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Summary
It’s approaching 4.30am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s an overview of where things stand:
Eight Israeli hostages held in Gaza were released on Thursday. Hamas freed six of the hostages hours after releasing two Israeli women. All were handed over to the Red Cross in Gaza and were being brought to Israel to be taken to hospitals and be reunited with their families, the Israeli military said.
Israel released 30 Palestinians from Israeli jails as part of latest exchange, the Israel Prison Service said early on Friday. News agency images show them being welcomed by jubilant crowds Ramallah in the West Bank.
Hamas is willing to further extend the truce to pause fighting with Israel, a source close to Hamas has told Agence France-Presse. The extension is due to expire early on Friday after a seven-day pause. The source was quoted as saying mediators were making intense efforts to have the truce continued. Israel had yet to respond, AFP said.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said in Tel Aviv on Thursday: “Clearly, we want to see this process continue to move forward.” Blinken also stepped up calls for Israel to comply with international law and spare civilians in the war against Hamas in Gaza.
Three people were killed and 13 injured after two brothers from East Jerusalem shot at people waiting at a bus stop on a main road towards the western edge of the city in the rush hour, local police and medics reported. Hamas’s armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack.
An Israeli military assault into the south of Gaza may lead to 1 million refugees, the head of the UN’s Palestine relief agency, UNRWA, has warned. After a second overnight visit to Gaza, Philippe Lazzarini urged Israel to think through the consequences of an offensive in the south if the temporary truce in the fighting was not extended.
Seventeen Thai hostages freed by Hamas over recent days have landed back in Bangkok, where relatives had gathered at the airport to welcome them home. The latest releases bring the total number of Thai nationals freed to 23, with nine still being held.
Updated
Israel knew of Hamas’s attack plan more than a year ago, according to a report in the New York Times.
The report says a blueprint reviewed by the Times laid out the attack in detail, but that Israeli officials dismissed it as aspirational and ignoring specific warnings.
The NYT report says:
Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.
The approximately 40-page document, which the Israeli authorities code-named “Jericho Wall,” outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.
The translated document, which was reviewed by The New York Times, did not set a date for the attack, but described a methodical assault designed to overwhelm the fortifications around the Gaza Strip, take over Israeli cities and storm key military bases, including a division headquarters.
Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision.
… Officials privately concede that, had the military taken these warnings seriously and redirected significant reinforcements to the south, where Hamas attacked, Israel could have blunted the attacks or possibly even prevented them.
… The Israeli military and the Israeli Security Agency, which is in charge of counterterrorism in Gaza, declined to comment.
These images are coming in over the news wires of Palestinian prisoners being welcomed in the occupied West Bank early on Friday after their release by Israel in the latest exchange.
Updated
On the number of hostages released by Hamas in the latest exchange, Agence France-Presse is reporting how the truce deal stipulates that a minimum of 10 Israeli captives should be released alive each day.
The militant group released just eight Israelis on Thursday.
But a source close to Hamas told AFP that two Russian-Israeli women freed on Wednesday in addition to 10 others made up for only eight being released on Thursday.
Mediator Qatar appeared to back the calculation.
In exchange under the extended truce deal – due to expire within hours – Israeli prison authorities said 30 Palestinians prisoners were freed overnight on Thursday.
Since the agreement came into force on 24 November, 110 hostages have been released, including 80 Israelis.
The majority of the 30 non-Israeli hostages freed were from Thailand, released under a separate agreement.
Israel has freed 240 Palestinian prisoners in exchange.
Al Jazeera is reporting that a bus carrying newly released Palestinian detainees has been hit with tear gas fired by Israeli forces, according to a witness.
The network’s report says Issam Rimawi, a Palestinian photojournalist, witnessed and recorded the incident and said Israeli forces were deployed outside Ofer prison in the West Bank before the release of the Palestinian prisoners.
The report quotes Rimawi as telling Al Jazeera in Ramallah:
They were firing tear gas just as the bus carrying the prisoners was leaving
The prisoners were suffocating, and the driver had to stop the bus until the Red Cross crew came to help them.
The medical team had to go into the bus, and we have documented this with our own camera.
The Israeli authorities are doing this because they don’t want people to celebrate the release of the prisoners.
The Al Jazeera Media Network is funded by the Qatari royal family and says it has editorial independence.
The Israel Prison Service said early on Friday it had released 30 Palestinians from Israeli jails as part of the latest exchange for hostages under Israel’s truce agreement with Hamas.
Updated
Here are some of the images coming in of the latest release of six hostages by Hamas – in addition to two freed earlier on Thursday – under the exchange agreement with Israel.
Photograph: Al-Qassam Brigades, military wing of Hamas/Reuters
Updated
Here’s more around the Agence France-Presse report that Hamas has said it is willing to further extend the truce pausing fighting with Israel.
Israel had yet to respond, the news agency reports.
The current truce is due to expire early on Friday after a seven-day pause. US secretary of state Antony Blinken urged an extension after meeting with leaders in Israel and the occupied West Bank.
“Clearly, we want to see this process continue to move forward,” he told reporters in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
We want an eighth day and beyond.
Blinken also said Israel “must put in place humanitarian civilian protection plans that minimise further casualties of innocent Palestinians, including by clearly and precisely designating areas and places in southern and central Gaza, where they can be safe and out of the line of fire”.
International pressure has risen for a lasting halt to the war. The White House said it was “working on it literally by the hour” to try to extend the temporary ceasefire.
Amid the latest release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a source close to Hamas, who asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media, told AFP it was “willing to extend the truce”.
The source added:
The mediators are currently making strong, intense and continuous efforts for an additional day in the truce and then working to extend it again for other days.
Updated
Israel frees 30 Palestinians from prisons
The Israel Prison Service said early on Friday it had released 30 Palestinians from Israeli jails as part of the latest exchange for hostages under the truce deal with Hamas.
The prison service said the Palestinians were released from prisons in Israel, the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem under the seventh swap, Reuters reported.
This is Adam Fulton picking up our live coverage. Stay with us for all the latest development in the Israel-Hamas war
Summary of the day so far
It’s 1am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
Israel’s military confirmed on Thursday that a truce with Hamas would continue, allowing further hostage and prisoner releases and the possibility of more a durable pause in hostilities. There were frantic diplomatic efforts through the night to prolong the six-day halt to fighting in Gaza, which had been due to end at 7am local time (5am GMT) on Thursday. Both sides have stressed they have the will and capabilities to continue the conflict.
Talks are continuing about extending the pause, which is due to end early Friday. Hamas is willing to further extend the truce, a source close to Hamas has said. The White House has said it is “working on it literally by the hour” to try to extend the temporary ceasefire.
Eight Israeli hostages held in Gaza were released on Thursday. Hamas freed six of the hostages hours after releasing two Israeli women. All were handed over to the Red Cross in Gaza and were being brought to Israel to be taken to hospitals and be reunited with their families, the Israeli military said. Among them is Mia Schem, a French-Israeli woman who was abducted from the Supernova music festival in Israel and shown in the first Hamas video of a hostage speaking from captivity.
Under the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas – which was extended on Thursday for another day – Hamas must release 10 Israeli hostages each day in exchange for the release of 30 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. The Qatari foreign ministry said today’s overall tally has been reached, because two Russian-Israeli dual-nationals released on Wednesday have been included in Thursday’s count. The prominent Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi was among 30 prisoners freed by Israel early on Thursday. Eight Palestinian women and 22 children are slated for release later today.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has stepped up calls for Israel to comply with international law and spare civilians as it wages its war against Hamas in Gaza. On his third trip to the Middle East since 7 October, Blinken said the US remains committed to supporting Israel’s right to self defence, but that Israel must protect civilians if it starts major military operations in southern Gaza.
Three people were killed and 13 injured after two brothers from East Jerusalem shot at people waiting at a bus stop on a main road towards the western edge of the city in the rush hour, local police and medics reported. Hamas’s armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack.
