Updated: 12:45pm (AEDT)
Jerusalem/Gaza
Reuters
Israel formed an emergency unity government on Wednesday as its jets pounded Gaza and tanks massed around the Palestinian enclave, and the army said it killed three Hamas militants in a fresh confrontation on nearby Israeli territory.
Former Defence Minister Benny Gantz, a centrist opposition leader, spoke live on Israeli television alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant after forming a war cabinet focused entirely on the conflict.
“Our partnership is not political, it is a shared fate,” said Gantz. “At this time we are all the soldiers of Israel.”
Israeli Prime MInister Benjamin Netanyahu, announcing the formation of an emergency unity government. PICTURE: Video screenshot via Reuters
Netanyahu said the people of Israel and its leadership were united. “We have put aside all differences because the fate of our state is on the line,” he said.
“We are fighting a cruel enemy, worse than ISIS,” Netanyahu said alongside Gantz and Gallant, comparing the group’s attack with brutal killings carried out by Islamic State.
Gallant, the defence minister, said: “We will wipe this thing called Hamas, ISIS-Gaza, off the face of the earth. It will cease to exist.”
Gantz, a former Israeli defence chief and general, said it was a time to join together and win. “There is a time for peace and a time for war. Now is a time for war,” he said.
During the fighting with Hamas in Gaza, the emergency government will not take up any unrelated policy or laws, Netanyahu and Gantz said in their joint statement.
Israel’s death toll rose to 1,200 with over 2,700 wounded, its military said, in a weekend rampage by militants who breached the border fence enclosing Gaza in a shock infiltration of nearby Israeli towns and villages.
Pope Francis looks on as he leads the weekly general audience in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on 11th October, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Remo Casilli
POPE URGES HAMAS TO FREE HOSTAGES, SAYS ISRAEL HAS RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENCE
Pope Francis, in his strongest comments since the start of the conflict in Gaza, on Wednesday called for the release of all hostages taken by Hamas militants and said Israel has a right to defend itself.
Speaking in a sombre voice at the end of his weekly general audience to thousands of people in St Peter’s Square, he also expressed grave concern over Israel’s siege imposed on Gaza.
“I continue to follow, with pain and apprehension, what is happening in Israel and Palestine. So many people killed, and others wounded. I pray for those families who saw a feast day turn into a day of mourning, and I ask that the hostages be immediately released,” he said.
“It is the right of those who are attacked to defend themselves, but I am very worried by the total siege in which Palestinians live in Gaza, where there have also been many innocent victims,” he said.
The Pope’s mention of Israel’s right to self defence followed diplomatic pressure from Israel for him to make such a statement, following earlier statements from the pope and Vatican officials which Israel saw as too timid.
Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican, Raphael Schutz, told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Rome on Monday: “I understand the Vatican wants peace. We all want peace. But I would like to hear stronger words about Israel’s right to defend itself.”
In his comments on Wednesday, the Pope said “Terrorism and extremism do not help reach a solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians but fuel hatred, violence, revenge and cause suffering for both sides”.
Gaza’s health ministry said at least 950 people have been killed and 5,000 injured in the crowded coastal enclave.
“The Middle East does not need war but peace, a peace built on justice, on dialogue and the on the courage to be fraternal,” Francis said.
– PHILIP PULLELLA and ALVISE ARMELLINI, Vatican City/Reuters
Israeli reprisal strikes on blockaded Gaza have killed 1,100 people and wounded 5,339, Gaza’s Health Ministry said. Some 535 residential buildings had been destroyed leaving around 250,000 homeless, Hamas officials said. Most of the displaced were in UN-designated shelters, others huddling in shattered streets.
US President Joe Biden, who has pledged Washington’s ongoing support for Israel, despatched his top diplomat, Antony Blinken, to the region in a bid to avert a wider Middle East war.
Hamas’ armed wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, said it was still fighting inside Israel on Wednesday, and the Israeli military said a tank fired on three militants in a vehicle near Nir Am kibbutz, just outside north-east Gaza, and killed them.
Israel has deployed formations of tanks and armoured vehicles near Gaza in possible preparation for a ground offensive into the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave.
Hamas’s armed wing said it had targeted the northern Israeli coastal city of Haifa with an R60 rocket. There were no immediate reports of casualties after sirens sounded in Haifa and nearby towns.
A Reuters TV crew saw a house hit by an apparent projectile near Metulla in Israel’s far north, close to the border with south Lebanon where the heavily armed Iran-backed Hezbollah group is active.
