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(NEW YORK) — Thousands of people have died and thousands more have been injured since the militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel retaliated with a bombing campaign and total siege of the neighboring Gaza Strip, leaving the region on the verge of all-out war.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Oct 24, 2:12 PM EDT
Gaza to run out of fuel Wednesday night: UNRWA
Gaza is set to run out of fuel Wednesday night, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
“If we do not get fuel urgently, we will be forced to halt our operations in the Gaza Strip as of tomorrow night,” the agency said.
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan said, “We know for sure that there’s plenty of fuel in Gaza. Hamas has stored fuel in advance, and is stealing fuel from both civilians and the U.N. to power its war machine against Israel.”
Oct 24, 1:45 PM EDT
20 more aid trucks cross Rafah: Egyptian officials
Twenty more aid trucks crossed the Egypt-Gaza Rafah border on Tuesday and are now headed to the Israel-Egypt Nitzana Border Crossing for inspection, according to Egyptian officials.
It is not clear if the trucks have reached Gaza yet, where humanitarian conditions are worsening by the day, but these new trucks will bring the total to 74 aid trucks crossing through over the last four days.
The Rafah border crossing was shut on Oct. 10 after it was hit by Israeli warplanes on the Palestinian side three times on Oct. 9 and 10.
The crossing has briefly opened each day since Saturday, permitting a small amount of aid to enter Gaza.
Asked by a reporter if humanitarian aid is getting to Gaza fast enough, President Joe Biden said Tuesday, “Not fast enough.”
Oct 24, 1:26 PM EDT
Israeli, Palestinian Authority foreign ministers speak out at UN Security Council meeting
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and the Palestinian Authority’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad al-Maliki, gave long, impassioned speeches at the United Nations Security Council meeting about the suffering their people are experiencing.
Cohen began by holding up photographs of the Israeli children kidnapped by Hamas, reading out their names and ages.
“They are just a few the many children and babies that have not seen evil. They have not caused evil. But they are victims of evil,” he said.
Cohen described Hamas as “the new Nazis” and said Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel should serve as “a wakeup call against extremism.”
Al-Maliki purported that Israel’s retaliation had equated to “ongoing massacres being deliberately, systematically, and savagely” perpetrated against Palestinians civilians.
“The Security Council has a duty to stop them,” he said. “It is our collective human duty to stop them now.”
He suggested that Israel’s campaign would ultimately lead to more conflict, saying “more injustice and more killing will not make Israel safer.”
The foreign minister argued that everyone on the council should be united behind one goal.
“We should be on the same side — all of us who believe in justice and peace,” he said. “We should stand shoulder to shoulder in these moments. But that is only possible if everyone recognizes the value of Palestinian life — the need to uphold Palestinian rights.”
ABC News’ Shannon Crawford
Oct 24, 1:17 PM EDT
Blinken backs Israel but says ‘humanitarian pauses must be considered’
Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a forceful defense of Israel’s military actions at the United Nations Security Council, but Blinken said “humanitarian pauses must be considered” to protect civilians in Gaza — the administration’s strongest statement of a support for any type of halt in Israel’s efforts to vanquish Hamas.
“We must affirm the right of any nation to defend itself and to prevent such heart from repeating itself. No member of this council, no nation in this entire body. could or would tolerate the slaughter of its people,” Blinken said.
The secretary said every member of the U.N. has a “responsibility to denounce the member states that arm, fund and train Hamas or any other terrorist group that carries out such horrific acts,” reminding them that many other foreign nationals were also killed and kidnapped in its attacks.”
Blinken then turned to ongoing efforts to protect civilian lives, first emphasizing that Hamas is responsible for putting the innocent in harm’s way, before shifting to Israel’s responsibilities.
“Hamas must cease using them as human shields,” he said. “Israel must take all possible precautions to avoid harm to civilians. It means means food, medicine and water and other assistance must flow into Gaza and to the areas people need them. It means civilians must be able to get out of harm’s way. It means humanitarian pauses must be considered for these purposes.”
Previously, the State Department and other U.S. officials flatly rejected calls for any kind of ceasefir, arguing, as State Department spokesperson Matt Miller did Monday, that it would “give Hamas the ability to rest, to refit and to get ready to continue watching terrorist attacks against Israel.”
In his remarks, Blinken also detailed the administration’s efforts to prevent the conflict from spreading in the Middle East, but emphasized the threat posed by Iran and promised the U.S. would not allow attacks on Americans to go unanswered.
“We do not want this war to widen, but if Iran or its proxies attack U.S. personnel anywhere, make no mistake — we will defend our people, we will defend our security–swiftly and decisively,” he vowed.
ABC News’ Shannon Crawford
Oct 24, 11:54 AM EDT
784 slain in Israel identified, Israeli police say
The Israeli police said they’ve identified at least 784 people killed by Hamas.
Police said some bodies were in such bad condition that they have not yet been identified.
At least 1,400 people have died and 4,629 others have been injured in Israel since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, according to Israeli authorities.
Oct 24, 11:35 AM EDT
US sends 3-star Marine general to advise Israel
The Biden administration has sent Lt. Gen. James Glynn, a three-star Marine general who is currently serving as the head of Marine personnel, to Israel to advise the country on its military operations, according to a U.S. official.
The news was first reported by Axios on Monday.
Glynn is “not directing operations” but rather is “purely there to provide military advice and pose hard questions to help [the Israel Defense Forces] think through various scenarios,” the U.S. official told ABC News.
The official said Glynn was in Israel “temporarily” and was not expected to still be there when a ground operation starts.
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson
Oct 24, 11:30 AM EDT
Fuel ‘most vital commodity’ in Gaza, WHO says
Fuel is now the “most vital commodity” in Gaza, according to the World Health Organization.
The limited aid trucks trickling into Gaza have not included any fuel, the organization said. Before Oct. 7, hundreds of trucks entered Gaza every day, including about 45 trucks bringing fuel, said Tamara Alrifai, spokesperson for the U.N. agency for Palestine refugees.
Without fuel, “trucks can’t move and generators can’t produce electricity for hospitals, bakeries and water desalination plants,” said Alrifai.
Alrifai said the United Nations Relief and Works Agency would be responsible for delivering the fuel to hospitals and water desalination plants and keeping it out of Hamas’ hands.
The WHO said one in three hospitals in Gaza and two in three clinics are not functioning, with the health system overwhelmed by more than 16,000 injured people.
Dr. Rick Brennan, WHO emergencies director for the Eastern Mediterranean Region, said he’s begging “all those in a situation to make a decision or influence decision makers, to give us the humanitarian space to address this human catastrophe.”
Oct 24, 11:03 AM EDT
Underground hospital prepares to treat wounded IDF soldiers
In just two weeks, the space below Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital has been converted into an underground hospital, bracing for an influx of war casualties.
Rows of hospital beds and medical equipment have been set up in what was meant to be used as a parking garage.
“We have up to 130 beds here, including intensive care beds,” Dr. Tamar Elram, director of the Hadassha Mount Scopus Hospital, told ABC News. “Everything that we do here is in total cooperation and agreement with the army and with police and all the other security forces.”
The hospital has also been treating civilian victims, like Michal Alon, who was shot in the hand and chest by Hamas militants on Oct. 7 and is now embarking on the long road to recovery, both physically and emotionally.
Israeli hospital prepares for war casualties
“We’ve already got soldiers and civilians who are turning to our ERs, two and a half weeks after the terror attack, starting to suffer from acute post-traumatic syndrome,” Elram said.
Elram says one of the biggest challenges they’ve faced in preparing for what’s to come includes manpower. Some staffers are leaving the hospital to go serve in the Israeli military.
ABC News’ Guy Davies and Ines De La Cuetara
Oct 24, 9:07 AM EDT
Hostages influencing Israeli military’s operational plans, spokesperson says
Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col Peter Lerner confirmed that hostages are influencing the plans of Israel’s forces.
“Of course the presence of the hostages is at the top of our priority list,” Lerner told ABC News. “It is obviously influencing our operational capabilities, operational plans.”
Lerner said that while the military has been given the “green light” to go into Gaza, they have not officially been given the command to “go” from the government.
Asked if the window for an operation into Gaza will close, Lerner responded, “There is no choice for Israel.”
Learner also said Israeli forces are actively trying to assassinate Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahye Sinwar, but they haven’t found him yet.
As the humanitarians conditions in Gaza become more dire by the day, Lerner said fuel will not be among the aid trickling into Gaza.
“Hamas has over a million liters of fuel in their stockpiles in Gaza — they are actually not far away from Rafah. All they need to do is give some to the hospitals,” he said.
Oct 24, 8:29 AM EDT
Parents describe watching video of Hamas taking son hostage
The father of 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was taken hostage by Hamas at the Supernova music festival, said he has gained some “strength” from seeing a video of his son on the day of the attack.