An Israeli military assault into the south of Gaza may lead to 1 million refugees, the head of the UN’s Palestine relief agency UNRWA has warned. After a second overnight visit to Gaza, Philippe Lazzarini urged Israel to think through the consequences of an offensive in the south if the temporary truce in the fighting is not extended.
Seventeen Thai hostages freed by Hamas over recent days have landed back in Bangkok, where relatives had gathered at the airport to welcome them home. The latest releases bring the total number of Thai nationals freed to 23, with nine still being held.
Updated
Among the Israeli hostages who were released today include two children and six women, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has confirmed that eight people who were being held hostage in Gaza have been released.
The Israeli hostages who were released include 2 minors & 6 women of dual nationality:
— د. ماجد محمد الأنصاري Dr. Majed Al Ansari (@majedalansari) November 30, 2023
⁃A Mexican
⁃A Russian
⁃An Uruguayan
They We’re handed over to the ICRC.
Hamas 'willing to extend the truce' - report
Hamas is willing to further extend a truce to pause fighting with Israel, a source close to Hamas has told Agence France-Presse.
The source told the news agency:
The mediators are currently making strong, intense and continuous efforts for an additional day in the truce and then working to extend it again for other days.
Updated
Here’s a clip from Antony Blinken’s press conference earlier, held in Tel Aviv after meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials.
The US secretary of state said the immediate focus of his visit was to try to extend the pause in fighting in Gaza and enable more hostages to be freed.
The US also urged Benjamin Netanyahu to protect civilians in Gaza. Blinken said:
Israel has one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world, it is capable of neutralising the threat while minimising harm to innocent men, women and children.
Updated
Two siblings, Aisha Ziyadne, 17, and Bilal Ziyadne, 18, are among the Israeli hostages who have been released tonight.
The pair were abducted from the kibbutz Holit together with their older brother, Hamza, and their father, Yousef.
Since the day of the assault, the extended Ziyadne family has been holding a permanent vigil outside the house of Yousef, the Times of Israel reported.
Ilana Gritzewsky, one of the two Mexican hostages held in Gaza, has been released, Mexico’s foreign minister, Alicia Bárcena, has confirmed.
In a social media post, Bárcena thanked the Qatari government for its “invaluable mediation”, adding that Mexico continues to work for the release of its other citizen, Orion Hernandez.
Con enorme alegría informo que Ilana Gritzewsky, una de las dos retenidas en Gaza, fue liberada hoy. A nombre del @GobiernoMX agradecemos profundamente al Gobierno de Qatar por su invaluable mediación. 1/2
— Alicia Bárcena (@aliciabarcena) November 30, 2023
Updated
Red Cross says eight hostages held in Gaza have been released
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has confirmed that eight people who were being held hostage in Gaza have been released.
An ICRC statement reads:
We’re glad to inform that 8 people who were being held hostage in Gaza have just been released, with facilitation from the ICRC.
Our teams have transferred them and handed them over to the Israeli authorities.
This is possible thanks to our neutral intermediary role.
We’re glad to inform that 8 people who were being held hostage in Gaza have just been released, with facilitation from the ICRC.
— ICRC in Israel & OT (@ICRC_ilot) November 30, 2023
Our teams have transferred them and handed them over to the Israeli authorities.
This is possible thanks to our neutral intermediary role.
The six Israeli hostages who are being released tonight by Hamas from captivity in Gaza have been named.
They are:
Aisha Ziyadne, 17
Bilal Ziyadne, 18
Nili Margalit, 40
Shani Goren, 29
Sapir Cohen, 29
Ilana Gritzewsky, 30
The eight Israeli hostages released from Hamas captivity tonight: Siblings Bilal and Aisha Ziyadne, Ilana Gritzewsky, Nili Margalit, Shani Goren, Amit Soussana, Sapir Cohen, Mia Schem. pic.twitter.com/3J2ESpZ1tp
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) November 30, 2023
Thirty Palestinians to be released in exchange for 10 hostages in Gaza, says Qatar
Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed Al Ansari, said 30 Palestinians will be released on Thursday in exchange for the release of 10 hostages in Gaza.
In a social media post, he said two Russian citizens released on Wednesday were counted on today’s list.
In accordance with the terms of the 7th day of the humanitarian pause agreement, 30 Palestinians, will be released today in exchange for the release of 10 hostages in Gaza. The 2 Russian citizens released yesterday were counted on this list.
— د. ماجد محمد الأنصاري Dr. Majed Al Ansari (@majedalansari) November 30, 2023
It comes as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said six Israeli hostages are currently on their way back to Israel territory. Two Israeli hostages have been released earlier today.
Earlier today, an Israeli official reiterated Israel’s position that it would agree to an extra day of truce for the release of each group of 10 hostages. In exchange, three times the number of Palestinian prisoners would be released each time.
Updated
Six more Israeli hostages handed over to Red Cross, says IDF
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have confirmed that six Israeli hostages have been handed over by Hamas to the Red Cross.
An IDF statement says:
According to the information provided by the Red Cross, six Israeli abductees were transferred to them and are on their way to Israel.
The IDF said earlier today that two Israeli hostages were released from captivity in the Gaza Strip.
Updated
Israeli president asks UAE to use 'political weight' to help free hostages
Israel’s president, Issac Herzog, has appealed to his Emirati counterpart to use his “political weight” to help free the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
During his meeting with the United Arab Emirates president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Herzog underlined “the necessity to act in any way possible to free the Israeli hostages held captive by the murderous terrorist organisation Hamas”, a statement from his office said.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of UN climate talks at Cop28, in Dubai. The Israeli president’s media office statement reads:
The President appealed to his friend Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to employ his full political weight to promote and speed up the return home of the hostages.
A UAE state news agency report said the two presidents discussed relations between their countries and issues of mutual interest.
Updated
Mia Schem was abducted from the Supernova music festival on 7 October.
Video released by her family shows Schem in an emotional reunion with her mother and brother.
The 21-year-old was shown in the first Hamas video published on its Telegram channel where she had an injured arm that was being treated by an unidentified medical worker.
More hostages are expected to be released in exchange for Palestinian women and children detained in Israeli jails.
Israel “has an obligation” and is capable of “neutralising the threat posed by Hamas, while minimising harm to innocent men, women and children”, Antony Blinken says.
The US secretary of state says Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet “agreed with the need for this approach”.
Blinken says he underscored that the “massive loss of civilian life” and displacement of a scale that has been seen in northern Gaza cannot be repeated in the south.
“Intent matters, but so does the result,” he says
Updated
Blinken: Israel must put in place protections for Gaza civilians before resuming military operations
Antony Blinken says Benjamin Netanyahu, during their meeting, “made clear that Israel intends to resume its military operations against Hamas”.
Speaking at a press conference in Tel Aviv, the US secretary of state says Israel “has the right to do everything it can to ensure” that the Hamas 7 October attacks can never be repeated. “Hamas cannot remain in control of Gaza,” he says.
But he says “the way Israel defends itself matters”, adding that it is “imperative” that Israel behaves “in accordance with international law and the laws of war”.
He says that in his meetings with the Israeli prime minster and senior Israel officials that he “made clear that before Israel resumed major military operations, it must put in place humanitarian civilian protection plans that minimise further casualties of innocent Palestinians”. Blinken goes on to say:
That means taking more effective steps to protect the lives of civilians, including by clearly and precisely designating areas and places in southern and central Gaza, where they can be safe and out of the line of fire.
It means avoiding further significant displacement of civilians inside of Gaza. It means avoiding damage to critical infrastructure, like hospitals, like power stations, like water facilities, and it means giving civilians who have been displaced to southern Gaza the choice to return to the north, as soon as conditions permit.
“All of this can be done in a manner that still enables Israel to achieve its objectives,” he says.
