Israel-Hamas war live: Biden to address US in primetime speech; Israeli officials signal readiness for Gaza ground offensive | Israel-Hamas war

Biden says, “Making sure Israel and Ukraine succeed is vital for America’s national security.”

Walking away from Ukraine or Israel increases the risk of global chaos, he says.

He wants to use funding to make the Middle East, “more stable, connected to its neighbours … [with] more predictable markets, more employments, less grievances, less war, he says.”

Biden says, “We’re pursuing every avenue to bring hostages home”. He says there is no higher priority.

“We’re facing an inflection point in history,” Biden says as he opens his speech. What we do today will determine outcomes for decades to come, he says.

Biden is about to begin his second-ever Oval Office address.

US Presidents traditionally reserve speeches from the solemn setting of the Oval Office for moments of key national significance, Reuters explains.

Biden’s only previous address from there was in June when he hailed a deal with Congress to avert what would have been a catastrophic US default.

But Congress has now been paralysed for more than two weeks as divided Republicans struggle to elect a House speaker – in turn holding up aid.

You can watch Biden’s speech live below – the speech is set to start in five minutes’ time.

As we wait for that address to start, Agence France-Presse reports that the US intelligence community has estimated there were likely 100 to 300 people killed in the blast at the Al-Ahli Al-Arab hospital in Gaza, according to excerpts of a document seen Thursday by AFP.

The toll estimate is lower than the nearly 500 deaths that health authorities in the Hamas-ruled enclave originally described.

An unclassified US intelligence assessment, provided to AFP by a Capitol Hill source, estimates the number of people killed at the hospital Tuesday night at the “low end of the 100-to-300 spectrum.”

“We are still assessing the likely casualty figures and our assessment may evolve, but this death toll still reflects a staggering loss of life,” the document said.

“The United States takes seriously the deaths of all civilians, and is working intensively to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” the document said.

The White House said Biden will unveil a new funding request this week believed to be as much as $100 billion.

It may include $60 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel, sources told Reuters, as well as billions for Asia and US border security.

It is only the second prime-time Oval Office address in the Democratic president’s nearly three years in office; in June he cheered the end of a debt ceiling standoff.

The speech comes as Israeli officials signal their readiness for a ground offensive.

US president Joe Biden is expected to use his primetime address, which starts in a few minutes’ time, at 8pm Eastern Time, to try to sell Americans on the need to spend billions more dollars on Israel and Ukraine, even as the US House of Representatives, without a leader, cannot approve new spending on the two wars, Reuters reports.

“Hamas’s terrorist attacks against Israel,” Biden wrote in a social media post listing topics for his White House speech. “The need for humanitarian assistance in Gaza. Russia’s ongoing brutal war against Ukraine.”

He added: “We are at a global inflection point that is bigger than party or politics.”

We’ll bring you the latest from that speech as it happens – stay tuned.

This is the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war with me, Helen Sullivan.

The US president, Joe Biden, is set to deliver a primetime address on Thursday night, in half an hour’s time, at 8pm Eastern Time (0000 GMT on Friday) in which he will discuss the US response to the war between Israel and Hamas.

Biden’s remarks follow a brief visit to Tel Aviv in which he met with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Biden is expected to use the speech to sell Americans on the need to spend billions more dollars on Israel and Ukraine, even as the US House of Representatives, without a leader, cannot approve new spending on the two wars.

We’ll bring you that address live as it happens, as well as other news throughout the day.

Here are the other key recent developments:

• Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has told troops gathered at the Gaza border that they will soon see the Palestinian territory “from the inside”. Gallant urged the forces to “get organised, be ready” for an order to move in, suggesting an Israeli ground invasion could be nearing.

• Israel is likely to launch a bloody ground assault on the Gaza Strip in the coming days, the former prime minister Ehud Barak said in an NBC interview. The Israeli military has a “green light” to move into Gaza whenever it’s ready, Israel’s economy minister, Nir Barkat, said in an interview with the US’s ABC network.

• Trucks carrying humanitarian aid will enter Gaza from Egypt’s Sinai peninsula in the coming days, according to the White House, after Joe Biden’s whirlwind visit to Israel on Wednesday. Biden said Israel had agreed to allow the opening of the Egypt-Gaza Rafah crossing to deliveries of desperately needed food, water and medical supplies on condition that the humanitarian assistance was not diverted by Hamas for its own use.

