Israel-Hamas war updates: Israeli water supply move a ‘distraction’

See this story on our app

Live

Palestinians run past the rubble following Israeli strikes in Gaza [Mutasem Murtaja/Reuters]

By Usaid Siddiqui, Arwa Ibrahim, Priyanka Shankar, Lyndal Rowlands, Kevin Doyle, Hamza Mohamed, Zaheena Rasheed and Ted Regencia

Palestinians say Israel’s announcement of renewing water supply to southern Gaza is a “publicity stunt” as many water pipes were damaged in the Israeli shelling. Also, without electricity, water pumps to fill the tanks are not working, they add.
An estimated one million Gazans have been displaced in the first seven days of conflict with Israel, according to the United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees, as aid groups said the situation in the besieged enclave is “catastrophic”.

15 Oct 2023 - 23:32

(23:32 GMT)

Thank you for joining us

That’s it from our live team today.

You can catch up on today’s events by reading our news stories here, here and here.

You can read this in-depth piece about Palestinians in Israel suspended from jobs over the war.

Thank you for joining us.

15 Oct 2023 - 22:47

(22:47 GMT)

A look back at today’s events

We are going to bring our live coverage to an end soon. Here’s a summary of today’s main events:

An estimated 1 million Gaza Palestinians have been displaced in the first seven days of conflict with Israel, according to the UN.
An Israeli military spokesperson says that 155 captives are being held in Gaza.
United Nations peacekeeping force UNIFIL says its headquarters in south Lebanon have been hit by a rocket.
Palestinians say Israel’s announcement of renewing water supply to southern Gaza is a “publicity stunt” as many water pipes were damaged in the Israeli shelling.
At least 2,670 Palestinians, a quarter of them children, have been killed in Israeli air raids.
The number of Israelis killed in Hamas’s military operation stands at 1,400, including 286 soldiers.
At least 50 families in the Gaza Strip have been wiped out from the civil registry, the health ministry says.
The European Union’s national leaders back Israel’s right to defend itself in line with humanitarian and international law, they have said in a statement.

15 Oct 2023 - 22:40

(22:40 GMT)

Watch: What are the military risks of an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza?

Israel has gathered hundreds of thousands of troops ahead of its ground invasion of Gaza.

Fears are growing for civilians caught in the crossfire – along with concerns the war might spread beyond the territory.

Our panel of experts dissect how the looming invasion will play out and what Israel stands to gain from it.

Elias Hanna – retired Lebanese military general
Elijah Magnier – military analyst
Lawrence Korb – former United States assistant defence secretary

Watch below:

15 Oct 2023 - 22:25

(22:25 GMT)

Pro-Israel demonstrators rally in Rio de Janeiro

In the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, more than 1,000 demonstrators marched along the iconic Copacabana beach to express their support for Israel.

Chanting slogans like “Never again, Hamas”, they proudly displayed Brazilian and Israeli flags and even sang in Hebrew during the protest.

The demonstration was organised by an Israeli group.

A Brazilian-Israeli man and woman and a Brazilian woman have died in the fighting between Israel and Hamas. Nearly 30 Brazilians are in the south of the Gaza Strip, waiting to be repatriated to Egypt.

People attend a rally in support of Israel, at Copacabana beach, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil [Tercio Teixeira/AFP]

15 Oct 2023 - 22:11

(22:11 GMT)

Palestinian-American boy stabbed to death in Gaza war-related killing in US

Police in the United States have charged a 71-year-old man with murder and hate crime for fatally stabbing a six-year-old boy and seriously wounding his 32-year-old mother, alleging he singled out the victims because of their faith and as a response to the war between Israel and Hamas.

“Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the on-going Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,” the Will County Sheriff’s Office in suburban Chicago said in a statement on Sunday.

Officers found both victims on Saturday morning at a home roughly 65km (40 miles) southwest of Chicago.

Israel’s new unity government holds security meeting

By Sara Khairat in occupied East Jerusalem

The expanded emergency unity government held a meeting earlier today.

We don’t always get to find out what things are discussed. Of course, a lot of it is related to military decisions – in terms of boots on the ground, movement and equipment.

But what we do know is that the meeting that has been held in the last hour includes some of those high officials when it comes to the military – for example, the minister of defence.

Former opposition leader Benny Gantz has now also become included in this war cabinet where they’ve been able to put political divisions aside, which have divided the country for all of this year, and now they’ve been having these high-level meetings to move forward.

15 Oct 2023 - 21:42

(21:42 GMT)

Palestinians in Gaza can go to ‘tent cities’: Former Israeli minister

Former Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has told Al Jazeera that people in Gaza should evacuate their residences and relocate to the Sinai Desert in Egypt, where temporary tent cities could be established for them.

The interview has been shared widely on social media, with Ayalon receiving widespread criticism for his comments, which many said were a call for “ethnic cleansing”.

“We told the Gazan people to clear the area temporarily, so we can go and take Hamas out, and then, of course, they can come back,” said Ayalon, speaking to Marc Lamont Hill on an episode of UpFront that aired on Friday.

Watch: Gaza Palestinians take shelter in UNRWA schools

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have taken refuge at the UNRWA-run schools in Gaza to escape Israeli air raids.

Al Jazeera spoke to some of those seeking shelter at one of the schools based in central Gaza.

Watch below.

15 Oct 2023 - 21:09

(21:09 GMT)

Hospitals working at full capacity

By Tareq Abu Azzoum in Khan Younis, southern Gaza

Medical teams inside all hospitals in the Gaza Strip are working around the clock to provide different kinds of treatment for a great number of injured people who have arrived at the hospital.

I’m standing right now at al-Naser hospital.

