The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it has eliminated Hamas’ Head of Weapons and Industries, Mohsen Abu Zina.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports Zina was eliminated in a collaboration between IDF and the Israel Securities Authority (ISA).
Zina served as one of Hamas’ leading weapon developers, with expertise in strategic weapons and rockets.
This is coming after the IDF opened another evacuation corridor today for civilians in northern Gaza to move south.
Israeli ground troops are “currently in the depths” of Gaza City and are exerting “great pressure” on the ruling Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement there, Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Tuesday evening.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier in a televised address, “Hamas realises that we are reaching places they thought we would never reach.”
Hamas is classified as a terrorist organisation by the European Union (EU) and the United States.
Netanyahu once again linked a ceasefire to the demand for the release of all hostages: “There will be no ceasefire without the return of our abductees.”
According to Hagari, more than 14,000 targets in the densely populated coastal strip have been attacked by Israel since the start of the war.
There have been successes, “but the war will still be long,” he said.
A Red Cross convoy carrying medical supplies has come under fire in Gaza City, the aid group said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said two of the five lorries in the convoy were damaged on Tuesday and one driver was slightly injured.
The convoy was travelling to the Palestinian Red Crescent’s al-Quds hospital and other sites, the ICRC said.
“These are not the conditions under which humanitarian personnel can work,” said William Schomburg, the head of the ICRC sub-delegation in Gaza.
“We are here to bring urgent assistance to civilians in need. Ensuring that vital aid can reach medical facilities is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law,” he added.
Hamas fired rockets into central Israel again on Tuesday evening.
Warning sirens also sounded several times in the greater Tel Aviv area.
The military arm of Hamas claimed responsibility for the attacks on Telegram.
No one was injured, according to initial reports.
According to Israeli figures, more than 9,000 rockets have been fired at Israeli towns and villages from the Gaza Strip since the start of the war on Oct. 7.
Hamas has claimed responsibility for a large proportion of these attacks.
About 70 per cent of the population, amounting to about 1.5 million people, has been displaced in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war with Israel, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said on Tuesday.
Dozens of emergency shelters housing in total hundreds of thousands of people are sometimes overcrowded to four times their capacity, it said.
Conditions in some of the shelters are said to be deteriorating every day. In one shelter, there is less than 2 square metres available per person, UNRWA said.
At least 600 people have to share one toilet in one facility, and there have been thousands of cases of infectious diseases, diarrhoea, and chickenpox.
On Israel’s border with Lebanon, the Israeli army said it targeted and struck a suspected militant cell in Lebanon.
The military stated on Tuesday that a “terror cell” in the neighbouring country had attempted to fire anti-tank missiles towards Israel.
An Israeli tank then returned fire.
Israeli forces attacked a Hezbollah post earlier in the day to “counter a threat,” but the specific nature of the threat was not disclosed by the army.
Since the start of the Gaza war on Oct. 7, there have been repeated cross-border clashes in the most serious escalation between both sides since the second Lebanon war in 2006.
Elsewhere, at a group of seven (G7) meeting in Japan, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urgently called for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza war.
The people need water, bread and, above all, medical care, she said.
According to the UN, 100 lorry loads of humanitarian aid are needed every day to supply the 2 million people in the Gaza Strip with the essentials.
An average of 33 trucks with relief supplies have arrived in the besieged Gaza Strip every day since the Rafah crossing linking Gaza to Egypt was reopened, according to a Palestinian Red Crescent statement.
A total of 569 trucks of aid have crossed the border from Egypt since Oct. 21, including 93 trucks on Monday evening.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk is travelling to the Middle East for a round of diplomatic talks, his office said.
In the Gaza war, both the Islamist Hamas and Israel are accused of serious violations of human rights.
The Gaza Strip has been almost completely sealed off by Israel since fighters from the Islamist extremist movement Hamas launched an unprecedented assault on Israeli border communities on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,400.
The number of Palestinians killed in Gaza since the start of the war on Oct. 7 rose to 10,328, the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out a longer ceasefire in the Gaza Strip for the time being during an interview on U.S. television on Monday.
“There’ll be no ceasefire, general ceasefire, in Gaza without the release of our hostages,” Netanyahu told the U.S. broadcaster ABC.
“As far as tactical little pauses, an hour here, an hour there.
