About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Israel and around 240 hostages taken, according to Israeli officials.
In Gaza, more than 11,200 people, also mostly civilians, have been killed, health officials in the Hamas-run territory have said.
Here are five key developments from the past 24 hours:
- Hospitals 'out of service' -
The deputy health minister in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, Youssef Abu Rish, told AFP that all hospitals in the north of the territory are "out of service", amid fuel shortages and intense combat.
Abu Rish said seven premature babies and 27 patients had died in recent days in Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, the Palestinian territory's largest.
US President Joe Biden urged Israel to use "less intrusive action" around the hospital, saying it "must be protected".
Al-Shifa has been at the centre of intense fighting between Hamas and Israel, which charges the militants with hiding in tunnels beneath the facility. Hamas denies the accusation
- 'Signs' of hostages -
The Israeli army said it had evidence showing Hamas militants had held hostages at a different hospital in Gaza City.
Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said troops "found signs that indicate that Hamas held hostages" at the basement level of Al-Rantisi children's hospital, showing footage of a baby bottle and a rope near a chair.
- Pressure on Israel -
Israel was facing mounting international pressure over the human cost of its war with Gaza's Hamas rulers but was working to expand its "window of legitimacy", its top diplomat said.
"We have two or three weeks until international pressure really steps up but the foreign ministry is working to broaden the window of legitimacy, and the fighting will carry on for as long as necessary," Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said, as quoted by his spokesman.
As Israel's ground campaign advanced, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas had "lost control" of Gaza.
"Terrorists are fleeing southward. Civilians are looting Hamas bases," he said on Israeli television without providing evidence for the claim.
- UN aid work risks 'halt' -
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned its Gaza operations might shut down due to fuel shortages.
"The humanitarian operation in Gaza will grind to a halt in the next 48 hours as no fuel is allowed to enter," UNRWA's Gaza chief Thomas White wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Gaza has been under near-total Israeli siege and is short of food, fuel and other basic supplies.
- Cross-border violence -
Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group continued to trade fire with near-daily border skirmishes since October 8 that have heightened fears of a regional conflagration.
A group of journalists in southern Lebanon said they were targeted in Israeli strikes, which Al Jazeera network said lightly wounded one of its photographers. The Israeli army did not immediately comment the reports.
The Israel Electric Corporation said a worker was killed Sunday by an anti-tank missile strike across the Lebanese border "during his work in the Dovev area" -- just half a mile (800 metres) from the frontier.
With Israeli soldiers on the northern front
Israel-Lebanon Border, Israel (AFP) Nov 12, 2023 -
A drone from Lebanon appears on the other side of the hill from the Israeli soldiers. The sighting is reported by radio, but its buzz has already alerted the troops.
Two of the camouflaged soldiers on the ground train their M-16s skywards.
"This is how it is here. We go from 0 to 100 in a few seconds," says Kamal Saad, 33, who commands the Israeli army's 299th Battalion operating in the north.
Cross-border exchanges of fire have intensified since Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, mostly between Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, and Israeli forces.
Israeli tanks aim at the buzzing unmanned aircraft, alongside other weaponry, the details of which the army has asked AFP not to disclose.
The action lasts an hour, during which the whole battalion is ordered to take cover.
The military position, which AFP has been authorised to visit, serves as a rear base for the battalion.
It is famous throughout the country for its infantry being 70 percent Druze, an Arabic-speaking minority in Israel who are known for being fierce fighters.
"We grew up here, it's our home. We know every stone," says Saad.
"Our mission is to protect the security forces operating here and the remaining civilians," adds the commander whose brother Alim was killed by Hezbollah on October 9 in the area.
- Civilians evacuated -
On Saturday, with the unit on high alert, some of Saad's men in the battalion watched Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah speak in only his second televised address since the Hamas-Israel war began.
"The threat can come from anywhere -- sea, sky and land," says Saad.
It is not like during Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah, when salvoes of rockets were fired from Lebanon. Now the fire is sporadic, but it does take place every day.
And for the first time in Israel's 75-year history, all civilians in areas along the border have been evacuated.
At another section of the border, three soldiers were wounded in an attack on a position at Margaliot, near Kiryat Shmona, on Friday.
On Saturday, the area was targeted again, with AFP journalists reporting plumes of smoke over the key Israeli position.
Nearby, the residents of Kfar Giladi kibbutz say they are the last line of defence against Hezbollah.
Tom Cohen, 28, returned from Australia to where he had grown up to join the kibbutz's self-defence group.
"People were afraid that Hezbollah was just going to move in... as we have seen in the south," he says, referring to the Hamas attacks of October 7.
- Mission: deterrence -
"Now the big threat is the rockets coming from above... and attack drones."
He says he hopes that once Lebanon is rid of Hezbollah the border will open and he can discover the country that he grew up facing.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will only engage in a war with Hezbollah if forces him to.
On Friday, in a visit to troops near Gaza, he said the mission of those forces deployed in northern Israel could be summed up in one word: deterrence.
All of the Israeli soldiers AFP has spoken to fear a massive confrontation.
"Hezbollah from the second day is trying to get into this war," Cohen says.
"Rockets on your bases, on people, on civilians -- it's declaring war," he adds, pointing to the memorial commemorating the death of 12 soldiers in 2006, killed by a rocket at the kibbutz gate.
The bloody Gaza war erupted after Hamas fighters smashed through the militarised border with Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 people hostage, according to Israeli figures.
Israel's relentless campaign in response has killed more than 11,100 people, also mostly civilians and including thousands of children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
In the north since October 7, more than 90 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, and eight inside Israel, including six soldiers.
Among the dead in Lebanon are at least 70 Hezbollah fighters and 11 civilians, according to an AFP count.
Related Links
Space War News
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