The hospital is working at full capacity and with limited sources of energy and water. The hospital right now is a place for a lot of displaced people. It’s a shelter for thousands of Palestinians who are right now gathering in the surrounding areas of the hospital.

15 Oct 2023 - 20:51

(20:51 GMT)

President Abbas says Hamas’s actions do not represent Palestinians

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says the actions and policies of the group Hamas do not represent the Palestinian people, according to official news agency WAFA.

In a phone call with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Abbas also called the Palestine Liberation Organization the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”, WAFA says.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the United Nations General Assembly [File: Richard Drew/AP]

15 Oct 2023 - 20:44

(20:44 GMT)

Guterres urges Hamas to release captives without conditions

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appealed for Hamas to release captives without conditions and for Israel to allow rapid and unimpeded humanitarian aid access to the Gaza Strip.

“Each one of these two objectives are valid in themselves. They should not become bargaining chips and they must be implemented because it’s the right thing to do,” Guterres said in a statement.

15 Oct 2023 - 20:34

(20:34 GMT)

Zelenskyy says Ukraine working to evacuate citizens from Gaza, Israel

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his nightly address says his government is working to evacuate nearly 260 of its citizens from Gaza and to fly other Ukrainians out of Israel.

Ukraine’s embassy in Israel said on social media on Saturday that 207 Ukrainian citizens, including 63 children, were evacuated from Tel Aviv to Romania on Saturday, while another flight would take 155 people to Romania on Sunday.

15 Oct 2023 - 20:16

(20:16 GMT)

Palestinian-American boy stabbed to death in Gaza war-related hate crime

A six-year-old Palestinian-American Muslim boy was stabbed to death and his mother seriously wounded near the city of Chicago in the United States, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says.

A 71-year-old white man – their landlord – has been charged with murder, after authorities say he stabbed the boy 26 times and seriously wounded a 32-year-old woman because they are Muslim.

Police said that the man, who has been charged with a hate crime, targeted the child and his mother due to their “Muslim identities and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and Israel”, a local news channel reported.

15 Oct 2023 - 19:50

(19:50 GMT)

‘From friend to enemy’: Palestinians in Israel suspended from jobs over war

Lawyers and human rights organisations in Israel have received dozens of complaints from both workers and students who, since last Saturday following Hamas’s offensive, have been abruptly suspended from schools, universities and workplaces over social media posts or, in some cases, conversations with colleagues.

Letters sent by some of their institutes or offices, reviewed by Al Jazeera, cited posts written on social media and alleged support for “terrorism” as the reason for the immediate suspension “until the matter is investigated”. In some cases, recipients have been summoned to appear before a disciplinary committee.

“People who have been working for three, four, five years found themselves getting letters saying don’t come to work because of what you published,” Hassan Jabareen, the director of Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, told Al Jazeera from Haifa, a city in the country’s north.

You can read more about Palestinians being suspended in Israel since the war in Gaza began here.

15 Oct 2023 - 19:45

(19:45 GMT)

Venezuela to send aid to Palestinians following Abbas-Maduro call

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said he spoke by phone to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and told him Caracas would send 30 tonnes of humanitarian aid in the next few days.

15 Oct 2023 - 19:43

(19:43 GMT)

Israeli soldiers storm West Bank refugee camp

By Ayman Nobani and Ayman Nobani

Israeli forces have raided Al Aroub refugee camp in the West Bank, injuring at least one Palestinian man with live ammunition, according to witnesses.

Israeli soldiers are so far preventing the ambulance from evacuating the injured man, witnesses told Al Jazeera.

15 Oct 2023 - 19:36

(19:36 GMT)

Iran warns Israel of regional escalation if Gaza ground offensive launched

Iran has warned Israel of regional escalation if the Israeli military enters Gaza for a ground invasion as the war with Hamas enters its second week.

“If the measures aimed at immediately stopping the Israeli attacks that are killing children in the Gaza Strip end in a deadlock, it is highly probable that many other fronts will be opened. This option is not ruled out and this is becoming increasingly more probable,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told Al Jazeera on Sunday.

“If the Zionist entity [Israel] decides to enter Gaza, the resistance leaders will turn it into a graveyard of the occupation soldiers,” he added.

Far-right leader Smotrich says government failed to protect civilians

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said the government was taking responsibility for the failure to prevent the Hamas offensive last week, saying it failed to protect Israeli citizens.

“We have to admit honestly, painfully and with a bowed head – we, the state leadership and the security establishment, have failed in maintaining the security of our citizens,” far-right leader Smotrich, a key partner in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, told a news conference.

“We failed to implement the unwritten contract, the first of its kind between a state and its citizens – a contract that was written in blood and is now stained with blood.”

15 Oct 2023 - 19:17

(19:17 GMT)

Operations at Syria’s Aleppo airport to resume Monday

Syria’s transport ministry says operations at Aleppo airport will resume on Monday morning after an Israeli air strike put it out of service.

According to Syria’s state news agency, the transport ministry said operations will restart on Monday at 8am local time (05:00 GMT).

15 Oct 2023 - 19:06

(19:06 GMT)

Algeria to host Palestinian football team’s matches: Football federation

Algeria says it has agreed to host matches involving the Palestinian football team amid the ongoing fighting in Gaza.

A statement by the Algerian Football Federation said the country has agreed to stage “all official and non-official matches involving the Palestinian team’s preparation for qualification to the 2026 World Cup and 2027 Asian Cup and to assume all associated costs”.

The move came after a request to the Algerian authorities by Jibril Rajoub, the head of the Palestinian Football Association. The Palestinians will “host” Australia in Algeria on November 21 in a 2026 World Cup qualifier.