“We’ve had them before, I suppose, we’ll check the circumstances in order to enable goods, humanitarian goods to come in, or our hostages, individual hostages to leave. But I don’t think there’s going to be a general ceasefire.”
Israel’s head of government had previously spoken to U.S. President Joe Biden about temporary ceasefires in the Gaza war.
They had discussed the possibility of “tactical pauses” to allow the civilian population to leave combat zones, provide humanitarian aid for the people in the Gaza Strip and to enable the release of further hostages, the White House announced after the telephone conversation on Monday.
At least 240 people – including U.S. citizens – are still being held by the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu said a general ceasefire would run counter to Israel’s war aims.
“It’ll hamper our effort to get our hostages out because the only thing that works on these criminals in Hamas is the military pressure that we’re exerting,” he said in the ABC interview.
According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health, the number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip has risen to more than 10,000 since the start of the war a month ago.
These include thousands of women and children.
The Gaza Strip has been almost completely sealed off by Israel since Hamas fighters launched an unprecedented assault on Israeli communities, killing more than 1,400 including many women, children and young people and taking some 240 people hostage.
UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, on Monday joined the UN family in mourning 89 staff from its agency that assisted Palestine refugees (UNRWA), who were killed in Gaza.
Guterres told journalists at UN Headquarters in New York that the Gaza crisis was more than humanitarian crisis: “The nightmare in Gaza is more than a humanitarian crisis. It is a crisis of humanity.”
According to him, many of these colleagues – who include teachers, school principals, doctors, engineers, guards and support staff – were killed along with their family members.
Among them was a young woman called Mai, who “did not let her muscular dystrophy or her wheelchair confine her dreams,” becoming a top student and eventually working in information technology for UNRWA.
Guterres appealed for international action now towards “a way out of this brutal, awful, agonising dead end of destruction,” including to help pave the way to peace and a two-State solution for Israelis and Palestinians.
The UN chief also underlined the need to support a 1.2 billion dollar humanitarian appeal to help nearly three million people across the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
He also voiced ongoing grave concern over rising violence and an expansion of the conflict between Israeli forces and Hamas militants, stating that “the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is at a boiling point.”
Guterres highlighted how “the unfolding catastrophe in Gaza makes the need for a humanitarian ceasefire more urgent with every passing hour,” stressing that the protection of civilians is paramount.
“Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children. Hundreds of girls and boys are reportedly being killed or injured every day.
“More journalists have reportedly been killed over a four-week period than in any conflict in at least three decades.
“More United Nations aid workers have been killed than in any comparable period in the history of our organisation,” he said.
However, he said the humanitarian appeal – launched by the UN and partners – would assist the entire population in the Gaza Strip and half a million Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Guterres said although some aid was getting into Gaza via the Rafah crossing from Egypt, this “trickle of assistance does not meet the ocean of need.”
Over the past two weeks, 400 trucks have made the journey, compared with 500 a day prior to the conflict, and the aid deliveries have not included desperately needed fuel.
“Without fuel, newborn babies in incubators and patients on life support will die.
“Water cannot be pumped or purified. Raw sewage could soon start gushing onto the streets, further spreading disease. Trucks loaded with critical relief will be stranded,” he warned.
The secretary-general said the way forward wasclear, repeating his call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and for all parties to respect international humanitarian law.
He reiterated his appeals for the unconditional release of all Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, and for the protection of civilians, hospitals, UN facilities, shelters and schools.
“More food, more water, more medicine and of course fuel – entering Gaza safely, swiftly and at the scale needed. Now.
“Unfettered access to deliver supplies to all people in need in Gaza. Now. And the end of the use of civilians as human shields. Now,” he said.
Some UN agencies have appealed for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to allow more lifesaving aid into Gaza as the Israel-Palestine crisis enters the second month.
Among those uniting behind the message that “enough is enough,” is UN relief chief Martin Griffiths who renewed earlier pleas for the immediate and unconditional release of the more than 240 hostages captured by Hamas and held in Gaza since Oct. 7.
All parties should respect their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law, the UN agency leaders insisted, amid media reports of huge explosions from airstrikes across northern Gaza overnight.
“Civilians and the infrastructure they rely on – including hospitals, shelters and schools – must be protected,” they said.
The humanitarian leaders, in a joint statement, called the killings of large numbers of civilians in Gaza an “outrage.” So too was the fact that the Strip’s 2.2 million residents continue to be cut off from food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel.
