HUNDREDS OF WOUNDED Gaza residents and foreigners have streamed into the border crossing with Egypt, the first people set to escape the shattered Palestinian territory in more than three weeks of devastating war with Israel.
Egypt announced that the most badly wounded, foreigners, and dual nationals could flee Gaza, which has suffered weeks of relentless bombardment by Israel.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry today said that a second Israeli bombing raid in two days has killed and wounded “dozens” at the territory’s biggest refugee camp.
The bombing campaign has killed than 8,500 people, mostly civilians and including more than 3,500 children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Follow the latest developments below.
Updates from Diarmuid Pepper, Hayley Halpin and Lauren Boland
This morning, hundreds of wounded Gaza residents and foreigners have streamed into the border crossing with Egypt.
These are the first people set to escape the shattered Palestinian territory in more than three weeks of devastating war with Israel.
Egypt announced that the most badly wounded, foreigners, and dual nationals could flee Gaza, which has suffered weeks of relentless bombardment by Israel.
“We are overwhelmed … Have mercy on us. We are Egyptians and can’t cross into our country,” Umm Yussef, a dual Palestinian-Egyptian national, told AFP on the Gaza side.
“Let us in. We are exhausted. We can’t sleep or eat.”
This is the moment the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt was opened to people for the first time since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/djKdPGtqH9
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 1, 2023
Here’s a quick recap on yesterday’s developments in Gaza.
A strike on Gaza’s largest refugee camp killed at least 47 people yesterday – including a Hamas commander involved in the 7 October attacks, according to Israel.
A large explosion ripped through the densely packed Jabalia camp before nightfall, tearing facades off nearby buildings and leaving a deep, debris-littered crater.
AFP witnessed at least 47 corpses being recovered.
Israel said its warplanes had struck a “vast” tunnel complex at the site, killing “many Hamas terrorists”, including local battalion commander Ibrahim Biari.
Hamas said today that seven hostages from its 7 October attacks, including three foreign passport holders, were killed in the bombing.
“Seven detainees were killed in the Jabalia massacre yesterday, including three holders of foreign passports,” said a Hamas military wing statement.
No details were given and it was not possible to independently verify the claim.
AFP reporters said they have seen a phalanx of 40 white ambulances streaming through the Rafah border crossing, as crowds of foreign and dual national families gathered nearby, hoping to leave the catastrophic conditions of Gaza behind them.
At least two children were seen in the ambulances, one with a large bandage wrapped around his stomach, as medics examined the wounded and transferred them to stretchers.
The UK’s Foreign Office has said it understands the Rafah crossing will be “open for controlled and time-limited periods to allow specific groups of foreign nationals and the seriously wounded to leave”.
“It is therefore likely the departure of British nationals from Gaza will take place in stages over the coming days,” it said.
We understand the crossing will be open for controlled and time-limited periods to allow specific groups of foreign nationals and the seriously wounded to leave.
— Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (@FCDOGovUK) November 1, 2023
It is therefore likely the departure of British nationals from Gaza will take place in stages over the coming days.
Here are some photos from the Rafah border this morning:
The director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has welcomed Eygpt’s decision “to accept some injured and sick people from Gaza for treatment”.
“We have been working with Egypt’s health ministry on planning for medical evacuations and will continue to support,” he said.
He added that “attention must not be diverted from the far greater needs of thousands of patients in Gaza, many of them extremely fragile who cannot be moved”.
“We need an immediate acceleration in the flow of medical aid permitted into Gaza. Hospitals must be protected from bombardment and military use.”
.@WHO welcomes #Egypt’s decision to accept some injured and sick people from Gaza for treatment.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) November 1, 2023
We have been working with Egypt's Health Ministry on planning for medical evacuations, and will continue to support.
Attention must not be diverted from the far greater needs of…
Aid groups have said in recent days that the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains desperate, with food, fuel, and medicine for the 2.4 million residents all running short.
“Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It’s a living hell for everyone else,” said children’s aid agency UNICEF, urging an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”.
“The more than one million children of Gaza also have a water crisis. Gaza’s water production capacity is a mere 5% of its usual daily output. Child deaths – particularly infants – to dehydration are a growing threat,” the spokesperson said.
They added: “And there there is the trauma. When the fighting stops, the cost to children and their communities will be borne out for generations to come.”
Surgeons are conducting amputations on hospital floors without anaesthetic, and children are forced to drink salty water, said Jean-Francois Corty, vice-president of Medecins du Monde, which has 20 staff on the ground.
Israeli officials said 70 trucks with aid were allowed to enter Gaza from Egypt yesterday, one of the biggest flows since a US-brokered deal was reached, but much less than humanitarian groups say is needed.
Fearing supplies entering Gaza could be diverted to Hamas, or that aid shipments could conceal arms or other supplies, Israel’s security personnel carry out stringent inspections that have slowed the flow of aid to a trickle.
The Palestinian telecommunications agency said earlier today that phone and internet services had “been completely cut off in Gaza”, the second such blackout in a week.
The Department of Foreign Affairs has said it is aware the Rafah border crossing is open today for seriously injured people and some foreign nationals.
It said it has “not been notified of any Irish citizens included in this first group, but are urgently seeking to have Irish people included in subsequent evacuations”.
“Our Embassies in Cairo and Tel Aviv are in constant communication with the authorities in Egypt and Israel about Irish people stuck in Gaza,” the Department said.
“The Department is also in regular communication with Irish citizens on the ground, although there are ongoing communication challanges. We are updating citizens directly as we have confirmed information.”
Al Jazeera is reporting that there has been another attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza. This is the same camp that was struck yesterday.
Its reporter Wael Dahdouh has said an Israeli air raid targeted a residential block in the al-Falouja area.
He reported that buildings have been leveled and the camp was targeted by Israeli warplanes and intense, indiscriminate shelling.
The news outlet is reporting that hundreds of people are feared to be trapped and buried under the rubble. Israel earlier reportedly dropped leaflets telling Palestinians to leave.
As we reported earlier, the Palestinian telecommunications agency has said that phone and internet services have “been completely cut off in Gaza”.
Al Jazeera has said it is trying to contact sources and relatives in Jabalia “but because of the communications blackout we cannot get more information at this time”.
More as we get it.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip has said today that 8,796 people have been killed since the war with Israel erupted on 7 October.
The death toll includes 3,648 children while 22,219 people have been wounded, a health ministry statement said.
An NGO defending press freedom has filed a complaint alleging war crimes with the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the death of journalists in the Israel-Hamas war.
Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF, said its complaint concerned “war crimes committed against Palestinian journalists in Gaza” and “against an Israeli journalist”.
Specifically, the complaint concerned “eight Palestinian journalists who were killed in bombardments of civilian areas in Gaza by Israel, and an Israeli journalist who was killed on October 7 while covering an attack on his kibbutz by Hamas”, the organisation said in a statement.
“It also cites the deliberate, total or partial, destruction of the premises of more than 50 media outlets in Gaza,” it said.
“The attacks suffered by Palestinian journalists in Gaza correspond to the international humanitarian law definition of an indiscriminate attack and therefore constitute war crimes,” it said, while the Israeli journalist’s death constituted “the intentional homicide of a person protected by the Geneva Conventions, which is a war crime”.
🔴RSF files complaint with ICC for war crimes against journalists in #Palestine & #Israel. The scale & gravity of the crimes targeting reporters, especially in #Gaza, call for a priority investigation by ICC. We have been calling for this since 2018.👉https://t.co/subq3ZZKYZ pic.twitter.com/Ohi5xE7rHI
— RSF (@RSF_inter) November 1, 2023
Governments and the UN Security Council can bring cases before the ICC, but so can the court’s own prosecutor who, RSF hopes, will accept the complaint and investigate.
RSF said it had called on the prosecutor, Karim A.A. Khan, to investigate all of the cases of the 34 journalists it said had been killed since 7 October.
Ambulances with Palestinians wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip arrive at Rafah border crossing to Egypt:
Turkey and Iran have called for a regional conference aimed at averting the spread of the Israel-Hamas war.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian a day after Iran’s top diplomat met Hamas leaders in Qatar.
Iran has warned that armed groups it supports in the region could attack Israel in light of its war on Hamas.
Fidan said Turkey was pushing for an immediate ceasefire because “it is not difficult to predict that this spiral of violence will grow” without a permanent solution to the war.
“We do not want the human tragedy in Gaza to turn into a war that affects the region’s countries,” Fidan said.
The Iranian foreign minister “shared with us that there are strong indications that other armed elements in the region may intervene in the conflict if conditions do not change”, Fidan said.
“A ceasefire and peace have become more essential.”
Amir-Abdollahian said a peace conference involving “Muslim and Arab” countries should be held “as soon as possible”.
He also called on the Muslim world to boycott Israeli products because of the war.
Speaking on The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk this morning, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence Micheál Martin said yesterday’s attack by Israel on the Jabaliya refugee camp was not a proportional response and highlights the need for a ceasefire.
“I was shocked by that strike on the Jabaliya refugee camp and the deaths of many many civilians…Whole families destroyed, killed. Fathers talking about losing their children.
“It’s horrific, it’s not justifiable and in our view, it adds pressure to the need to have a humanitarian pause here, a humanitarian ceasefire to allow aid to get in,” he said.
The Tánaiste said Israel has the right to “go after Hamas” but said there is an “issue of proportionality” because when you bomb a refugee camp there is “no doubt” many civilians will die.
“The pressure is so great on the civilian population now and the United Nations agencies are saying to us that this is a human catastrophe happening before our very eyes that it demands a pause in the initial phase. Nobody is saying that
Israel does not have a right to go after Hamas after the murder of so many Israeli civilians,” Martin said.
He added that there is a moral question and a legal question when it comes to the targets chosen by Israel.
“In my view, what is Israel saying that if we take out a commander of Hamas and some underground tunnels that that’s worth so many hundred lives, is that the moral question that is being put before us? I’m very clear on what side I’m on that you cannot knowingly take out hundreds of civilians that are not Hamas because of the cowardly and unacceptable and illegal use of civilians as human shields,” Martin said.
The first group of foreigners and dual nationals fleeing Gaza have now arrived in Egypt, according to an Egyptian official.
The group mostly consists of women, children and elderly people, who were seen among those getting off a bus on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing.
Earlier, ambulances were seen carrying wounded Palestinians who have fled across the border.
The Palestinian telecoms company Paltel has said internet and mobile phone services are gradually being restored in Gaza following a “complete disruption”, which was also reported by internet-access advocacy group NetBlocks.org.
It marked the second time residents were largely cut off after communications went down over the weekend while Israeli troops pushed into Gaza.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said communication blackouts disrupt the work of first responders and make it harder for civilians to seek safety.
“Even the potentially life-saving act of calling an ambulance becomes impossible,” said spokeswoman Jessica Moussan.
Some of the first evacuees crossing into Egypt have shared details of their experience with media on the ground.
“It’s enough. We’ve endured enough humiliation,” Gaza resident Rafik al-Hilou said, speaking to AFP.
“We lack the most basic human needs. No internet, no phones, no means of communication, not even water. For the past four days, we haven’t been able to feed this child a piece of bread. What are you waiting for?”
Jordanian citizen Saleh Hussein said she received word in the middle of the night that she was on the list for evacuation.
“We’ve faced many problems in Gaza, the least of which were the shortage of water and the power outage. There were bigger problems such as the bombardment. We were afraid. Many families were martyred,” she said.
The EU’s highest security official Josep Borrell has stated he is “appalled” by the casualities caused by Israel’s bombing of the Jabalia refugee camps, adding that international humanitarian law “cannot be applied selectively”.
“Building on EU Council’s clear stance that Israel has the right to defend itself in line with international humanitarian law and ensuring the protection of all civilians, I am appalled by the high number of casualties following the bombing by Israel of the Jabalia refugee camp,” Borrell wrote on X this morning.
“United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres reminded that IHL cannot be applied selectively, including the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution,” he said.
“The right to self-defence should always be balanced by the obligation to spare civilians to the greatest extent possible.
“Laws of war and humanity must always apply, including when it comes to humanitarian assistance.”
With each passing day, as the situation becomes more and more dire, this is more urgent than ever.
— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) November 1, 2023
The safety and the protection of civilians is not only a moral, but a legal obligation.
Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf has welcomed the opening of the Rafah crossing to allow people to leave the Gaza Strip, but his in-laws remain trapped with “dwindling supplies”, a spokesman has said.
Yousaf’s parents-in-law Elizabeth and Maged El-Nakla, from Dundee, travelled to Gaza to visit family before the conflict erupted and are now trapped there.
In a statement, the spokesman said: “We welcome that the Rafah crossing looks set to be opened for a number of foreign nationals.
“This is obviously a developing situation, but our understanding at this stage is that UK nationals are not at present included in this initial list of countries whose nationals can cross.
“The First Minister has been in contact with the Foreign Secretary this morning.
“We continue to liaise with the UK Government and urge them to work with the Egyptian authorities so that all UK nationals can urgently leave Gaza as quickly as possible.
“The First Minister’s wife, Nadia, spoke to her mother this morning. The family remains trapped in Gaza, without clean drinking water, and rapidly diminishing supplies.”
Speaking to RTÉ’s News at One, Tánaiste Micheál Martin said the Irish government has been in contact “since the beginning” with Egyptian and Israeli authorities regarding the Irish citizens in Gaza.
“We’ve supplied all the names that we have to the authorities, so they are on a list,” Martin said.
“Obviously, communications over the last 48 hours, in particular, became much more difficult with internet and all communications cut off, as you know, as the Israeli army began their incursion into Gaza and bombing again, so that has made things challenging,” he said.
The Tánaiste said the Government has not been notified of any Irish citizens on the list to leave through the Rafah border crossing today.
“We’re now and have been engaged with the authorities again today with a view to getting our citizens on a list as early as possible and getting them out of Gaza through the Rafah crossing,” he said.
The leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, has accused Israel of committing “massacres” in the Gaza war to cover its own “defeats”.
Israel is “committing barbaric massacres against unarmed civilians”, he said in a speech broadcast by Al Jazeera, adding that “its villainy will not save them from resounding defeat”.
The UN agency for palestinian refugees has said the “relentless bombardments” by Israeli forces of the Gaza strip “are shocking”.
“The level of destruction is unprecedented, the human tragedy unfolding before us is unbearable,” it said.
“An immediate humanitarian ceasefire is a matter of life and death for millions of people.”
The relentless bombardments by the Israeli Forces of the📍#GazaStrip are shocking.
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) November 1, 2023
The level of destruction is unprecedented, the human tragedy unfolding before us is unbearable.
An immediate humanitarian ceasefire is a matter of life and death for millions of people. pic.twitter.com/VxgSBm1jF8
Jordan today said it would “immediately” recall its ambassador to Israel in protest at the war against Gaza’s Hamas rulers trigged by the militant group’s 7 October attacks.
“Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi decided to immediately recall Jordan’s ambassador to Israel,” the foreign ministry said, adding that the move was “to condemn the Israeli war that is killing innocent people in Gaza”.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said a second Israeli bombing raid in two days has killed and wounded “dozens” of people today at the territory’s biggest refugee camp, Jabalia.
It said there were “dozens of martyrs and injured in a bombing by the occupation planes”, a day after Israel acknowledged the first strikes, saying they targeted a top Hamas commander.
Images obtained by AFP showed major damage and rescuers said “whole families” were killed today, but casualty details could not be immediately confirmed.
The United Nations today decried strikes on Gaza’s largest refugee camp that killed scores of people in attacks that Israel said targeted a Hamas commander.
“This is just the latest atrocity to befall the people of Gaza where the fighting has entered an even more terrifying phase, with increasingly dreadful humanitarian consequences,” Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian chief, said in a statement.
He said “the world seems unable, or unwilling, to act,” adding “this cannot go on. We need a step change.”
A strike on the Jabalia refugee camp killed at least 47 people Tuesday – including a Hamas commander involved in the 7 October attacks, according to Israel.
Israel said its warplanes had hit a “vast” tunnel complex at the site, killing “many Hamas terrorists”, including local battalion commander Ibrahim Biari.
Hamas said seven hostages, including three foreign passport holders, had died in the bombing, a claim impossible to verify.
Palestinian rescuers reported fresh strikes on the camp on today.
Griffiths, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, released his statement after a two-day visit to the region.
A statement this afternoon from Doctors Without Borders said that a Turkish-Palestinian friendship hospital it supports it now out of service as of today.
Doctors Without Borders say this is a result of the shortage of fuel and several attacks that affected the facility.
A spokesperson said this is the only public hospital for cancer patients in the Gaza Strip, and that dozens of cancer patients’ lives are at serious risk.
The spokesperson added: “We reiterate our call to ensure that medical facilities, including staff and patients seeking treatment, are protected, which is an obligation under international humanitarian law.
“We also call for water, food, fuel, medical supplies and adequate humanitarian aid to be urgently allowed into Gaza.”
Fifteen Israeli soldiers have been killed fighting in Gaza since yesterday, a spokesman for the country’s military told the AFP news agency.
Israeli troops have been fighting Hamas militants on the ground since Friday, backed by heavy air strikes which have killed multiple civilians in the Palestinian territory.
76 wounded Palestinians and 335 foreigners or dual-nationals have left the war-torn Gaza Strip for Egypt so far today, an Egyptian official at the Rafah crossing said.
By 4:30 pm (14:30 Irish time), ambulances had transported 76 wounded Palestinians into Egypt and six buses took 335 foreign passport holders, the official said.
The Egyptian authorities had said they would allow 90 wounded Palestinians and around 545 foreigners and dual nationals to cross today.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin today said he wants the 35 Irish citizens who are currently in Gaza to be included in evacuation efforts “as early as possible”.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said a second Israeli bombing raid in two days at Gaza’s biggest refugee camp had killed and wounded “dozens”.
It said there were “dozens of martyrs and injured in a bombing by the occupation planes” at the Jabalia camp, a day after Israel acknowledged carrying out one devastating strike.
Images obtained by AFP showed dozens of rescuers pulling bodies and injured out of ruined buildings around another major hole left by today’s shelling.
Rescuers said “whole families” were killed, but casualty details could not be immediately confirmed. Israel’s military did not comment.
The Hamas health ministry says more than 50 people were killed in yesterday’s attack.
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths denounced the Jabalia strike after a two-day visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
“This is just the latest atrocity to befall the people of Gaza where the fighting has entered an even more terrifying phase, with increasingly dreadful humanitarian consequences,” Griffiths said in a statement.
ActionAid Ireland CEO Karol Balfe has today said that hospitals”in Gaza are on the brink of darkness”.
She added that the “lives of thousands of patients, including newborn babies in incubators, hang in the balance”.
Gaza’s Health Ministry today warned that generators in two of northern Gaza’s main hospitals – the Al-Shifa Medical Complex and the Indonesian Hospital – are hours away from shutting down as fuel has nearly run out.
These hospitals are currently treating 42 newborns in incubators, 62 patients on mechanical ventilators and 650 patients with kidney failure.
Earlier, Gaza’s Health Minister confirmed that the Turkish-Palestinian hospital, the only public hospital providing cancer treatment, has stopped functioning due to Israeli bombardment and is running out of fuel.
This brings the total of hospitals out of service due to bombardment and lack of fuel to 16 out of 35.
The United Nations today denounced strikes on Gaza’s largest refugee camp that killed scores of people in attacks that Israel said targeted a Hamas commander.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “is appalled over the escalating violence in Gaza,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.A strike on the camp killed at least 47 people Tuesday – including a Hamas commander involved in the October 7 attacks, according to Israel.
Hamas said seven hostages, including three foreign passport holders, had died in the bombing, a claim impossible to verify.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said a second Israeli bombing raid today has killed or wounded dozens of people.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant today said Hamas has to “die or to surrender unconditionally” in the war the two sides are fighting in Gaza.
“There is no third option,” Gallant said in a televised speech, addressing the militant group which rules Gaza.
It comes as Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said a second Israeli bombing raid today at the region’s largest refugee camp has killed or wounded dozens of people.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said 16 Israeli soldiers have been killed in fighting since yesterday in and near the Gaza Strip as troops engaged in fierce battles with militants from Hamas.
Includes reporting by Press Association and AFP
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