Updated
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is speaking at a news conference in Tel Aviv following meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials in Israel and the occupied West Bank.
Blinken says the immediate focus of his visit is to try to extend the pause in fighting to enable more hostages to be freed out of Gaza.
“We will not stop working until we get every hostage back home with their families and loved ones,” he says.
The US has also helped “significantly” increase the level of humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, he says.
Blinken says the number of trucks carrying food, water, medicine and fuel getting into Gaza have more than doubled in the past week.
This is still not enough to meet the needs of the people of Gaza, he says, particularly the elderly, pregnant women, people with disabilities.
US working 'literally by the hour' to extend truce, says White House
The White House has condemned a gun attack at a bus stop in west Jerusalem on Thursday in which three Israelis were killed and for which Hamas has claimed responsibility.
John Kirby, the White House’s national security spokesperson, said the attack was “stark reminder” of the enemy that Israel was facing.
Speaking at a news conference, Kirby said the attack “technically” didn’t violate the terms of the ongoing truce between Israel and Hamas, which only covers Gaza, AP reported. He said:
If anybody’s guessing and wondering whether Hamas still has murderous intentions against the Israeli people, just look at what happened in Jerusalem today.
He also expressed hope that the truce between Israel and Hamas, which was extended for a seventh day on Thursday, would be extended again, adding:
We’re working on it literally by the hour to see if we can get this seventh day turned into an eighth and ninth and 10th and beyond.
Updated
Pope Francis held a fraught phone call with Isaac Herzog last month in which he warned the Israeli president against responding to the Hamas attacks “with terror”, according to a report.
According to the Washington Post, citing a senior Israeli official, Herzog had been describing Israel’s horror over the 7 October Hamas attacks during the call.
It is “forbidden to respond to terror with terror,” the pope said, according to the paper. It says Herzog protested, repeating the Israeli government’s position that it was “doing what was needed in Gaza to defend its own people”.
The pope told Herzog that “those responsible should indeed be held accountable, but not civilians”, the report says. It goes on:
Taken with the diplomatic exchange – deemed so “bad” by the Israelis that they did not make it public – the implication seemed clear: the pope was calling their campaign in Gaza an act of terrorism.
Earlier this month, the pope met separately with Jewish relatives of hostages held by Hamas and with Palestinians with family in Gaza. Later that day at his general audience in St Peter’s Square, he said he felt the pain of both sides. He said:
This is what wars do. But here we have gone beyond wars. This is not war. This is terrorism.
Updated
More than 1,300 artists in the UK have signed an open letter accusing cultural institutions of “repressing, silencing and stigmatising” Palestinian voices and perspectives.
The letter, whose signatories include the actors Olivia Colman, Nicola Coughlan and Juliet Stevenson, decries the “targeting and threatening the livelihoods of artists and arts workers who express solidarity with Palestinians, as well as cancelling performances, screenings, talks, exhibitions and book launches”.
An excerpt of the letter, as shared by Artists for Palestine UK, reads:
While catastrophe unfolds, we have observed a glaring absence of statements of solidarity with Palestinian people from most UK arts organisations.
We find it deeply troubling and, frankly, indicative of a disturbing double standard that expressions of solidarity, which have been readily offered to other peoples facing brutal oppression, have not been extended to Palestinians.
Such a discrepancy raises serious questions about bias in the response to grave human rights violations.
Updated
A day after a US-Israeli woman was freed was Hamas captivity, Israeli officials have confirmed that her husband was killed during the 7 October attacks.
Aviv Atzili, 49, had been listed as missing since the Hamas attacks on Israel, and was presumed to be a hostage in Gaza.
His wife, Liat Beinin Atzili, was among the hostages released on Wednesday. The couple were members of the Nir Oz kibbutz.
According to the Times of Israel, Atzili left his family’s home on 7 October as part of the community’s security response team.
Updated
Israeli assault on southern Gaza could lead to 1m refugees, UNRWA chief warns
An Israeli military assault into the south of Gaza may lead to 1 million refugees, the head of the UN’s Palestine relief agency UNRWA has warned.
After a second overnight visit to Gaza where he met overwhelmed Palestinians, Philippe Lazzarini urged Israel to think through the consequences of an offensive in the south if the temporary truce in the fighting is not extended.
“We already have a staggering human tragedy,” he said in an interview, adding that the prospect of a further assault filled him with deep anxiety and foreboding.
We are in a race against time, and already disease is becoming as much a threat as the bombardment […] The combined impact of the bombardment and the siege has already pushed people to the south, if there is fighting there is indeed a higher likelihood that they might wish to flee further south and beyond the border.
Lazzarini has become one of the most outspoken UN humanitarian officials in recent weeks, urging Israel to abide by the rules of law and proportionality.
Updated
Released Hamas hostages 'back in Israel'
Two hostages released by Hamas on Thursday are back in Israel, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.
The women, named as Mia Schem, 21, and Amit Soussana, 40, were handed over to the International Red Cross earlier in the day. Schem, who has French-Israeli citizenship, was released separately because the pair were being held in different locations, CNN reported.
Further hostage releases are expected later on Thursday after a further extension of the seven-day truce between Israel and Hamas, but no details have been forthcoming so far. More than 100 hostages have been released by Hamas in recent days.
In exchange, eight Palestinian women and 22 children are set to be freed from Israeli prisons, the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) said, releasing a list of their names.
Before the swaps began last week, the PPS said, 7,200 prisoners were held by Israel, among them 88 women and 250 children.
One in five Palestinians spend time in Israeli prisons at some point after trials in a military court system with a conviction rate of more than 98%, according to figures from the UN.
Updated
US senators will receive a classified briefing from senior government officials next week as the White House renews its push for lawmakers to pass a $106bn (£834m) supplementary aid package including money for Israel and Gaza.
According to Reuters, the meeting on Tuesday will feature the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines; the secretary of state, Antony Blinken; the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin; and the deputy administrator of the US agency for international development, Isobel Coleman.
Joe Biden’s bill has faced has faced opposition since he sent it to Congress last month. The Republican-led House of Representatives has approved a standalone bill for Israel aid, but the exclusion of money to support Ukraine in its war against Russia is a sticking point in the Senate.
The Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, has said he and the president “are in the same place” on the measure linking aid to both conflicts.
Updated
CPJ: 57 journalists killed in conflict so far
The number of reporters and other media workers killed during the Israel-Hamas conflict is at least 57, according to an update published Thursday by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
As of November 30, CPJ’s investigations showed at least 57 journalists and media workers have been killed in the #Israel-#Gaza war. The map below shows where they died.
— Committee to Protect Journalists (@pressfreedom) November 30, 2023
Explore the interactive version to learn more about each of these journalists: https://t.co/dGAhEgtzIZ pic.twitter.com/VEfA3rTscQ
The group attached to its tweet an animated map giving the approximate locations of the fatalities, as well as their names.
The most recent recorded casualty is Mohamed Mouin Ayyash, a Palestinian journalist and a freelance photographer killed in an Israeli airstrike on 23 November along with 20 members of his family, according to the Amman-based news outlet RoyaNews and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate.
Read more on this topic:
Updated
Hamas says it needs “a thousand trucks” of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza every day, as well as 1m litres of fuel daily, according to Haaretz, citing the “Hamas publicity office”.
The group made its demand in an announcement on Thursday, explaining that they were the minimum quantities needed to restore essential facilities in the Gaza strip to functionality, including hospitals, flour mills, pumping stations, the desalination plant and bakeries.
Haaretz says the announcement also claims “thousands of bodies” are under the rubble in Gaza after weeks of Israeli air strikes and missile attacks, which cannot be retrieved without proper equipment and fuel.
Updated
Israeli and US officials have discussed expelling thousands of lower-level Hamas fighters from the Gaza Strip as a possible way to shorten the war, according to a report.
The idea, reported by the Wall Street Journal, is similar to the US-brokered deal that allowed the deportation of Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) members, including the leader Yasser Arafat, from Lebanon to Tunisia.