“No parent should ever be subjected to this sight,” Jon Polin said on ABC News’ Good Morning America on Tuesday.
Polin and Rachel Goldberg’s son was wounded in the Oct. 7 attack. He had been hiding with a group in a bomb shelter and witnesses saw him being loaded into the back of a Hamas pickup truck, his parents told ABC News earlier this month.
Goldberg-Polin’s parents said on Tuesday they have since seen a video in which their son leaves the bomb shelter.
“Knowing he spent an hour to an hour and a half being subjected to this massacre and he then gets up with an arm freshly blown off and walks on his own two feet, under his own strength, towards this truck and uses his weak hand, his only hand now, to pull himself onto the truck while bloodied, but looking sort of composed,” Polin said. “It gives me a sense of, he’s got a perseverance and fortitude that we hope carries him through this.”
Oct 24, 8:25 AM EDT
Gaza hospitals as ‘dire as it can be’
Hospitals in Gaza are “horrific scenes,” filled with killed and injured children and “medical staff working 24/7 with almost nothing in terms of resources and equipment,” said Dr. Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza.
Seventy-percent of the victims are children, women and the elderly, according to the health ministry.
The ministry said 12 hospitals and 32 health centers are out of service, with those numbers expected to rise as airstrikes continue and Gaza runs out of fuel.
“It’s dire as it can be. The scenes inside the hospital are almost indescribable — one of our doctors recently had to do an operation on the floor, in the corridor of the hospital, because there was nowhere to do it. The situation is untenable, absolutely horrific,” al-Qudra said.
Oct 24, 6:52 AM EDT
‘Through hell,’ released Hamas hostage says of days in captivity
After Yocheved Lifschitz, 85, was taken hostage by Hamas militants, she was brought into a “huge network” of underground tunnels, which she described on Tuesday as being “like a spider’s web.”
“I’ve been through hell,” Lifschitz told gathered reporters in the lobby of the Tel Aviv hospital where she’s being treated.
As Lifschitz spoke in Hebrew, her daughter translated her words into English.
The 85-year-old had been taken by motorcycle on Oct. 7, carried away through fields while her captors struck her with sticks and removed her watch and jewellery, she said. She was made to walk a few kilometers to the entrance of one of the many tunnels Hamas has built under Gaza.
She said she was kept during her captivity in a “clean” location, where doctors visited every few days. Medicine was available, she said.
She slept on a mattress on one of the tunnel’s floors. She ate white cheese, cucumbers and pita bread, she said.
Oct 24, 1:06 AM EDT
Three Hamas deputy commanders killed: IDF
The Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday morning that three Hamas deputy commanders were killed Monday night.
“During the night, IDF aircraft also attacked operational headquarters used by operatives of the terrorist organization Hamas and assembly points of the terrorist organization located inside mosques,” the IDF said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
The deputy commander of the Nusirat battalion, the deputy commander of the Shati battalion and the deputy commander of the Alfurkan battalion of Hamas were killed, the IDF said in the post.
Oct 23, 10:27 PM EDT
Biden speaks with Netanyahu about hostages’ release, humanitarian assistance for Gaza
President Joe Biden spoke with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday afternoon, once again addressing his commitment to efforts to “secure the release of all remaining hostages taken by Hamas – including Americans – and to provide for safe passage for U.S. citizens and other civilians in Gaza,” according to a White House readout of the call. Biden welcomed the news of the two hostages who were released earlier on Monday, per the readout.
During the call, Biden also “underscored the need to sustain a continuous flow of urgently needed humanitarian assistance into Gaza,” according to the readout.
Biden also spoke with Netanyahu about U.S. support for Israel and what the White House said was “ongoing efforts at regional deterrence, to include new U.S. military deployments.”
Oct 23, 6:06 PM EDT
Kirby warns of uptick in Iran-linked attacks
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday that in recent days there had been “an uptick in rocket and drone attacks by Iranian-backed proxy groups against military bases housing U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria.”
“We know Iran continues to support Hamas and Hezbollah, and we know Iran is closely monitoring these events and in some cases, actively facilitating attacks and spurring on others who may want to exploit for their own good, or for that of Iran,” Kirby said.
Kirby said Iran tries to “maintain some level of deniability here, but we’re not going to allow them to do that.”
He added that there is still no direct evidence that Iran was involved in Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel.
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