Israel-Hamas war live: Israel calls on UN chief to resign; death toll from Israeli airstrikes passes 5,700 | Israel-Hamas war

The Lebanese prime minister, Najib Mikati, has reaffirmed Beirut’s commitment to a UN resolution that ended a 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, amid border tensions as Israel fights Palestinian militants in Gaza, the AFP reports.

Mikati paid a surprise trip to southern Lebanon on Tuesday, as Israel and the powerful Hezbollah group, a Hamas ally, have been trading near-daily cross-border fire – tit-for-tat attacks that have so far been relatively contained.

He emphasised Lebanon’s commitment to implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war and which also called for the removal of weapons in southern Lebanon from the hands of everyone except the Lebanese army and other state security forces.

We came to the beloved south … to reaffirm peace-loving Lebanon’s respect for all legitimate international resolutions and its commitment to implementing” resolution 1701, Mikati said, according to a statement.

Mikati and Lebanon’s army commander Joseph Aoun visited troops and the headquarters of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeeping mission during the trip, the statement from the premier’s media office said.

Since the end of the 2006 conflict, Hezbollah has not had a visible military presence on Lebanon’s southern border, which is patrolled by UNIFIL peacekeepers.

However, experts and reports say Iran-backed Hezbollah, which enjoys broad popular support in the south of Lebanon, has positions, hideouts and tunnels in the area.

The Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki, a rival of Hamas, denounced inaction by the UN security council during its meeting in New York earlier today, as the conflict between Israel and Hamas continued to rage in blockaded Gaza.

While senior Israeli government officials raged against UN secretary general António Guterres’s defence of the Palestinian plight as he demanded a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, the Palestinian senior leader also had his say at the UN meeting.

The ongoing massacres being deliberately and systematically and savagely perpetrated by Israel – the occupying power against the Palestinian civilian population under illegal occupation – must be stopped. It is our collective human duty to stop them … Continued failure at this council is inexcusable,” al-Maliki said.

The foreign ministers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia also called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war that blew up on 7 October with Hamas attacks on southern Israel.

Al-Maliki railed against the talking shop.

And this:

Palestine has had non-member observer status at the United Nations since 2012, a decision opposed by the US and Israel.

The war between Israel and Hamas is deeply dividing members of the UN security council, Agence France-Presse reports.

As the UN secretary general, António Guterres, gave a speech earlier alleging violations of international law in Gaza and urging a ceasefire as Israel pounded the Palestinian territory in response to Hamas attacks, senior Israeli and Arab world figures gave heated responses.

An infuriated Eli Cohen, the Israeli foreign minister, pointed his finger at Guterres at the meeting in New York and raised his voice, recounted graphic accounts of civilians killed on 7 October in the deadliest single attack in Israeli history.

Mr secretary general, in what world do you live?” Cohen asked.

Pointing out that Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Cohen said:

We gave the Palestinians Gaza till the last millimetre. There is no dispute in regards to the land of Gaza.”

Israel shortly afterward imposed a blockade of the impoverished territory, in place ever since after Hamas took power.

The Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, a rival of Hamas, denounced inaction by the security council, meanwhile. More detail in the next post.

Here’s a post on X/Twitter from Cohen.

Israel calls on UN chief to resign

Middle East situation ‘more dire by the hour’ – UN chief

Antony Blinken urged UN member states to use all influence and leverage they have to secure the release of hostages held by militants in Gaza and also called on members to stop others opening another front in the conflict.

“Don’t throw fuel on the fire,” the US secretary of state said at the UN security council meeting moments ago.

Blinken specifically said he would work with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, to prevent the conflict in the Middle East from spreading when they meet later this week. Wang is due in Washington DC on Thursday.

He also said the US did not seek conflict with Iran, which backs Hezbollah, the anti-Israel group based in Lebanon, to Israel’s north.

But Blinken said that if Iran or its proxies attacked the US in any form “we will defend our people, we will defend our security swiftly and decisively”.

He called for the redoubling of efforts “to build an enduring political solution between Israelis and Palestinians” and said: “It’s precisely in the darkest moments like this” that powers must work the hardest for peace.

Blinken: “The US stands ready to work with anyone ready to forge a more peaceful future for the region.”