• The Rafah crossing is not expected to open Friday for a convoy of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, CNN reported, citing multiple sources. “I would not put money on those trucks going through tomorrow,” one source told the news outlet. US officials now expect the first convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian aid will cross into Gaza from Egypt this weekend, possibly Saturday, the report says. Egyptian state media earlier reported that the Rafah crossing with Egypt would be opened on Friday to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. It comes after Israel, the White House and Egypt confirmed that limited aid will be allowed to travel into Gaza through the crossing. The source told CNN that the situation is “really volatile” and that there are a lot of other details to make sure the aid is sustained, not a one off.

• The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, has said Gaza “needs aid at scale and on a sustained basis”.

• Lack of access to water is one of the biggest challenges in Gaza, according to the international charity Action Against Hunger, which is warning of “a health crisis on the brink of explosion”. The UN estimates that there are fewer than 3 litres of water per person each day for the 2.3 million people living in Gaza, half of whom are children who are most at risk from water shortages and diarrhoeal infections.

• The World Health Organization (WHO) said its trucks were “loaded and ready to go” as soon as the Rafah crossing was opened – “hopefully tomorrow”. The WHO director, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the agency was “gravely concerned about the health and wellbeing of civilians in Gaza, who are suffering from bombardment and siege” and about the attacks on healthcare in both Gaza and Israel.

• Eight Palestinians were killed in an ongoing Israeli military operation in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Israel’s police said an officer was also killed during clashes.

• At least 21 journalists have been killed since the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel war, the majority in Israel’s attacks on Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The CPJ reported that, as of this Thursday, 17 Palestinian, three Israeli, and one Lebanese journalist had died since Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October, followed by the ongoing bombardments of Gaza by Israel.

• Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, and Jordan’s King Abdullah II have condemned the “collective punishment” of Palestinians in Gaza as they met in Cairo for talks on the Israel-Hamas war. Sisi and King Abdullah also warned of the dangers of a regional spillover.

• The US state department has issued a worldwide caution alert advising American citizens overseas “to exercise increased caution”. The US state department cited “increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against US citizens and interests”.

• The US and British embassies in Beirut have advised their citizens to leave Lebanon while flights “remain available” as border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah intensify over the Israel-Hamas war. Both countries had already warned citizens against travel to Lebanon.

• Israel is counting on the UK’s “continuous support” in what will be a “long war” with Hamas, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has told Rishi Sunak, as the two leaders met in Tel Aviv. Sunak flew to Saudi Arabia later on Thursday in efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and prevent a wider regional conflict.

• Sunak and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “agreed to coordinate action” to avoid any further escalation in the region, Downing Street said after a meeting. The UK prime minister “encouraged” Saudi Arabia to use its influence to “support stability” in the region, a No 10 spokesperson said.

• At least nine British nationals are confirmed to have died and a further seven are missing after the attack by Hamas on Israel on 7 October, a Downing Street spokesperson has said.

• The US state department said 32 Americans have been killed in Israel. Eleven US citizens remain unaccounted for, Matthew Miller, a spokesperson for the state department, said at a news conference on Thursday. The Philippines embassy in Tel Aviv has confirmed the death of another Filipino national, bringing the country’s death toll to four.

• The US president, Joe Biden, will address the nation later today to discuss the US’s response to the Israeli-Gaza conflict and the war in Ukraine, less than 24 hours after returning from Tel Aviv to offer Israelis support and aid for Palestinians in a trip upended by a hospital blast in Gaza.

• A second plane of humanitarian aid from the EU was due to land in Egypt on Thursday afternoon to help people in Gaza, a spokesperson for the European Commission said. Together with a flight yesterday, it will amount to 54 tonnes of humanitarian aid including hygiene and sanitation products, food, water and shelter.

• More than 60 international charities – including Action Aid UK, Bond, Cafod, Christian Aid, Islamic Relief, Médecins Sans Frontières UK, Oxfam GB and Save the Children UK – have signed a statement calling on the UK government to step up its efforts to secure an urgent ceasefire in Israel and Gaza.

• The US intelligence community assesses that there likely were between 100 and 300 people killed in the blast at al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday, according to unclassified intelligence. The US National Security Council said on Wednesday that the US government assessed that Israel “was not responsible” for the Gaza hospital blast.

• The Israeli government has accused the BBC of perpetuating a “modern blood libel” in its reporting of the catastrophic explosion at al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza.