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🔴 Live: Biden says Israeli occupation of Gaza would be ‘big mistake’
Any move by Israel to occupy the Gaza Strip again would be a “big mistake,” US President Joe Biden said in an interview released on Sunday, as Israeli troops prepared for a ground invasion. Reserves of fuel at all hospitals across the Gaza Strip are expected to last roughly 24 more hours, the United Nations humanitarian office said on Monday. Read out live blog for all the latest updates. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
Issued on: 16/10/2023 – 05:04
Modified: 16/10/2023 – 07:23
6 min
US President Joe Biden speaks about the Palestinian militant group Hamas’s attacks on Israel, Washington, DC, October 10, 2023.01:36
US President Joe Biden speaks about the Palestinian militant group Hamas’s attacks on Israel, Washington, DC, October 10, 2023. © Brendan Smialowski, AFP
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FRANCE 24
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8:08am: Israel moves to evacuate villages near Lebanon border
Israel has activated a plan to evacuate residents of 28 villages within 2 km (1 mile) of the Lebanese border, the military said on Monday following hostilities with Hezbollah in parallel to the spiralling war in Gaza.
One of the villages, Shtula, came under a Hezbollah missile attack on Sunday. Israeli media said a civilian was killed.
8:01am: South Gaza ceasefire, re-opening of border crossing confirmed for Monday, Egyptian security sources say
Egypt, Israel and the US agreed to a ceasefire in southern Gaza to begin at 6:00 GMT coinciding with the re-opening of the Rafah border crossing, two Egyptian security sources said on Monday.
The sources said the ceasefire would last for several hours but were not clear on the exact duration. They also said the three countries had agreed that Rafah would be open until 2pm GMT on Monday as a one-day initial re-opening.
Asked for confirmation, the Israeli military and the US Embassy in Israel had no immediate comment. This was not immediately confirmed by officials with Gaza’s governing Hamas either.
6:33am: Blinken to return to Israel on Monday
The US State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken would return to Israel on Monday after completing a frantic six-country tour through Arab nations aimed at preventing the fighting from igniting a broader regional conflict.
President Joe Biden is also considering a trip to Israel, though no plans have been finalised.
5:23am: More than 1 million have fled homes in Gaza, UN agency says
More than a million people have fled their homes in the besieged Gaza Strip in the past week, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency said, as water supplies dwindle and hospitals warn they are on the verge of collapse.
About 500,000 people, nearly one quarter of Gaza’s population, were taking refuge in United Nations schools and other facilities across the territory, where water supplies were dwindling, said Juliette Touma, spokesperson for UN agency. “Gaza is running dry,” she said.
4:53am: Biden calls killing of Muslim boy ‘horrific act of hate’
President Joe Biden on Sunday condemned the deadly stabbing attack against a six-year-old Muslim boy, which police have linked to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, as a “horrific act of hate.”
Read more
Man kills Muslim boy near Chicago in hate crime related to Israel-Hamas war, officials say
“This horrific act of hate has no place in America, and stands against our fundamental values: freedom from fear for how we pray, what we believe, and who we are,” Biden said in a statement, adding he was praying for the recovery of the boy’s mother, who was also severely wounded in the attack.
2:36am: Biden says Hamas doesn’t ‘represent all the Palestinian people’
Any move by Israel to occupy the Gaza Strip again would be a “big mistake,” US President Joe Biden said in an interview released on Sunday, as Israeli troops prepared for a ground invasion.
Israel, seeking vengeance for an attack by Hamas on October 7, has declared war on the militant group, launching a relentless bombing campaign and warning more than a million people in northern Gaza to move south ahead of the operation.
Asked by CBS news program 60 Minutes if he would support any occupation of Gaza by the American ally, Biden replied: “I think it’d be a big mistake.”
Hamas “don’t represent all the Palestinian people,” he continued.
But invading and “taking out the extremists” is a “necessary requirement” he added.
1:51am: Gaza border crossing set to reopen as Israeli troops prepare ground assault
An Egyptian-controlled border crossing into Gaza is expected to reopen amid diplomatic efforts to get aid into the Hamas-controlled strip.
“Rafah will be reopened. We’re putting in place with the United Nations, with Egypt, with Israel, with others, a mechanism by which to get the assistance in and to get it to people who need it,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday.
Veteran US diplomat David Satterfield, appointed on Sunday as a special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues, will arrive in Egypt on Monday to work out the details, Blinken said.
NBC News, citing a Palestinian official, reported the Rafah border crossing would open at 9 a.m. on Monday. Citing a security source, ABC News reported the crossing would open for a few hours on Monday, without providing details. France 24 was not immediately able to confirm either report.
Hundreds of metric tons of aid from several countries have been held up in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula for days pending a deal for its safe delivery to Gaza and the evacuation of some foreign passport holders through the Rafah crossing.
12:57am: Israel halts ‘security exports’ over Colombian ‘anti-Semitism’
Israel, one of the main providers of arms to Colombia’s military, said Sunday it was “halting security exports” to the South American country after taking umbrage at its president’s remarks on the war with Hamas.
Since the militant group’s vicious attack on Israel a week ago, President Gustavo Petro has posted numerous comments on X, formerly Twitter, supporting the people of Gaza.
In one post, Colombia’s first-ever leftist president compared Israel’s retaliatory targeting of Gaza to the Nazi persecution of Jews.
On Sunday, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Lior Haiat said Colombia’s ambassador to Israel Margarita Manjarrez had been summoned over Petro’s “hostile and anti-Semitic statements.”
Colombia’s foreign ministry has issued a statement to “vehemently condemn the terrorism and attacks against civilians that have occurred in Israel” and expressing solidarity with the victims.
12:31am: Gaza hospitals’ fuel expected to last 24 more hours, UN says
Reserves of fuel at all hospitals across the Gaza Strip are expected to last only around 24 more hours, the United Nations humanitarian office (OCHA) said on Monday.
“The shutdown of backup generators would place the lives of thousands of patients at risk,” OCHA said on its website.
12:17am: Blinken says Palestinians should not be expelled from Gaza
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has categorically rejected the idea floated of expelling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, saying they should be able to stay as Israel battles Hamas.
“I’ve heard directly from Palestinian Authority President (Mahmud) Abbas and from virtually every other leader that I’ve talked to in the region that that idea is a nonstarter, and so we do not support it,” Blinken said in an interview in Cairo with the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television network.
“We believe that people should be able to stay in Gaza, their home. But we also want to make sure that they’re out of harm’s way and that they’re getting the assistance they need,” he said.
Key developments from Sunday, October 15:
The Gaza Health Ministry said 2,670 Palestinians have been killed and 9,600 wounded since the fighting erupted, more than in the 2014 Gaza war, which lasted over six weeks. That makes this the deadliest of the five Gaza wars for both sides.
Medics in Gaza warned Sunday that thousands could die as hospitals packed with wounded people run desperately low on fuel and basic supplies.
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More than 1,400 Israelis have died, the vast majority civilians killed in Hamas’ October 7 assault. At least 155 others, including children, were captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza, according to Israel. It’s also the deadliest war for Israel since the 1973 conflict with Egypt and Syria.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on a crisis tour of the Middle East, met Sunday with the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, which has put on hold normalisation with Israel.
The Israeli army said it was striking inside Lebanon on Sunday following anti-tank missile fire towards a border community, in the latest incident of cross-border shelling.
Read yesterday’s blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
