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- Jewish peace group leads protests in front of the Statue of Liberty in New York
- A Jewish man injured during a duel of pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian protests in California died Monday
- G7 foreign ministers meet in Tokyo and call for a pause in fighting and humanitarian aid for Gaza – Japan’s Kamikawa
GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 7 (Portal) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would consider “tactical small pauses” in the fighting to facilitate the entry of aid or the withdrawal of hostages from the Gaza Strip, but declined despite international pressure Demands renewed calls for a ceasefire from pressure.
After surrounding densely populated Gaza City in the north of the enclave where the Islamist Hamas group is based, the Israeli military said it had captured a militant compound and was ready to attack fighters caught in a tangle hidden underground tunnel.
Israel has been bombing the enclave since the Hamas attack on southern Israel a month ago, in which its fighters killed 1,400 people and took 240 hostages.
Health officials in the Gaza Strip said the Israeli attack killed more than 10,000 Palestinians, including about 4,100 children.
Both Israel and Hamas have rejected growing calls for an end to the fighting. Israel says the hostages should be released first. Hamas says it will neither release them nor stop fighting while Gaza is under attack.
Netanyahu said a general ceasefire would hamper his country’s war effort but a pause in fighting on humanitarian grounds, an idea supported by Israel’s main ally the United States, would continue to be considered depending on the circumstances.
“As far as tactical short breaks – an hour here, an hour there – we’ve had them before. I assume we will review the circumstances to allow the entry of goods, humanitarian goods or our hostages, individual hostages. to go,” Netanyahu told ABC News on Monday.
“But I don’t think there will be a general ceasefire.”
US President Joe Biden discussed such breaks and possible hostage releases in a phone call with Netanyahu on Monday, reiterating his support for Israel while emphasizing its need to protect civilians, the White House said.
Like Israel, the US fears that Hamas would use a complete ceasefire to regroup.
Netanyahu said that when the conflict is over, he thinks: “Israel will have overall responsibility for security (in the Gaza Strip) indefinitely because we have seen what happens when we don’t have that security responsibility.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an urgent ceasefire on Monday and warned that Gaza was becoming a “graveyard for children”.
“Israeli Defense Forces ground operations and sustained bombardments are hitting civilians, hospitals, refugee camps, mosques, churches and UN facilities – including shelters. Nobody is safe,” Guterres told reporters.
“At the same time, Hamas and other militants are using civilians as human shields and continuing to fire rockets indiscriminately into Israel,” he said.
[1/7]Emergency workers work to rescue a Palestinian girl at the site of Israeli attacks on a residential building, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, November 7, 2023. Portal/Ahmed Zakot Acquire License Rights
International organizations have said that hospitals are unable to care for the wounded and that food and clean water are running out and aid supplies are far from enough.
“We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now,” said a statement from the heads of several United Nations bodies on Monday.
Hundreds of protesters, including many members of the group Jewish Voice for Peace, staged a sit-in in front of New York’s Statue of Liberty on Monday, demanding a ceasefire and a free Palestine.
Videos on social media showed crowds of activists sitting at the base of the statue and chanting “Never again for anyone, never again is now,” echoing a post-Holocaust Jewish rallying cry.
A Jewish man who fell to the ground in an altercation during pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian street protests in California died Monday and his death was determined to be a homicide, law enforcement authorities and a Jewish organization said.
GAZA CITY COMPLETED
The Israeli military released videos Monday of tanks driving through bombed streets and groups of troops walking. It is said to have surrounded Gaza City and cut off northern parts of the narrow coastal strip from the south.
In a news conference, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, top military spokesman, said the troops were hunting Hamas field commanders to weaken the militants’ ability to “carry out counterattacks.”
The UN Security Council met behind closed doors on Monday. The 15-member panel is still trying to agree on a solution after failing to take action four times in two weeks. Diplomats said a key obstacle was calling for a ceasefire, an end to hostilities or humanitarian pauses to allow aid to enter Gaza.
At a meeting of foreign ministers from the leading G7 democracies in Tokyo, Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said the group planned to call for a pause in fighting and allow humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip.
Biden’s administration has informed the US Congress that it plans to transfer $320 million worth of precision bombs to Israel, a source familiar with the plan said on Monday.
Israel announced on Monday that it was striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in response to rocket fire on cities in northern Israel. The Israeli military said it detected around 30 launches from Lebanon in an hour.
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces on the Lebanese-Israeli border since October 7th. There is the worst fighting there since the war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006.
Hamas said it fired 16 rockets at Nahariyya and southern Haifa in Israel.
Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Emily Rose in Gaza, Patricia Zengerle in Washington and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; writing by Daphne Psaledakis and Lincoln Feast; Editing by Rami Ayyub, Cynthia Osterman and Simon Cameron-Moore
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