Netanyahu says Israel preparing for Gaza ground invasion but won't say when

EPACopyright: EPA

The situation remains desperate on the ground in the Gaza Strip.

The BBC has been speaking with Mohamed, a father-of-three from London who is trapped in Gaza with his family.

He says they have been on the move for 10 days, looking for somewhere that is safe.

“There is bombing everywhere, there is no food, no clean water,” he says, adding that many of the children are sick and that people are queuing for hours for bread and fuel.

Mohamed says he is in regular contact with the Foreign Office, but there is currently no plan in place to get him and his family out of Gaza.

His infant children – one of whom is four months old – are scared.

“I tell them [the bombing] is fireworks, and they start screaming, ‘I hate fireworks, daddy.’ They wake up in the middle of the night screaming,” he says.

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The UN agency running humanitarian operations in Gaza says it will make a decision in the coming hours on how much assistance it can continue to provide because of a lack of fuel.

The UNRWA spokeswoman, Juliette Touma, told the BBC it was likely it would have to reduce its work.

"The coming few hours are very critical as we continue to hope that there will be supply of fuel that is sent to UNRWA in Gaza," she told BBC News.

Without a shipment of fuel, "we will have to take probably one of the toughest decisions that any aid organisation would take, [which] is to reduce humanitarian assistance to people who need us most on the ground in the Gaza Strip.

"And that decision will be made tomorrow [Thursday] morning if the fuel doesn't come into Gaza."

When Avichai Brodutch began a solo vigil outside the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, others began to join him.

Holding a sign saying "My family is in Gaza", he is calling for the return of his wife and three children, who he believes have been captured by Hamas.

The UN Security Council has failed for the fourth time to act on the desperate humanitarian concerns in Gaza.

Russia and China on Wednesday vetoed a US-drafted resolution calling for humanitarian pauses and expressing countries’ rights to self-defence without naming Israel directly.

Then a rival Russian-drafted text - which called for a humanitarian ceasefire - failed to win the minimum number of votes. It was the second time Russia proposed a text. And last week, the United States vetoed a resolution put forward by Brazil.

Russia and China said they vetoed the US draft resolution because it did not call for a ceasefire and they felt it would give a green light to further escalation of the war.

The UAE also voted against the US proposal, saying the priority of any resolution had to be valuing Palestinian lives equally to Israelis'.

The United States, meanwhile, accused Russia of trying to score political points and further divide the council – and the UK said Russia’s draft didn’t recognise Israel’s right to self-defence.

The elected 10 members of the Security Council now say they will attempt to produce their own text, as they are obliged to maintain international peace and security and to safeguard civilian lives.

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It's now early on Thursday morning in Israel and Gaza. Here's a look at the main developments over the past day:

• Conflict in Gaza: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised speech that IDF forces are still preparing for a ground invasion, but did not give any clues as to the timing. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said more than 6,500 have now been killed since 7 October
• Air strikes: Israel's military said it launched extensive attacks on the Gaza Strip, targeting "Hamas operatives and terrorist infrastructure". Al-Jazeera said the family of its Gaza correspondent was killed in an strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the strip
• Diplomacy: The UN Security Council has again failed to pass a resolution addressing the situation in Israel and Gaza, this time after vetoes from Russia and China. Israel demanded UN chief António Guterres resign over comments he made about the Gaza war

• Aid: The World Health Organization urged Hamas to release all hostages on medical grounds. The UN warned its fuel in the Gaza Strip will run out tonight, forcing the closures of hospitals and shelters
• International reaction: US President Joe Biden said the US "will ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself against these terrorists", while French President Emmanuel Macron said a "massive" Israeli ground invasion in Gaza would be "an error"

We've received new pictures from kibbutz Be'eri, the small community where Hamas gunmen rampaged through on 7 October.

Hamas broke into people's homes, killing dozens of people. Here are some of the latest photos of the damage inside the kibbutz.

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EPACopyright: EPA

EPACopyright: EPA

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A US diplomat is heading to the Middle East to prevent the violence in Israel and Gaza from spreading, according to the US State Department.

The statement says that Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf will "discuss humanitarian solutions to protect civilians while reiterating US support for a region that advances the aspirations of all its people".

She is scheduled to first visit the UAE, after which she will travel to Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Egypt, Jordan and Israel.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reiterated its call for Hamas to release all of the hostages abducted from Israel on health grounds.

