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🔴 Live: Israel prepares ground assault on Gaza as Palestinians flee
Desperate Palestinians scrambled for escape from northern Gaza Saturday or huddled by the thousands at a main hospital in the target zone in hopes it would be spared, as Israel intensified warnings of an imminent offensive by air, ground and sea following Hamas militants’ deadly rampage in Israel a week ago. Israel dropped leaflets from the air and redoubled warnings on social media for more than 1 million Gaza residents to move south, while Hamas urged people to stay in their homes. Follow our liveblog for the latest developments. All times are Paris time (GMT + 2).
Issued on: 15/10/2023 – 01:08
3 min
Palestinians with foreign passports arrive at the Rafah gate hoping to cross into Egypt as Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip continues on October 14, 2023.
Palestinians with foreign passports arrive at the Rafah gate hoping to cross into Egypt as Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip continues on October 14, 2023. © Said Khatib, AFP
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FRANCE 24
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FRANCE 24
02:30am: Three hundred killed, mostly children and women in Gaza on Saturday, says Palestinian health ministry
300 Palestinians were killed, mostly children and women, while 800 others were injured in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, according to the health ministry in the coastal enclave.
02:13am: Hamas, Iran leaders agree to ‘continue cooperation’ after attack on Israel
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh met with Iran’s foreign minister on Saturday in Qatar, where they discussed the Palestinian militant group’s deadly attack in Israel “and agreed to continue cooperation” to achieve the group’s goals, Hamas said in a statement.
During their meeting in Qatar’s capital Doha, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian praised the rampage as a “historic victory” that had dealt a setback to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
01:26am: US sends second aircraft carrier ‘to deter hostile actions against Israel
The United States is sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean “to deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war following Hamas’s attack,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Saturday.
The USS Eisenhower and its affiliated warships will join another carrier group already deployed to the region in the wake of a Hamas attack on Israel a week ago and Israel’s ongoing response.
The deployment signals Washington’s “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security and our resolve to deter any state or non-state actor seeking to escalate this war,” Austin said in a statement.
12:30am: Iran warns of ‘far-reaching consequences’ if Israel not stopped
Iran warned on Saturday that if Israel’s “war crimes and genocide” are not halted immediately, “the situation could spiral out of control and ricochet far-reaching consequences,” Tehran’s mission to the United Nations in New York posted on X.
“If the Israeli apartheid’s war crimes & genocide are not halted immediately, the situation could spiral out of control & ricochet far-reaching consequences — the responsibility of which lies with the UN, the Security Council & the states steering the Council toward a dead end,” the post read.
12:13am: Five injured in Israeli strikes on Syria airport, says monitor
Israeli strikes targeted the airport of Syria’s government-held city of Aleppo injuring five people on Saturday, a war monitor said, days after a similar strike hit Aleppo and Damascus airports.
The air strikes came “from the direction of the sea”, Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP, without specifying whether the five injured were civilians.
Syria’s defence ministry also confirmed the strikes after midnight on Sunday.
Key developments from Saturday, October 14:
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Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians struggled Saturday to flee from areas in Gaza targeted by Israeli bombardments after Israel warned residents in the north to evacuate ahead of an expected ground offensive.
Israeli air strikes on Gaza have killed at least 324 people over the past 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry said. I
In total, 2,215 people have been killed in Gaza amid the ongoing strikes, which have followed Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,300 people.
President Joe Biden on Saturday spoke with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging the leaders to allow humanitarian aid to the region and affirmed his support for efforts to protect civilians.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