Antony Blinken moments ago spoke at the UN with pleas for the release of the approximately 200 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza and for all efforts to be made by regional and world powers to not escalate and spread the current conflict.

The US secretary of state also begged for channels to free up to get much more humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians trapped in Gaza under Israeli siege and bombardment.

“We cannot give up on peace,” he told the meeting at the UN headquarters in New York, where the security council is meeting specifically in light of the deepening crisis in Israel and Gaza.

He said the militants of Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, “must release hostages immediately and unconditionally”.

Hamas took Israeli and international hostages on 7 October after launching its surprise incursion over the Gaza border into southern Israel and killed more than 1,400 people, then taking more than 200 people back into Gaza where, barring the release of four, they have been held since in unknown locations and condition.

Blinken addresses UN security council meeting

The al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem is in the sacred compound in the Old City that is known as Temple Mount to Jews and al-Haram al-Sharif to Muslims and is Jerusalem’s holiest site.

Any clashes here – and there have been many over the years, including just this April, during Ramadan and on the eve of Passover – tend to trigger conflict in other disputed territories such as the occupied West Bank as well as Gaza, including prompting the firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip and sometimes Lebanon into Israel.

The grey-domed al-Aqsa mosque is close to the golden-domed Dome of the Rock mosque and to the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall or the Buraq Wall, part of the ancient limestone retaining wall of the hill on which the compound is located.

The Wafa news agency reports that today in Jerusalem Israeli police shut down access for Muslims to al-Aqsa mosque.

It says: “Authorities tightened entry into the mosque since the morning, where only the elderly were allowed to enter. However, this quickly changed and all worshippers of all ages were denied entry into al-Aqsa mosque, which was an unusual move not taken for months.”

It reports that Jewish residents wishing to pray within the compound were allowed entry, “in violation of the status quo”, which has been that the compound is only available for Muslim worship.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, saying the “appalling attacks” by Hamas inside Israel on 7 October cannot justify the “collective punishment of the Palestinian people” and that “no party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law”.

He said at the UN in New York that he was “deeply concerned about the clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza”, adding: “Our UN fuel supplies in Gaza will run out in a matter of days. That would be another disaster. To ease epic suffering, make the delivery of aid easier and safer and facilitate the release of hostages, I reiterate my appeal for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.”

Guterres said the 7 October attacks did not happen “in a vacuum”, and that “the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements, plagued by violence, their economy stifled, their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.”

He said: “At a crucial moment like this, it is vital to be clear on principles – starting with the fundamental principle of respecting and protecting civilians.”

The Palestinian health minister, Mai al-Kaila, said on Tuesday that three hospitals in the Gaza Strip were out of action because they had run out of fuel to run their electricity generators.

Reuters reports that Kaila said in a press conference in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank that there was an urgent need to establish a safe corridor to move injured and critically ill people to get treatment in Egyptian hospitals.

The Israel Defence Forces chief of staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, has spoken to the media near the Gaza border, saying that Israel’s armed forces are prepared and that the Hamas leadership will pay for its murderous assault on Israel on 7 October.

Israeli media quotes Halevi as saying:

Israel is in the midst of a war that was launched by the Hamas terror group. It already regrets it.

We’ve prepared for this. The IDF is ready for the manoeuvre, and we will make a decision with the political echelon regarding the shape and timing of the next stage.

We are making use of every minute to be even more prepared. And every minute that passes on the other side, we strike the enemy even more. Killing terrorists, destroying infrastructure, collecting more intelligence for the next stage.

This is our state, our house, and we will defend it by every means.

This war has one address: the Hamas leadership and all those who acted under its command. They will pay the price for what they did.

The IDF is fighting Hamas, it is not fighting Gaza’s populace. The IDF wants the residents of Gaza to come through this war as unharmed as possible. Every resident of Gaza should take the responsible decision for the sake of their lives.

The Israeli military has ordered residents of the Gaza Strip to evacuate south of the Wadi Gaza, the river that divides Gaza roughly into north and south. Despite that order, Israel has also launched aerial bombardments of Rafah and Khan Younis and other locations south of the Wadi Gaza.