Israel has vowed swift punishment for the deadliest Palestinian militant attack in its 75-year-old history, which left corpses strewn around a music festival and a kibbutz community.
Dozens of Israeli fighter jets struck more than 200 targets in a neighbourhood of Gaza City overnight that the military said had been used by Hamas to launch its attacks.
Israel has put Gaza under “total siege” to stop food and fuel reaching the enclave of 2.3 million people, many poor and dependent on aid. Hamas media said on Wednesday electricity went out after the only power station stopped working.
With Palestinian rescue workers overwhelmed, others in the crowded coastal strip searched for bodies in the rubble.
“I was sleeping here when the house collapsed on top of me,” one man cried as he and others used flashlights on the stairs of a building hit by missiles to find anyone trapped.
The Israeli military said its troops had killed at least 1,000 Palestinian gunmen who infiltrated from Gaza as they regained control of the border region, and the Chief of the General Staff met commanders to discuss their next steps.
“We will wipe this thing called Hamas, ISIS-Gaza, off the face of the earth,” Defence Minister Gallant said in the televised joint address, likening Hamas to the Islamic State group. “It will cease to exist.”
West Bank violence
Scores of Israelis and others were taken to Gaza as hostages, some of whom were paraded through streets. Both sides have said many women and children were among the dead and wounded, and distraught relatives have held multiple funerals.
Israel said it was shifting schools to remote learning from Sunday and issuing more firearms to licensed citizens, predicting possible friction between its Jewish majority and Arab minority amid calls for more protests in support of Gaza.
Israeli security forces have killed at least 27 Palestinians during clashes in the occupied West Bank since Saturday, as Palestinian factions called on people in the Palestinian territory to rise up following Hamas’ strike from Gaza.
The acting Governor of the West Bank city of Nablus, Ghassan Daghlas, said Palestinians were shot at and reportedly wounded by Israeli settlers. Reuters could not immediately verify the report and there was no immediate Israeli comment.
An Israeli military reservist helps residents of Ashkelon evacuate the city as he holds a rocket that was launched from the Gaza Strip and landed in Ashkelon, southern Israel, on 11th October, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Amir Cohen
In another sign of the crisis widening, Israeli shelling hit southern Lebanese towns after a rocket attack by the powerful Hezbollah in the fourth consecutive day of violence there.
A ground offensive into Gaza carries risks for Israel, notably to the hostages held in the narrow, widely urbanised enclave. Hamas has threatened to execute a captive for each home hit without warning.
Palestinian sources said one of the homes Israeli air strikes hit in Gaza overnight killed three relatives of Hamas military wing chief Mohammed Deif, the secretive mastermind of the assault, which was planned for two years.
Israel withdrew settlers and troops from Gaza in 2005 after 38 years of occupation. An Israeli blockade since Hamas seized power in the enclave in 2007 has created conditions which Palestinians say are intolerable.
Washington said it was talking with Israel and Egypt about safe passage for civilians from Gaza, with food in short supply.
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Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden warned Iran to “be careful” on Wednesday and told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States is sending more military assistance to help Israel fight Hamas militants.
Speaking to a group of Jewish community leaders, Biden for the first time connected the US deployment of a carrier fleet near to Israel to concerns Iran might seek to become involved, as Israel reels from an attack from Gaza by Hamas militants who killed more than 1,000 people in southern Israel.
“We moved the US carrier fleet to the eastern Mediterranean and we are sending more fighter jets to that region, and made it clear to the Iranians: Be careful,” he said.
US officials say they have not been able to establish a direct link between the Hamas attack but are searching to see if they can find one, since Hamas is supported by Tehran.
Biden also said that in his fourth phone call with Netanyahu in the five days since the Hamas attack took place on Saturday, he assured him that more military aid was on the way.
Biden and his team are grappling with how to gain the freedom of any potential American hostages held by Hamas. At least 22 US citizens were among the dead, the State Department confirmed, and at least 17 Americans are missing. The White House said the confirmed number of Americans who have died or are being held hostage could rise.
– Reporting by JAMES MACKENZIE, DAN WILLIAMS, EMILY ROSE, HENRIETTE CHACAR, ARI RABINOVITCH and MAAYAN LUBELL in Jerusalem, ALI SAWAFTA in Ramallah, JEFF MASON and HUMERYA PAMUK in Washington DC, US, and ANDREW MILLS in Qatar.