The latest statement came after WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus held discussions with the Israeli NGO Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents families of the hostages.

"There is an urgent need for the captors of the hostages to provide signs of life, proof of provision of health care and the immediate release, on humanitarian and health grounds, of all those abducted," Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

“Many of the hostages, including children, women and the elderly, have pre-existing health conditions requiring urgent and sustained care and treatment," he added.

"The mental health trauma that the abducted, and the families, are facing is acute and psychosocial support is of great importance.”

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At the UN Security Council, Russia and China have vetoed a US draft resolution on Israel and Gaza that called for humanitarian pauses to allow aid access.

The UAE also voted no, while 10 members voted in favour and two member states abstained.

Russia instead made a proposal that advocated for a wider ceasefire, but it failed to win the minimum number of votes.

Earlier, the 10 elected members of the UN Security Council took a position that if both the US and Russian draft resolutions failed today, they would try to produce their own draft resolution based on Brazil’s text that was vetoed by the US but supported by each one of the elected members.

Speaking from Cairo earlier today, French President Emmanuel Macron said a "massive" Israeli ground invasion into Gaza would be "an error".

He warned it would harm civilians without ensuring Israel's long-term security.

But Macron reiterated that "France recognises Israel's right to defend itself".

"Regarding a ground intervention, if it is entirely targeted against terrorist groups, that is a choice that it has, but if it is a massive operation that would endanger civilian populations, in that case I think it would be an error for Israel," he said.

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Al-Jazeera media network says the wife and two children of its Gaza correspondent have been killed by an Israeli air strike in the centre of Gaza, having fled the north of the territory.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strike.

Wael Al-Dahdouh appeared live on air holding the bodies of his wife, daughter and son in hospital, who Al-Jazeera said were killed in a strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.

The broadcaster said they had left northern Gaza and travelled south in response to Israel's call for them to evacuate.

In a statement, the network said: "The Al Jazeera Media Network extends its sincere condolences and sympathy to our colleague Wael Al-Dahdouh on the loss of his family in an Israeli air strike."

US President Joe Biden has addressed the war between Israel and Gaza, and said "Hamas can no longer terrorise Israel and use Palestinian civilians as human shields".

Speaking at a press conference, Biden said there's no going back to the "status quo" that Israelis and Palestinians had before the Hamas attack.

There was a huge airstrike at about 19:30 local time (17:30 BST) on a three-storey building, just 200m away from Nasar hospital in Khan Younis.

The strike has resulted in 50 casualties - some dead, some injured. Many ambulances rushed to the scene to help.

Khan Younis is the place where the Israel army asked the people in Gaza and the north to flee south. This is meant to be safe, but today the local authorities said a third of the airstrikes every night are targeting this area.

And more than half of the people killed were in a so-called "safe area".

The hospital is struggling to cope with the number of casualties. Most non-essential departments, including kidney dialysis, have been shut to try and preserve what fuel is left.

We do not know when more fuel will be allowed into the territory. The UN estimates we need about 40,000 trucks. So far, we have got less than 50.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

US President Joe Biden has been speaking at a press conference, where he said "there's no going back to the status quo as it stood on 6 October" between Israelis and Palestinians.

Speaking alongside Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Biden said Israel must do "everything in its power to protect civilians".

Biden said he was alarmed by reports of "extremist settlers" attacking Palestinians in the West Bank. "They're attacking Palestinians in places that they're entitled to be. It has to stop", he said.

He said the US supports Israel defending itself against Hamas and it "will ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself against these terrorists. That's a guarantee".

Biden said Hamas does not represent the "vast majority of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip or anywhere else".

Referencing how Hamas was able to carry out the 7 October attacks on Israel, Netanyahu said "everyone will have to give answers".

"Everyone will have to give answers, me too. But all this will happen only after the war," he said.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues by saying that the decision on when to launch the ground invasion will be taken by the government's special war cabinet, according to news agency Reuters.

"We have already killed thousands of terrorists and this is only the beginning," Netanyahu said a short time ago.

"Simultaneously, we are preparing for a ground invasion. I will not elaborate on when, how or how many. I will also not elaborate on the various calculations we are making, which the public is mostly unaware of and that is how things should be."

Netanyahu reiterates that Israel is preparing for a ground invasion of Gaza, but he declines to provide details on the timing of the operation, saying it will be reached by consensus.