One proposal, developed the Israeli military’s thinktank, would start with the creation of “Hamas-free safe zones” that would be ruled by a new Gaza authority backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the report said.
A senior Israeli official told the paper it was not clear that Hamas would accept the option to leave Gaza if it was offered. They added that there was no “practical discussion” of exiling Hamas fighters, but that the option may become available if there was no other choice.
Updated
Prominent Democratic party leaders in California and pro-Israel Jewish groups in the Bay Area have condemned expressions of support for Hamas and conspiracy theories questioning the 7 October attacks aired at a heated Oakland city council debate on Monday.
The California congress member Adam Schiff said it was shocking to hear people “downplay, deny or even seek to justify” the “horrific attacks, rapes, killings and kidnappings” carried out by Hamas. Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, also posted on social media that Hamas was a terrorist organization that “must be called out for what they are: evil”.
The Democratic leaders were responding to edited video clips of comments made by members of the public at an Oakland city council debate on a ceasefire resolution calling for an immediate end to the Israel-Hamas war. The remarks, some of which portrayed Hamas as justified “armed resistance”, were lambasted as a “disgrace” by the pro-Israel group Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC).
In an indication of the political foment that the Israel-Hamas conflict is spawning in cities across the US, there was equally strong pushback to the video clips from pro-Palestinian groups in the Bay Area. They claimed that the remarks had been highly edited to misrepresent people’s positions as part of a malicious propaganda campaign designed to discourage calls for a ceasefire.
Updated
The international criminal court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan is visiting Israel “at the request and invitation of survivors and the families of victims of the 7 October attacks,” the court said.
Khan will also visit Ramallah to meet senior Palestinian officials, the ICC said in a social media post on Thursday, adding:
The visit, while not investigative in nature, represents an important opportunity to express sympathy for all victims and engage in dialogue.
#ICC Chief Prosecutor @KarimKhanQC is visiting #Israel at the request and invitation of survivors & the families of victims of the 7 October attacks.
— Int'l Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) November 30, 2023
The Prosecutor will also visit #Ramallah, State of #Palestine, meeting w/ senior Palestinian officials. pic.twitter.com/AK81hKd3f7
Updated
Eight Palestinian women and 22 children set to be released by Israel today
The Palestinian Prisoners Society has published its list of Palestinians held in Israeli jails who are slated for release today.
Eight women and 22 children are on the list.
One in five Palestinians spend time in Israeli prison at some point after trials in a military court system with a conviction rate of more than 98%, according to figures from the UN.
Before the swaps began last week, the Palestinian Prisoners Society said 7,200 prisoners were held by Israel, among them 88 women and 250 children.
Updated
The Israeli hostages slated to be released today will be transferred to the Red Cross at different times and places because they were held in different locations in Gaza, an Israeli official told CNN.
Two Israeli hostages have so far been released from captivity in Gaza today. They are among a larger group of Israelis expected to be released as part of the latest extension of a truce between Israel and Hamas.
Israel is expected to release 30 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons later today.
Emmanuel Macron has confirmed the release of the 21-year-old French-Israeli woman, Mia Schem, from Hamas captivity today.
Posting to social media, the French president expressed “great joy” and his solidarity with the remaining hostages taken during the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel.
Mia Schem est libre.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) November 30, 2023
C'est une grande joie que je partage avec sa famille et tous les Français.
J'exprime aussi ma solidarité avec tous ceux qui restent otages du Hamas. La France agit avec ses partenaires pour obtenir leur libération dès que possible.
Updated
Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, has confirmed that he recalled Spain’s ambassador over what he described as “outrageous” remarks by the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez.
Cohen, posting to social media, said Sánchez had “once again repeated baseless accusations” against Israel regarding the war.
“Israel is acting, and will continue to act, according to international law, and will continue the war until all the hostages are returned and Hamas is eliminated from Gaza,” Cohen wrote.
A single entity is responsible for the October 7 massacre and for the current situation in the Gaza Strip, and that is the Hamas terror organization.
Following the outrageous remarks by the Spanish Prime Minister, who once again repeated baseless accusations, I decided to recall our ambassador to Spain for consultations in Jerusalem.
— אלי כהן | Eli Cohen (@elicoh1) November 30, 2023
Israel is acting, and will continue to act, according to international law, and will continue…
In an interview with Spanish television earlier today, Sánchez voiced “sincere doubts” that Israel was respecting international law in Gaza.
During a trip with his Belgian counterpart to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Egypt last week, Sánchez criticised Israel’s operations and said a Palestinian state should be recognised. Israel later summoned the Belgian and Spanish ambassadors.
Updated
The prominent activist Ahed Tamimi is one of 30 Palestinians released in the sixth swap between Israel and Hamas.
The 22-year-old, who has become a symbol of resistance against Israel’s occupation, was seen embracing her mother after being released. Tamimi told reporters:
Our joy is diminished because there are many martyrs in Gaza.
She went on to describe the conditions faced by Palestinians held inside the Israeli prison.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s nearly 6pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
Israel’s military confirmed on Thursday that a truce with Hamas would continue, allowing further hostage and prisoner releases and the possibility of more a durable pause in hostilities. There were frantic diplomatic efforts through the night to prolong the six-day halt to fighting in Gaza, which had been due to end at 7am local time (5am GMT) on Thursday. The current extension appears to be only for 24 hours, though this has yet to be explicitly confirmed by all parties. Both sides have stressed they have the will and capabilities to continue the conflict.
Two Israeli hostages have been released by Hamas on Thursday and are on their way back to Israel, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said. They have been named as Mia Schem, 21, and Amit Soussana, 40. More hostages held by Hamas are expected to be released in the coming hours.
More than 100 hostages have been released and more than 140 remain in Gaza, according to the latest figures released by the Israeli government. Among those still held are three children and 10 people over the age of 75, the government spokesperson Eylon Levy said on Thursday. Two people have been found dead, he said.
The prominent Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi was among 30 prisoners freed by Israel early on Thursday. Israeli troops had arrested Tamimi, regarded in the occupied West Bank as a hero since she was a teenager, earlier this month on suspicion of inciting violence. Her mother has denied the allegation and said it was based on a fake social media post, Reuters reports. Israel has so far released 210 Palestinian prisoners.
Three people were killed and 13 injured after two brothers from East Jerusalem shot at people waiting at a bus stop on a main road towards the western edge of the city in the rush hour, local police and medics reported. Hamas’s armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Israel’s armed forces have warned people in Gaza not to travel north “for your own safety”, saying the area remains a war zone. Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza have moved south in the past few weeks in response to Israeli military warnings, leading to concerns about safety and conditions.
Antony Blinken has told Israel it must account for the safety and humanitarian needs of Palestinian civilians before resuming any military operation in Gaza. The US secretary of state met the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his war cabinet in Jerusalem on Thursday before heading to the West Bank to meet the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.
The United Nations has warned that the amount of aid getting into Gaza remains far too low, despite an increase afforded by the temporary ceasefire. Unicef’s spokesperson James Elder said a rise in the flow of aid was the “right start” but the needs in the territory were such that “all this aid is triage … It’s not even enough for triage”.
Seventeen Thai hostages freed by Hamas over recent days have landed back in Bangkok, where relatives had gathered at the airport to welcome them home. The latest releases bring the total number of Thai nationals freed to 23, with nine still being held.
Western governments are “actively encourag[ing] the killing of women and children” in Gaza because they are not willing to challenge Israeli accounts of the war there, the father of a British peace activist killed by an IDF sniper has said.
Hello, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong in Washington on the live blog. You can contact me at leonie.chao-fong@theguardian.com.
Updated
The two Israeli hostages who have been released by Hamas have been identified as Mia Schem, 21, and Amit Soussana, 40.