The humanitarian officials stressed that an entire population is besieged and under attack, denied access to the essentials for survival, bombed in their homes, shelters, hospitals and places of worship.
“This is unacceptable,” they insisted.
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that in Gaza people are braving airstrikes to line up outside bakeries in the hope of buying bread, while power sources continued to dwindle.
Multiple solar panels on the roofs of buildings, particularly in Gaza City, have reportedly been destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in the past few days, OCHA said.
This has eliminated one of the remaining sources of energy for hospitals and water and food production as fuel continues to be banned from entering the Strip by the Israeli authorities.
Meanwhile, massive displacement prompted by an Israeli Defence Forces’ order to Gazans to leave Gaza City and the north of the enclave on Oct. 13 has aggravated the already fragile health situation in Gaza.
Over 700,000 of the 1.5 million internally displaced people across the Strip are sheltering in 149 facilities run by the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), which are severely overcrowded.
Several cases of acute respiratory infections, diarrhoea and chicken pox have been reported among people taking refuge at UNRWA shelters.
UNRWA has deplored the fact that its shelters have been repeatedly hit by Israeli fire and are no longer safe for those seeking refuge there.
On Saturday, an UNRWA school in Jabalia camp north of Gaza City was directly hit by strikes which killed 15 people and injured 70.
The agency said over 160,000 displaced people were sheltering in 57 of its facilities in Gaza City and the North Gaza governorate, as of Oct. 12, before an evacuation order was issued by the Israeli Authorities.
However, UNRWA warned that, “it is not able to access these shelters to assist or protect the internally displaced persons and does not have information on their needs and conditions.”
Since Oct. 7 the agency has mourned the loss of 88 of its own staffers – the highest number of United Nations fatalities ever recorded in a single conflict.
The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war between the militant Hamas movement and Israel has risen to 10,022, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry.
More than 25,000 people have been injured, the ministry said on Monday.
Thousands of women, children, and young people were among the dead.
The figures cannot be independently verified.
This is by far the largest number of deaths among Palestinians during a war in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The war was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel’s history, carried out by terrorists on behalf of Hamas who broke through the border with Gaza and entered Israel on Oct. 7.
On the Israeli side, more than 1,400 people were killed, including many women, children and young people.
Israel’s army has said that it is giving civilians in northern Gaza another window to flee to the southern region of the coastal strip.
The army would open a four-hour window on a specific road to the south, a spokesman wrote on Monday on platform X, formerly Twitter, accompanied by a map.
The spokesman called on people to move south as quickly as possible for their own safety.
About a week ago, the military expanded its ground operations in the war against Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.
On Sunday night, the army said it had divided up the territory, and that there is now “a northern Gaza and a southern Gaza.”
Israel’s army has repeatedly called on people in the north to flee to the south.
According to the military, about 700,000 people have already left.
The United Nations said there are about 1.4 million internally displaced people and has described dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza.
In total, more than 2.2 million people live in the densely populated Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military is currently fighting Hamas mainly in the north, however, there have also been Israeli airstrikes in the south.
The south is not a “safe zone” but is safer “than any other place in Gaza,” an army spokesperson said last week.
The current fighting started after the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement launched a terrorist attack from the Gaza Strip against Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 mainly civilians and taking some 240 people hostage.
Israel then launched a retaliatory bombing campaign to eliminate Hamas that has killed at least 9,770 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry there.
Israel’s military said on Monday Israeli fighter jets struck 450 Hamas targets in Gaza and troops seized a militant compound in the past 24 hours in attacks that killed dozens of people.
A Reuters journalist in the Gaza Strip described the overnight bombardment from the air, ground, and sea as one of the most intense since Israel launched its offensive in response to a surprise attack by Hamas on southern Israel a month ago.
Health officials in Hamas-controlled Gaza said more than 9,770 Palestinians have been killed in the war since Hamas killed 1,400 people and seized more than 240 hostages on Oct. 7.
Israel, which said its forces have encircled Gaza City, faces mounting pressure to avoid civilian casualties after refusing to countenance a ceasefire until the hostages are released.
However, the U.S. diplomatic blitz in the region is intended to reduce the risks of the conflict escalating.
The health ministry in Gaza said dozens of people were killed by the Israeli air strikes in Gaza City and further south in Gaza neighbourhoods such as Zawaida and Deir Al-Balah. Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV quoted medical sources as saying at least 75 Palestinians were killed and 106 hurt in the attacks.
