event which was done by Al qassem brigade and other resistance factions in Palestine. Their actions were a Palestinian decision 100%."

"When they say that it affects the nuclear negotiations, the [operation] al Aqsa flood was a Palestinian decision and was carried out by Palestinians it proves that this conflict is completely Palestinian, it is a Palestinian issue and it has no bearing on other neighbouring countries."

Nasrallah: "The Palestinian issue and what's happening in Palestine was forgotten on the list of global priorities and as a result the policies of the enemy were oppressive and hypocritical."

"All of these issues were exposed in front of the world and the Palestinian issue and the oppressed [Palestinian] people has been exposed as the number one issue in the world."

Nasrallah details the issues current faced in Palestine:

"The first issue is the Palestinian prisoners, they have suffered for many years and in danger of death.

The second issue is Jerusalem and al-Aqsa mosque.

The third issue is the blockade on Gaza who have been under siege for more than 20 years.

The fourth issue is the new dangers threatening the West Bank also with the extremist [Israeli] government in addition to the daily killing and the threatening of houses by [settlers]."

"How did we get here? It's known to you and to the world the suffering of the Palestinian people for 75 years so we don't have to explain it now, but the situation in recent years in Palestine is really tough especially with this stupid and extremism and brutal [Israeli] government."

"I will focus my speech on what's happening now and what will happen, I will specify our position. Of course what is happening with the solidarity across Lebanon, it needs to be talked about in a detailed way in the future, but for now we must just greet all of those who stood in solidarity across the world in the Arab world or the Latin American places and all people in the world, we have to mention the struggle of the Iraqis and the Yemenis that joined the struggle."

"To the families of the martyrs I will tell them that the battle on the ground, the god is searching for the battle on all fronts from the humanitarian, religious and moral land, there is no battle like there is with Israel currently. On the humanitarian legal and moral grounds, it is the most justified form of fighting."

Nasrallah has begun his anticipated speech saying we are here to remember the memory of the martyrs that died fighting the Israeli occupation, in Lebanon and Palestine. He also gives remembrance to the civilians killed by Israeli shelling, including journalists.

Israel has updated the figure of the number of captives currently held hostage by Hamas in Gaza to 241 people.

Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari added that 338 Israeli soldiers had been killed since the start of the war.

The figure includes soldiers killed in the assault by Hamas on southern Israel on 7 October and those killed in the ongoing ground operation in northern Gaza.

Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip has killed 9,227 Palestinians since 7 October, according to new figures released by Gaza's health ministry.

Included in the figure are 3,826 children and 2,405 women, with a further 32,500 people wounded.

In a press conference the health ministry also stated that 1,200 children are still buried under rubble.

It added that 136 paramedics had been killed, 25 ambulances had been destroyed, and 126 hospitals and 50 medical centres had been targeted as part of Israel's ongoing bombardment.

Israel has begun sending Palestinian workers who were stuck in Israel following the beginning of the war back into Gaza.

Some 18,500 Palestinians had permits to work in Israel according to COGAT, the Israeli defence body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs.

The UN has expressed concern over the decision, with UN human rights office spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell saying that "we were very concerned that at least 4,000 Palestinian workers and hospital patients were detained without sufficient legal basis in military facilities after Israel revoked their permits," 

"There are worrying reports that some are being sent back into Gaza, despite the gravity of the situation there," Throssell said.

"We don't know exactly to where; it probably isn't clear whether they have got even a home to go to; and it's an incredibly difficult and dangerous situation," she added.

Nine Palestinians have been killed in overnight raids on the occupied West Bank according to Palestinian news agency WAFA.

Five of those killed were in Jenin, which has witnessed six Israeli raids in two weeks. In Hebron, two people were killed, whilst in occupied East Jerusalem one person was killed. 

One person also died following wounds they received during an Israeli raid on Nablus on Wednesday.

The Israeli military is on "very very high alert" on the Lebanon Israel border according to Reuters citing a military spokesperson, adding that Israel will respond to every event along its northern border, today and in the days to come.

The UN on Friday launched an emergency aid appeal seeking $1.2 billion to help some 2.7 million people in Gaza and the West Bank.

"The cost of meeting the needs of 2.7 million people - that is the entire population of Gaza and 500,000 people in the occupied West Bank - is estimated to be $1.2 billion," the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

"The original appeal, launched 12 October, asked for $294 million to support nearly 1.3 million people. The situation has grown increasingly desperate since then," it added.

At least 21 wounded Palestinians crossed the Rafah crossing yesterday from Gaza into Egypt to receive treatment, the Egyptian health ministry said in a statement.

Some 344 foreign nationals also crossed into Egypt from the strip, the statement added.

Preparations were under way to facilitate the reception and evacuation of about 7,000 foreign nationals from more than 60 countries from Gaza through the Rafah crossing, the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Hamas has said that it killed four Israeli soldiers in Beit Lahia in the Gaza Strip.

Izz-al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, said today on Telegram that its fighters "took a Zionist force by surprise in Al-Amrikiya [the American] area northwest of Biet Lahia and killed four soldiers".

The group also said in another statement yesterday that they "destroyed six tanks, two troop carriers, and a bulldozer" in northwest Gaza.

Yesterday, the Israeli mass-circulation Yediot Ahronot daily ran a large front-page photo of nine of 18 Israeli soldiers reported to have been killed in action since the start of the war.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to arrive in Israel today on his second wartime visit in weeks.

Blinken will try to push Israel to allow pauses in fighting to facilitate humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, according to Haaretz, which added that the US believes this could also increase chances of reaching a hostage deal.

Blinken is scheduled to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials to discuss preventing a wider regional conflict.

There is growing concern in the Biden administration about the way Israel is conducting the war in Gaza, Channel 12 reported.

After visiting Israel, Blinken is expected to meet King Abdullah II in Jordan.