The IDF said the released hostages had been handed over by the Red Cross to Israeli special forces. An IDF statement reads:
A short while ago, Red Cross representatives transferred two Israeli released hostages to IDF special forces and ISA forces adjacent to the security fence with the Gaza Strip. Afterwards, they will make their way to the Hatzerim base.
More hostages held by Hamas are expected to be released in the coming hours.
Mia Schem, a French-Israeli woman who was captured by Hamas militants on 7 October, appeared in a video last month in which she was seen receiving treatment for an arm injury, and she asked to be returned to her family as quickly as possible.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, described the Hamas video at the time as “an odious act”.
Mia Schem (21), who was kidnapped from the music festival, and Amit Soussana (40) from Kibbutz Kfar Aza have just been released from captivity. pic.twitter.com/c1aN9QWgFS
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) November 30, 2023
Updated
Two Israeli hostages released by Hamas, says IDF
The Israel Defense Forces have said two Israeli hostages have been handed over to the Red Cross and are on their way to Israel.
The IDF statement reads:
Based on information that was received from the Red Cross, two Israeli hostages have been transferred to them and are on their way to Israeli territory.
The two hostages are women, Reuters is reporting, citing a Palestinian official.
Updated
Pictures show attendees at the funeral of Rabbi Elimelech Wasserman, one of the three victims of this morning’s shooting in Jerusalem.
In traditional Judaism, a burial occurs as soon as possible after the death, usually within 24 hours.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has told Israel it must account for the safety and humanitarian needs of Palestinian civilians before resuming any military operation in Gaza.
Blinken, who is making his third visit to the region since the 7 October attacks, met the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his war cabinet in Jerusalem today before heading to the West Bank to meet the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.
“The secretary stressed the imperative of accounting for humanitarian and civilian protection needs in southern Gaza before any military operations there,” spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
US officials said on Wednesday that Washington was urging Israel to narrow the zone of conflict and ensure there are areas of Gaza where civilians can seek safety, according to Reuters.
Miller added that Blinken had also said immediate steps should be taken to hold to account settler extremists responsible for violence towards Palestinians in the West Bank.
Updated
Western governments are “actively encourag[ing] the killing of women and children” in Gaza, because they are not willing to challenge Israeli accounts of the war there, the father of a British peace activist killed by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sniper has warned.
Anthony Hurndall’s son, Tom Hurndall, was shot in the head in April 2003 in Rafah, while he was helping Palestinian children.
Anthony Hurndall left his job as a City lawyer to work on an investigation into the shooting and embarked on an international campaign for justice after Israeli authorities initially declined to open an inquiry into the case.
He described himself as “a longstanding supporter of the state of Israel”, but said his work nearly two decades ago exposed a culture of impunity and cover-ups over civilian deaths that he fears is being replicated in attacks on Gaza today.
Read Emma Graham-Harrison’s full story here:
Updated
Seven weeks into the new war between Israel and the militant group Hamas, a four-day ceasefire was called and an exchange began of Israeli hostages and imprisoned Palestinians.
On 24 November, the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, Bethan McKernan, witnessed celebrations at the Betunia checkpoint in Ramallah, and was allowed access to a family awaiting the release of their daughter Noorhan.
That night, 39 Palestinian women and children were freed from an Israeli jail. Most of the prisoners were held for minor offences, but some were more serious; though none who had murdered Israelis were released.
Watch the full report below.
Updated
Israel has summoned Spain’s ambassador after the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said he doubted Israel was following international law in Gaza.
As we reported earlier, Sanchez said in an interview with Spanish state-owned broadcaster TVE this morning that some of the actions being taken in Gaza were “not acceptable”.
“The footage we are seeing and the growing numbers of children dying, I have serious doubt [Israel] is complying with international humanitarian law,” he said.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he had instructed his foreign minister to call in Spain’s ambassador “for a reprimand following the shameful comments by the Spanish prime minister on the day that Hamas terrorists murdered Israelis in our capital Jerusalem”.
Updated
145 hostages still held in Gaza, says Israel
A total of 145 hostages from the 7 October attacks are still being held in Gaza, according to the latest figures released by the Israeli government.
Spokesman Eylon Levy said the remaining hostages included three children and 10 people over the age of 75.
He added that 102 hostages – 78 Israelis and 24 foreign nationals – had so far been released and another two had been found dead.
Updated
Shaadi, Isa and Mahmud Saleh look out across the valley, bite their nails, wring their hands and worry. There is no work locally and travelling to find any is almost impossible because of restrictions imposed by Israel on the occupied West Bank after the 7 October attacks. The main road into their village has been almost entirely blocked. Their debts are mounting up.
“There has never been anything like this,” says Isa, 73. “Life is not normal.”
Most of all, the Saleh family worry about their olives. It is close to the end of the traditional harvest season and they, like villagers across the West Bank, have been unable to reach most of their trees.
This means no oil, soap and multiple other products, or revenue from their sale, and disruption at a profoundly important time for the nearly 3 million Palestinians on the West Bank.
Read Jason Burke and Sufian Taha’s full story here:
Updated
The Cop28 climate summit has opening in Dubai with a minute’s silence for the civilians killed in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry, who served as president of Cop27, opened the first session of the day by asking attenders to join him in remembering two officials involved in previous summits who had recently died of natural causes as well as “all civilians who have perished during the current conflict in Gaza”.
Updated
Hamas claims Jerusalem attackers as its members
Hamas has claimed the perpetrators of this morning’s shooting in Jerusalem as its members, Reuters reports.
In a statement, the group said the “operation came as a natural response to unprecedented crimes conducted by the occupation”.
It cited specifically Israel’s recent military campaign in Gaza and the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Car rams military checkpoint in West Bank
Two Israeli reservists have sustained minor injuries after a car rammed into a military checkpoint in the West Bank.
A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces said a “vehicular attack” had occurred a short time before 1.10pm local time (1110 GMT) near the Beka’ot settlement in the Jordan Valley.
He said reserve soldiers at the scene “shot and neutralised” the perpetrator and that the two who were injured were taken to hospital for treatment.
He added that a search was under way for additional suspects.
Updated
Aerial pictures taken yesterday in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza show the ruins of a mosque reportedly hit by an Israeli airstrike.
The Mohammad al-Amin Malaysian mosque is one of dozens of mosques and other public buildings that have been destroyed since Israel launched its operation in Gaza following the 7 October attacks.
Updated
Number of injured in shooting rises to 13
The number of people injured in this morning’s shooting in Jerusalem has risen to 13 from an earlier tally of eight.
Two hospitals in the Jerusalem area have confirmed they are treating the wounded, with at least five people described in media reports as having serious injuries.
Read our full story here:
The two gunmen in this morning’s shooting in Jerusalem had previously been jailed for terror activity, according to Israel’s Shin Bet security agency.
The men have been named as Murad Namr, 38, and his brother Ibrahim Namr, 30.
Shin Bet said Murad spent the 10 years to 2020 in jail for planning terror attacks, while Ibrahim had been jailed in 2014.
Victims of Jerusalem attack named
The three people killed in this morning’s shooting in Jerusalem have been named in Israeli media as Rabbi Elimelech Wasserman, 73, Chana Ifergan, 64, and Livia Dickman, 24.
The Times of Israel reports that Wasserman was a judge in Israel’s rabbinical court system and that Ifergan was a headteacher in the city of Beit Shemesh.
It also said Dickman was a resident of the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem.
The Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said he doubts that Israel is respecting international law in Gaza.
“The footage we are seeing and the growing numbers of children dying, I have serious doubt [Israel] is complying with international humanitarian law,” he said in an interview with Spanish state-owned broadcaster TVE.
“What we are seeing in Gaza is not acceptable.”
Updated
Aid getting into Gaza 'not enough for triage', says UN
The United Nations has warned that the amount of aid getting into Gaza remains far too low, despite an increase afforded by the temporary ceasefire.