The Israeli army said its strikes hit “tunnels, terrorists, military compounds, observation posts, and anti-tank missile launch posts”.
Ground troops killed several Hamas fighters while taking a militant compound containing observation posts, training areas, and underground tunnels, it said.
Reuters could not independently verify these accounts.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to meet Turkey’s foreign minister in Ankara, hours after hundreds of people at a pro-Palestinian protest tried to storm an air base that houses U.S. troops in southern Turkey.
Blinken made an unannounced visit to the West Bank on Sunday to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who joined international calls for an immediate ceasefire.
Blinken reiterated U.S. concerns that a ceasefire could aid Hamas, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled one out for now.
Greece has sent a cargo plane loaded with aid supplies for the civilian population of the Gaza Strip to Egypt.
The plane took off on Monday morning, according to Greek broadcaster ERT.
A Greek Foreign Ministry statement said the delivery includes pharmaceutical and medical supplies.
Aid organisations say the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is catastrophic, and that the aid supplies that have so far reached the Gaza Strip by lorry via the Rafah crossing from Egypt are nowhere near enough.
Israel is demanding that all aid supplies be checked. The Israeli army says this is to prevent weapons from being smuggled to the Islamist Hamas movement, which rules Gaza and carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7.
Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis in an interview said every act of terrorism, every act of violence and every inhumane act is strongly condemned by the government, referring to the Hamas attack on Israel.
“But we also say that civilians must be protected and humanitarian corridors should be created.
“For us, the dead have no nationality,’’ Gerapetritis said.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has described a strike on an ambulance convoy outside a hospital in the Gaza Strip as horrific, reiterating his appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire.
The ambulances evacuating critically injured and sick patients to Al Shifa Hospital in the south of the Gaza Strip were struck at the entrance of the hospital on Friday, according to reports.
“I am horrified by the reported attack in Gaza on an ambulance convoy outside Al Shifa Hospital. The images of bodies strewn on the street outside the hospital are harrowing,” Guterres said in a statement.
He stated that he did not forget the terror attacks committed in Israel by Hamas and the killing, maiming and abductions, including of women and children.
He stressed that all hostages held in Gaza must be released immediately and unconditionally.
Guterres added that for nearly one month, civilians in Gaza, including children and women, have been besieged, denied aid, killed and bombed out of their homes.
“This must stop,” he stressed.
Guterres further noted that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is “horrific”.
“Not nearly enough food, water and medicine are coming in to meet people’s needs. Fuel to power hospitals and water plants is running out,” he said, noting that shelters by the UN agency assisting Palestine refugees (UNRWA) were at nearly four times their full capacity “and are being hit in bombardments”.
“Morgues are overflowing. Shops are empty. The sanitation situation is abysmal. We are seeing an increase in diseases and respiratory illnesses, especially among children. An entire population is traumatised. Nowhere is safe.”
Renewing his appeals for a humanitarian ceasefire, the secretary-general underscored that international humanitarian law must be respected.
“Civilians and civilian infrastructure, including humanitarian and medical workers and assets must be protected. Civilians must also not be used as human shields,” he said.
The UN chief also urged that essential supplies and services, and unimpeded humanitarian access must be safely allowed into and across Gaza “at a scale commensurate with this dramatic situation”.
The UN chief underscored that “all those with influence must exert it to ensure respect for the rules of war, end the suffering and avoid a spillover of the conflict that could engulf the whole region.”
Similarly, Director-General of World Health Organisation Tedros Ghebreyesus, said he was “utterly shocked” by the strike on the ambulances.
“Utterly shocked by reports of attacks on ambulances evacuating patients close to Al Shifa hospital in Gaza, leading to deaths, injuries and damage,” Ghebreyesus said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“We reiterate: patients, health workers, facilities, and ambulances must be protected at all times, always,” he stressed.
In a separate statement, the agency also said that attacks on healthcare, including the targeting of hospitals and restricting the delivery of essential aid such as medical supplies, fuel, and water, may amount to violations of international humanitarian law.
“WHO reiterates its call for an immediate ceasefire, emphasizing the urgent need to protect all health workers, patients, health transport, and health facilities.’’
Israel’s army says its troops have killed “dozens of terrorists” as its ground operation in the Gaza Strip continued overnight.
