Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south; about 260 bodies recovered from Supernova festival site. Follow latest news and updates from the conflict
What we know so far on day three
It is early on Monday morning in Palestine and in Israel, 48 hours since an attack by Hamas sparked the latest brutal conflagration of this conflict.
What we know so far:
Israeli rescue service Zaka said that its paramedics have removed approximately 260 bodies from a music festival that was attacked by Hamas. Videos posted online showed festival goers running frantically and getting into cars after the attacks.
Spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus posted an update on the IDF’s response online. He said “almost 48 hours into the fighting… the situation in Israel is a dire one” and the death toll will rise.
Up to 100 Israeli hostages, including women and children, may have been taken into Gaza by Hamas, hugely complicating any Israeli military operation to free them. The whereabouts and fate of the captives has become one of the most pressing issues for military planners.
Numerous members of the UN security council denounced Hamas on Sunday but the United States regretted the lack of unanimity. At an emergency session, the United States and Israel urged strong condemnation of the Palestinian Islamists. “There are a good number of countries that condemned the Hamas attacks. They’re obviously not all,” senior US diplomat Robert Wood told reporters after the closed-door session. “You could probably figure out one of them without me saying anything,” said Wood, in a clear allusion to Russia.
Iran helped Hamas plan its surprise attacks against Israel over the weekend, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. Details of the operation were refined during several meetings in Beirut attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah, they said. US secretary of state, Antony Blinken has however said that Washington had not seen any evidence that Iran was behind the attack.
Iran, however, has denied any involvement in the attack. But Tehran has defended Hamas’s assault as a “wholly legitimate defence”. “The resolute measures taken by Palestine constitute a wholly legitimate defence against seven decades of oppressive occupation and heinous crimes committed by the illegitimate Zionist regime,” Iran’s UN mission said in statement.
An Israeli airstrike has killed 19 members of a Palestinian family in a Gaza refugee camp, according to the Associated Press.
The permanent observer mission of the state of Palestine to the UN has issued a response on Sunday to the Israel-Hamas war, saying that “these developments did not occur in a vacuum”. “They are preceded by the killing this year of hundreds of Palestinians … and preceded by decades of Israel’s unrelenting military raids on Palestinian villages, towns, cities and refugee camps,” it said.
US president Joe Biden told the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday that “additional assistance for the Israeli Defense Forces is now on its way to Israel with more to follow over the coming days.” After the call between the two leaders, the White House released a statement, saying: “The President … pledged his full support for the Government and people of Israel in the face of an unprecedented and appalling assault by Hamas terrorists.”
More airlines have suspended flights into Tel Aviv following Hamas’s attacks on Israel over the weekend. Those airlines include Delta, American Airlines, United and Air France.
The UN’s World Food Programme has called on the establishment of humanitarian corridors to deliver food supplies into Gaza following Israeli airstrikes in response to Hamas’s attacks. “As the conflict intensifies, civilians, including vulnerable children and families, face mounting challenges in accessing essential food supplies,” the WFP said.