Speaking to reporters via video link from Gaza, James Elder, a spokesperson for the children’s agency Unicef, said a rise in the flow of aid was the “right start”.
“(It’s) definitely the right type of aid – fuel, medicines, food, warmth,” he said.
But he went on to say that the needs in the territory were such that “all this aid is triage ... It’s not even enough for triage”.
Triage is a process by which patients are assessed so that resources can be devoted to those who most need them or who are most likely to survive.
“The aid needs to multiply,” Elder added. “Everything here is emergency care right now.”
Updated
Israel’s opposition leader and former prime minister, Yair Lapid, has said the attack in Jerusalem has brought “another sad and painful morning … for all of us”.
Lapid leads the Yesh Atid party and is widely considered to be in the centre of Israeli politics.
“I send my condolences from the bottom of my heart to the families of the murdered and wishes for a speedy recovery to those injured from the heinous and horrible shooting attack,” he said.
“The security forces will continue to operate around the clock to bring the citizens of Israel to safety and to deal with the terrorist emissaries to the last of them. Israel will continue to strike terror wherever they try to raise their head.”
עוד בוקר עצוב וכואב עובר על כולנו. אני שולח תנחומים מעומק הלב למשפחות הנרצחים ואיחולי החלמה מהירה לפצועים מפיגוע הירי הנפשע והנורא. >
— יאיר לפיד - Yair Lapid (@yairlapid) November 30, 2023
Updated
17 freed Thai hostages land back in Bangkok
Seventeen Thai hostages freed by Hamas over recent days have landed back in Bangkok, where relatives had gathered at the airport to welcome them home.
The latest releases bring the total number of Thai nationals freed to 23, with nine still being held.
An El-Al flight carrying the party from Tel Aviv landed at Suvarnabhumi airport soon after 3pm local time (0800 GMT).
“The plane has landed. They are being processed now,” a foreign ministry official told AFP.
Accompanying the party was the Thai foreign minister, Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara, who flew to Israel earlier this week and met some of the hostages as they were released.
Updated
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said the current ceasefire is “producing results” and that the US hopes to see it continue.
Blinken was speaking this morning at a meeting with the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, in Tel Aviv as part of his third trip to the region since the 7 October attacks.
“We have seen over the last week the very positive development of hostages coming home, being reunited with their families,” he said.
“That should continue today. It’s also enabled an increase in humanitarian assistance to go to innocent civilians in Gaza who need it desperately.
“So this process is producing results. It’s important, and we hope that it can continue.”
Updated
Israel’s security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has visited the scene of the shooting in Jerusalem, saying the attack shows the country can only combat Hamas “through war”.
“This type of incident proves again how much we can’t show weakness, how much we have to speak to Hamas only through intentions, only through the war,” he said, according to the Times of Israel.
He also said the shooting demonstrated the need for more Israeli civilians to carry guns.
Ben-Gvir is a member of Israel’s ruling coalition but leads the far-right party Otzma Yehudit and has previously called for an end to the current truce.
Updated
Israel’s armed forces have warned people in Gaza not to travel north “for your own safety”, saying the area remains a war zone.
The IDF has said: “You can only move to the south of Wadi Gaza via Salah al-Din Road. It is forbidden to enter the sea. It is forbidden to approach within a kilometre of the border.”
Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza have moved south in the past few weeks in response to Israeli military warnings, leading to concerns about safety and conditions.
Updated
Death toll from shooting attack in Jerusalem rises to three
Israeli media are reporting that the death toll from a shooting attack in Jerusalem has risen to three after an elderly woman succumbed to her injuries. A 24-year-old woman and a man in his 70s were also killed.
According to police, at around 7.40am local time two gunmen got out of a vehicle and opened fire at people at a bus stop.
Police said two off-duty soldiers and an armed civilian in the area returned fire, killing the two attackers. The Shin Bet security agency said the attakers were Hamas members.
Updated
Ceasefire extended amid last-minute mediation efforts
Israel’s military confirmed on Thursday that a truce with Hamas will continue, allowing further hostage and prisoner releases and the possibility of more a durable pause in hostilities, writes Jason Burke in Jerusalem.
There were frantic diplomatic efforts through the night to prolong the six-day halt to fighting in Gaza which was set to end at 7am local time (0500 GMT) on Thursday. The current extension appears to be only for 24 hours, though this has yet to be explicitly confirmed by all parties.
The Israeli military’s confirmation came just minutes before the ceasefire was due to expire.
Just over an hour later, a statement from the office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the war cabinet had come close to ending the truce after unanimously deciding “that if an acceptable list of further prisoners to be released was not delivered by 0700 this morning [Thursday], fighting would resume at once”.
“A list of women and children – in accordance with the terms of the outline [of the ceasefire agreement last week] – was delivered to Israel a short time ago; therefore, the pause will continue,” it said.
Hamas, which freed 16 hostages in exchange for 30 Palestinian prisoners on Wednesday night, also confirmed the truce would be extended into a seventh day as did Qatar, which has been acting as a mediator.
Hamas claimed that Israel had refused to receive seven women and children and the bodies of three other hostages in exchange for extending the truce, and the last-minute negotiations underlined the extreme fragility of the current ceasefire agreement, as diplomats rush to find a more durable deal that will prevent a return to war.
Both sides have stressed they have the will and capabilities to continue the conflict.
Updated
More details of the shooting in Jerusalem are emerging. A second person has died, Reuters is reporting.
Two Palestinian attackers opened fire at a bus stop during morning rush hour at the entrance to Jerusalem on Thursday, killing at least two people and wounding eight others, Israeli police said.
The attackers came from East Jerusalem, the Jerusalem police district commander, Doron Turgeman, told reporters at the scene.
A large number of ambulances and police converged on the street that was crowded with morning commuters, and police said they were searching the area to make sure there were no other attackers.
The violence came as Israel and Hamas struck a last-minute agreement on Thursday to extend their six-day ceasefire in Gaza by one more day to allow negotiators to keep working on deals to swap hostages held in the coastal enclave for Palestinian prisoners.
Updated
Summary
It is now just past 9am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. Here is where the day stands so far:
The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that was due to expire at 7am local time, 5am GMT – has now been extended. The Israel Defense Forces said on Telegram: “In light of the mediators’ efforts to continue the process of releasing the hostages and subject to the terms of the framework, the operational pause will continue.”
Hamas has also announced its agreement to extend the truce in Gaza for a seventh day.
Qatar, which has been mediating between the two sides, confirmed that another day of temporary truce had been agreed. It revealed more details of the extension, saying it was under the current terms.
Qatar’s ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, said in a statement: “Palestinian and Israeli sides have reached an agreement to extend the humanitarian pause in the Gaza Strip for an additional day under the existing conditions, which are a cessation of all military activities and the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza.”
In the lead-up to the deadline, mediators had been racing to reach a deal on another extension after the latest exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
16 Hamas-held hostages were released on Wednesday night in exchange for 30 Palestinian prisoners.
Hours before the deadline, Hamas’s armed wing told its fighters in the Gaza Strip to be ready to resume combat if the truce was not renewed. “The Al-Qassam Brigades asks its active forces to maintain high combat readiness in the last hours of the truce,” the militant group said in a statement.
With just around an hour to go before the truce was due to expire, Hamas said its offer to free another seven hostages, and hand over the bodies of another three it said were killed in Israeli bombardment, had been refused. Reuters reported that Israel was yet to comment on that development.
China’s government has released a position paper on the Israel-Hamas conflict. The country this month took the chair of the UN security council, and the position paper’s release coincided with an address to the council by China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi. The five-point proposal reiterated much of China’s ongoing position on the conflict, which is that a two-state solution remains the answer.
Prominent Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi was among 30 prisoners freed by Israel early on Thursday. Israeli troops earlier this month arrested Tamimi, regarded in the occupied West Bank as a hero since she was a teenager, on suspicion of inciting violence. Her mother has denied the allegation and said it was based on a fake social media post, Reuters reports.