“Over the past day, there were numerous attempted attacks on IDF troops from tunnel shafts and military compounds in the northern Gaza Strip,” the IDF said on Saturday morning.
Israeli soldiers killed the terrorists, found weapons by Hamas and uncovered tunnel shafts “used for terrorist purposes,” according to the statement.
Israeli tanks also destroyed “three Hamas observation posts” in northern Gaza, while several Hamas militants were killed in battles with 15 fighters.
Meanwhile in southern Gaza, the IDF conducted a targeted raid overnight “to map out buildings and neutralise explosive devices.
“During the operation, the troops encountered a terrorist cell exiting a tunnel shaft.
“In response, the troops fired shells toward the terrorists and killed them.”
Israel declared its plans to wipe out Palestinian extremist organisation Hamas after its militants went on a brutal rampage through Israeli towns bordering Gaza, killing 1,400 people and taking 249 others hostage on Oct. 7.
Israel subsequently launched a heavy air bombardment of the coastal strip and began advancing into Gaza on the ground.
The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says more than 9,200 people have died in Gaza since the war started.
Hamas, which rules the densely populated, sealed-off coastal area, is classified as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the EU and the U.S.
Israel’s military said Thursday its forces have surrounded the Hamas stronghold of Gaza City after a day that saw the Palestinian territory pounded by deadly fire.
The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, warned Israel its invading soldiers would go home “in black bags”.
Spokesman Abu Obeida said: “Gaza will be the curse of history for Israel.”
The Hamas warning came after Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said troops had completely surrounded Gaza City after days of expanding ground operations.
“Israeli soldiers have completed the encirclement of the city of Gaza, the centre of the Hamas terror organisation,” Hagari told journalists.
“The concept of a ceasefire is not currently on the table at all,” he added.
Amid growing fears of the conflict spreading, Israel and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon exchanged fire after a salvo of rockets slammed into a northern Israel town.
As he left on a new Middle East visit, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he would work to avoid escalation of the Israel-Hamas war.
“We’ve been very clear in some of the actions we’re taking that we are determined to deter any escalation,” Blinken said.
Hundreds more foreigners and dual nationals managed to escape war-torn Gaza for Egypt Thursday as Israel’s forces bombarded and fought ground battles in the besieged territory where thousands of people have died.
Egypt said it eventually plans to help evacuate 7,000 foreigners through the Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip.
The health ministry in Cairo said 21 wounded Palestinians and “344 foreign nationals, including 72 children” passed through the Rafah border crossing on only the second day it has opened for people to leave Gaza in nearly four weeks of fighting.
A list of those approved to travel shows hundreds of US citizens and 50 Belgians along with smaller numbers from various European, Arab, Asian and African countries.
“There was no food, no water, no gas, nowhere to take shelter,” said US passport holder Salma Shaath, 14, as she prepared to cross.
“People were going to hospitals to sleep, there are a lot of martyrs, there is no internet, no communications and no electricity. Our house was bombed … so we came here to Rafah.”
The evacuation marks a tiny proportion of the 2.4 million people trapped in Gaza under ferocious Israeli bombardment since Hamas launched their bloody cross-border attack into Israel on October 7.
Britain said it had begun sending 30 tonnes of aid to Egypt – such as forklift trucks, belt conveyors and lighting towers – to help Rafah process aid deliveries faster.
President Joe Biden says the US supports a humanitarian “pause” in the conflict to relieve pressure on civilians but opposes calls for a ceasefire, saying Hamas has no intention of holding fire and Israel has a right to defend itself.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it attacked 19 Israeli positions along the border simultaneously on Thursday, ahead of a speech by its leader Hassan Nasrallah on the Israel-Hamas war.
The Israeli military said “warplanes and helicopters attacked in recent hours targets of the Hezbollah terror organisation in response to fire from Lebanese territory earlier today, together with attacks with artillery and tank fire”.
In northern Gaza, ground fighting flared again overnight as Israeli troops battled Hamas.
Israeli army chief of staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said troops were inside Gaza, besieging Gaza City and “deepening infiltration” of Hamas-held areas.
“Israeli soldiers are fighting face-to-face with a brutal enemy,” he told reporters.
Hamas’s assault on October 7, which Israel says claimed 1,400 lives, was the bloodiest in the country’s 75-year-history.
The Israeli army is also seeking to free around 240 hostages, both civilians and troops, captured by Hamas during the attacks.