Updated
One woman has been killed and eight others wounded in a shooting attack in Jerusalem on Thursday, Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service said.
But it is unclear who is responsible for the shooting or the motivation behind it.
Israeli media reported that two shooters opened fire near a bus stop. Magen David Adom said that two of the wounded were in critical condition.
Update to the shooting attack on Weitzmann Blvd in Jerusalem: MDA EMTs and Paramedics have pronounced a 24 year old female deceased, and are evacuating 8 casualties to Shaare Tzedek and Hadassah Ein Karem Hospitals: 5 in serious condition, 1 moderate, and 2 mild. pic.twitter.com/USxLGWamZ6
— Magen David Adom (@Mdais) November 30, 2023
A large number of ambulances and police converged on the scene, which happened during morning rush hour at one of the entrances to the city.
“Two terrorists who arrived at the scene in a vehicle armed with weapons fired at civilians at a bus stop, and they were neutralized by security forces and a civilian who were nearby,” Israeli police said.
“Abhorrent terrorist attack in Jerusalem this morning. We unequivocally condemn such brutal violence,” the US ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, said.
Updated
The Israeli government said it received a new list of women and children hostages in the Gaza Strip to be released by Hamas on Thursday in exchange for a one-day extension of the truce.
“A short time ago, Israel was given a list of women and children in accordance with the terms of the agreement, and therefore the truce will continue,” said the statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office, without specifying the number of hostages to be released, Agence France-Presse reports.
The truce, initially agreed last Friday, has brought a temporary halt to fighting for an exchange of hostages and prisoners.
The total number of freed hostages stands at 102 people, including 70 Israelis, from about 240 taken to the Gaza Strip after Hamas’s 7 October attacks when militants crossed the border and killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
Israel’s subsequent air and ground campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 15,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to Hamas officials, and reduced large parts of the north of the territory to rubble.
Israel has released 210 Palestinian prisoners.
In New York, videos posted to social media showed several hundred chanting pro-Palestinian protesters, many carrying Palestinian flags, crowded in front of the News Corp building, not far from the site of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, Associated Press reports.
Footage from the scene showed a few protesters clashing with police outside the media company’s building as they tried to push forward to the tree but they were held back by police and the lighting ceremony was not disrupted.
The demonstrators then turned around and marched away down Sixth Avenue.
Last week, a group of protesters carrying a banner that read “Free Palestine” briefly interrupted the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, blocking the front of parade floats on the street.
Updated
Qatar has revealed more details of the terms of the current ceasefire extension. Qatar’s ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, said in a statement:
Palestinian and Israeli sides have reached an agreement to extend the humanitarian pause in the Gaza Strip for an additional day under the existing conditions, which are a cessation of all military activities and the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
He added that the truce would operate “within the framework of the joint mediation of the State of Qatar with the Arab Republic of Egypt and the United States of America,” AFP reports.
Qatar has been engaged in intense negotiations, with support from Egypt and the United States, to extend the truce in Gaza, which was due to end on Thursday morning.
Updated
For a full sum-up of the events leading up to the ceasefire deadline, read our full report which is now live.
Israel’s military said early on Thursday that a truce with Hamas would continue into a seventh day, minutes before it was due to expire, as mediators continued to work towards further exchanges of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
Updated
Let’s look back at events that have just taken place. It’s now 7:15am in Israel and Gaza and 5:15am GMT. The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was due to expire at the top of the hour but has now been extended.
The Israel Defense Forces said on Telegram a short time ago:
In light of the mediators’ efforts to continue the process of releasing the hostages and subject to the terms of the framework, the operational pause will continue.
Hamas has also announced its agreement to extend the truce in Gaza for a seventh day, Reuters is reporting.
Qatar, which has been mediating between the two sides, confirmed that another day of temporary truce had been agreed.
In the lead-up to the deadline, mediators had been racing to reach a deal on another extension after the latest exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
The expiry of the six-day halt to fighting in Gaza was set to end Thursday morning and follows the release of a group of 16 Hamas-held hostages on Wednesday night in exchange for 30 Palestinian prisoners.
Since the truce began on 24 November, 70 Israeli hostages have been freed in return for 210 Palestinian prisoners.
Israel said on Wednesday that about 160 hostages are still held in Gaza.
Hours before the deadline, Hamas’s armed wing told its fighters in the Gaza Strip to be ready to resume combat if the truce was not renewed. “The Al-Qassam Brigades asks its active forces to maintain high combat readiness in the last hours of the truce,” the militant group said in a statement.
With just an hour to go before the truce was due to expire, Hamas said its offer to free another seven hostages, and hand over the bodies of another three it said were killed in Israeli bombardment, had been refused. Reuters reported that Israel was yet to comment on that development.
We’ll keep you across any further developments here.
Updated
Israel says ceasefire with Hamas will continue
Israel’s military said on Thursday that a truce with Hamas would continue “in light of the mediators’ efforts to continue the process of releasing hostages, and subject to the terms of the agreement”.
Hamas has agreed to extend the truce for a seventh day, Reuters is reporting.
The six-day halt to fighting in Gaza was set to end at 7am local time (0500 GMT) on Thursday, and follows the release of a group of 16 Hamas-held hostages on Wednesday night in exchange for 30 Palestinian prisoners.
לאור מאמצי המתווכים להמשך תהליך שחרור החטופים ובכפוף לתנאי ההסכם, ההפוגה תמשך
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) November 30, 2023
Updated
There was an emotional meeting between freed Thai hostages and the Thai foreign minister.
Four Thai workers were released late on Wednesday, bringing the total released to 23. Another two were set free on Tuesday and taken to Shamir medical center, where they embraced one another on arrival.
“We survived! We survived!” they cheered, and one was seen wiping away tears.
“We are not part of the conflict,” the foreign minister, Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara, said in a Reuters interview after his meeting with the workers on Tuesday. He said there were no conditions for their release.
Thailand’s foreign minister said he hoped for freedom soon for the remaining hostages from his country. Read our full story here.
Updated
China’s government has released a position paper on the Israel-Hamas conflict. The country this month took the chair of the UN security council, and the position paper’s release coincided with an address to the council by China’s foreign minister Wang Yi.
The five point proposal reiterated much of China’s ongoing position on the conflict, which is that a two-state solution remains the answer, and again called for an immediate ceasefire, and an end to the fighting. It said humanitarian corridors had to be safe and unimpeded, and expansion of the conflict must be prevented.
Pursuant to the Charter of the United Nations, the Security Council shoulders primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and should thus play an active and constructive role on the question of Palestine.
Any arrangement on the future of Gaza must respect the will and independent choice of the Palestinian people, and must not be imposed upon them.
The five points proposed:
1. Implementing a comprehensive ceasefire and end to the fighting, acting on recent UN resolutions to realise a “durable and sustained” truce. It said the security council should make explicit demands for this as soon as possible.
2. Effective protection of civilians, with all parties stopping violent attacks against civilians and violations of international humanitarian law. It also proposed the security council “send a clear message on opposing forced transfer of the Palestinian civilian population, preventing the displacement of Palestinian civilians, and calling for the release of all civilians and hostages held captive as soon as possible.”
3. Ensure humanitarian assistance with all parties refraining from depriving the civilian population in Gaza of supplies and services. Humanitarian corridors should be set up and sustained safely and unimpeded, “to avoid a humanitarian disaster of even greater gravity”.
4. Enhance diplomatic mediation, with the security council leveraging its role to facilitate peace and prevent the4 conflict from widening in the region.
5. See a political settlement, the answer to which lies in the “implementation of the two-state solution, restoration of the legitimate national rights of Palestine, and the establishment of an independent State of Palestine that enjoys full sovereignty based on the 1967 border and with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
Palestinian prisoners have again been released as part of the deal with Israel. Here are some images from the West Bank:
Hamas said Israel declined to receive seven women and child hostages and the bodies of three others who the militants said were killed during Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, in exchange for a temporary truce extension on Thursday, Reuters is reporting.
“This is despite confirming through mediators that this group is all the (Hamas) movement has in terms of detainees in the agreed-upon category,” Hamas said in a statement.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, Reuters reports.
A truce between Israel and Hamas is due to end in one hour (7am local time, 0500 GMT)
Updated
Here are some images from Israel in the past few hours:
Updated
In Australia, family members of Israeli hostages held in Gaza sought protection in a Melbourne police station on Wednesday night when pro-Palestinian protesters entered the lobby of their hotel.
Victoria police confirmed they attended a protest in Docklands, where about 20 people walked into a hotel lobby on Spencer Street “with flags and signs” about 10pm.
Read the full story here:
It’s now 1.5 hours to the end of a truce between Hamas and Israel.
International mediators are racing to strike a deal to allow further exchanges and prolong the halt of Israel’s air and ground offensive. Associated Press reports that the talks appear to be growing tougher as most of the women and children held by Hamas are freed, and the militants are expected to seek greater releases in return for freeing men and soldiers.
International pressure has mounted for the ceasefire to continue as long as possible after nearly eight weeks of Israeli bombardment and a ground campaign in Gaza that has killed thousands of Palestinians and led to a humanitarian crisis.
Israel has welcomed the release of dozens of hostages in recent days and says it will maintain the truce if Hamas keeps freeing captives.
Still, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu underscored on Wednesday that Israel will resume its campaign to eliminate Hamas.
After this phase of returning our abductees is exhausted, will Israel return to fighting? So my answer is an unequivocal yes
There is no way we are not going back to fighting until the end.
He was speaking ahead of a visit to the region by US secretary of state Antony Blinken.
Here’s some analysis from Dan Sabbagh in Jerusalem about what to expect in the next phase if the truce between Israel and Hamas is not extended. That truce is set to end at 7am local time.
While talks continued over extending the truce in Gaza, the Israeli Defense Forces have continued to prepare for a resumption of hostilities within days – which risks provoking an unprecedented humanitarian crisis among an already desperate population.
Read more by Dan Sabbagh here.
Hamas tells armed wing to be ready to fight if truce isn't extended
Hamas’ armed wing has told its fighters in the Gaza Strip to be ready to resume battles with Israel if a temporary truce set to expire in under two hours is not renewed, Reuters reported.
The extended truce between Israel and Hamas is set to end at 7am Thursday local time (5am GMT).
“The Al-Qassam Brigades asks its active forces to maintain high combat readiness in the last hours of the truce,” the militant group said in a statement.
Fighters should “remain on such footing unless an official statement is issued confirming the extension of the truce,” the statement added.
Updated
Prominent Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi was among 30 prisoners freed by Israel early on Thursday under a temporary Gaza truce between Israel and Hamas militants, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials.
Israeli troops earlier this month arrested Tamimi, regarded in the occupied West Bank as a hero since she was a teenager, on suspicion of inciting violence. Her mother has denied the allegation and said it was based on a fake social media post, Reuters reports.
The Israel Prison Service posted a list of Palestinians released on Thursday morning to its website that included Tamimi.
A Palestinian official said she was released after being jailed in Damon Prison, near the Israeli city of Haifa.
Under a truce set to expire shortly, Israel has released Palestinians from its jails in exchange for Hamas’ release of some of the 240 hostages it captured during its deadly 7 October rampage in southern Israel.
For more on Ahed Tamimi, see this earlier piece by Bethan McKernan and Sufian Taha in Jerusalem
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Welcome and Summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. My name is Reged Ahmad and I’ll be with you for the next while.
The extended truce between Israel and Hamas is due set to end in the coming hours – at 7am Thursday local time (5am GMT). It’s currently 4:42am in Israel.
Israel has released another group of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 16 hostages freed hours earlier by Hamas in Gaza. The latest swap for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel under the Gaza truce comes as international mediators raced to seal another extension to allow further exchanges and prolong the halt of Israel’s air and ground offensive.
More on this shortly. In the meantime, here are the other key recent developments:
30 Palestinian prisoners have been released by Israel. A bus carrying some of the Palestinian detainees was seen arriving in the West Bank city of Ramallah before dawn.
Most prominent among those freed was Ahed Tamimi, a 22-year-old activist who gained worldwide fame in 2017 after a video of her slapping an Israeli soldier went viral on social media.
China says the UN security council should intensify its diplomatic mediation, relaunch the two-state solution and convene a “more authoritative and effective” international peace conference at the soonest, in a position paper on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict released on Thursday.
Sixteen hostages were released today, including 12 Israelis and four Thais. Among the Israeli hostages released today were Elena Trupanov and Irena Tati, two dual Israeli-Russian citizens who were released earlier this evening.
The Palestinians to be released from Israeli prisons in exchange include 16 minors and 14 women, the Qatari foreign ministry said.
A Hamas source said on Wednesday that the group was not satisfied with Israel’s proposals for another truce extension, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. Speaking to AFP ahead of the expiration of the current truce, which will be at 7am local time on Thursday, the source said: “What is being proposed in the discussions to extend the truce is not the best.”
The Palestine Red Cross Society (PRCS) delivered 21 trucks of aid into Gaza and northern areas on Wednesday. “PRCS is committed to delivering the largest number possible of humanitarian aid to north Gaza, which had not received any aid prior to the humanitarian pause agreement,” the group said.
Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, has said Israeli forces are ready to resume fighting “immediately”. Posting to social media on Wednesday, Gallant wrote: “We are making every attempt to return all the abductees and to fully exploit the current move to return all the abducted women and children in Gaza. IDF forces in the air, on land and at sea are ready to resume fighting immediately.”
Two boys, one eight years old and the other 15, were shot and killed by Israeli forces on Wednesday in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, the Palestinian health ministry said. In a statement reported by Agence France-Presse, the health ministry said: “Adam al-Ghul, eight years old, and Bassem Abu el-Wafa, 15 years old, were killed by bullets from the occupier [Israel].”
Benjamin Nentanyahu has spoken with representatives of the Bibas family after reports from Hamas that three of its members were killed, including 10-month-old Kfir Bibas, Haaretz reports. According to Haaretz, the Israeli prime minister told the family representatives that the matter was being investigated by Israel’s security forces.
The US is hopeful that the truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas can be extended, the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told reporters on Wednesday, Reuters reports. “We’re hopeful the truce can be extended,” Thomas-Greenfield said, adding: “This is all in the hands of Hamas. The Israelis have said if they continue to release 10 hostages a day, they will extend by a day. So it truly is in their hands. But I do think there is a potential for that and we are actively working to extend the deal.”
Three Qatari armed forces aircraft carrying 108 tons of aid for Palestinians in Gaza have arrived in El Erish, Egypt, Qatar’s news agency announced on Wednesday. The three planes, which carried basic food supplies and shelter equipment, brings the total number of Qatari planes sent to Gaza to 30, carrying 1,018 tons of aid.
Speaking at the UN security council on Wednesday, Palestine’s foreign minister, Riad al-Maliki, said that the ongoing violence between Israel and Hamas was “not a war” but rather a “carnage that no one can justify”. “It must be brought to an end,” al-Maliki said.
Jordan will host an international conference on Thursday that will be attended by the main UN bodies, as well as regional and international relief agencies to coordinate humanitarian aid to Gaza, Reuters reports. The UN aid head, Martin Griffiths, as well as key UN bodies and NGOs involved in increasing the entry of aid into Gaza, are expected to attend the conference, along with representatives from western and Arab countries.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said on Wednesday that Gaza is in the midst of an “epic humanitarian catastrophe”. Addressing a UN security council meeting chaired by China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, Guterres said “we must not look away” from the deteriorating humanitarian crisis that has engulfed Gaza.
