Live
By Linah Alsaafin and Usaid Siddiqui
Published On 10 Feb 2024
  • Gaza’s health ministry says 117 Palestinians have been killed and 152 wound during the past 24 hours.
  • As Israel intensifies its attacks on Rafah, people are now escaping to the central part of the Gaza Strip about 20km (eight miles) away.
11 Feb 2024 - 00:00
 (00:00 GMT)

Thank you for joining us

This live page is now closed.

Follow along with our ongoing coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza here.

And you can always read more about the conflict here.

People gather around the remains of a Palestinian police vehicle, which was reportedly destroyed in Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday [Said Khatib /AFP]
10 Feb 2024 - 23:50
 (23:50 GMT)

Here’s what happened today

We will be closing this live page soon. Here is a recap of today’s events:

  • Members of the international community have warned any Israeli operation in Gaza would lead to a “humanitarian catastrophe”.
  • Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who appealed for help on the phone after coming under Israeli fire with her family, was found dead after 12 days along with two medics sent to find her.
  • A senior Hamas official survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Lebanon, which killed two civilians.
  • The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded.
  • Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) says Israeli forces continue to fire at people inside the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis.
10 Feb 2024 - 23:40
 (23:40 GMT)

Hamas operated compound under UNRWA HQ in Gaza, Israeli military says

Israel has announced that it discovered a Hamas tunnel network, including a communications centre, that runs under the headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza.

Israeli military officials, who took foreign journalists on a tour of the compound, said the tunnel network is 700 metres long (765 yards) and 18 metres deep (70 ft), and appears to have used UNRWA’s electricity supply.

“The shaft led to an underground terror tunnel that served as a significant asset of Hamas’s military intelligence and passed under the building that serves as UNRWA’s main headquarters in the Gaza Strip,” Israel’s army and the Shin Bet security agency said in a statement.

Commissioner-General of UNRWA Philippe Lazzarini said his agency could not “confirm or otherwise comment on these reports” and “did not know what is under its headquarters in Gaza”.

“UNRWA is a human development and humanitarian organisation that does not have the military and security expertise nor the capacity to undertake military inspections of what is or might be under its premises,” Lazzarini said in a post on X.

Israel’s announcement comes after it last month alleged that several UNRWA staff were involved in Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, prompting more than a dozen countries to pause funding to the relief agency.

10 Feb 2024 - 23:15
 (23:15 GMT)

Israeli offensive in Rafah would be ‘unjustifiable’: Dutch minister

Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins Slot says the situation in the southern Gaza city is “very worrying” amid a looming Israeli military operation on the area.

“Many civilians in Gaza have fled south,” she posted on X.

“Hard to see how large-scale military operations in such a densely populated area would not lead to many civilian casualties and a bigger humanitarian catastrophe. This is unjustifiable.”

Rafah is densely populated, as more than 1 million displaced Palestinians are estimated to be sheltering close to the border with Egypt.

10 Feb 2024 - 22:55
 (22:55 GMT)

Israeli transport minister: I will not agree to stop the war

Miri Regev, a member of PM Netanyahu’s Likud Party, has given an interview with Israeli broadcaster Channel 14, in which he said that regardless of any deal Israel agrees to with Hamas to secure the release of Israeli captives, he will not agree to a permanent ceasefire.

“We need to understand that if we stop the war, the next step is massacre,” he said.

 

10 Feb 2024 - 22:40
 (22:40 GMT)

Palestinian man dies in West Bank after being shot by Israeli soldiers

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic and the Wafa news agency are reporting that Muhammad Ahmad Muhammad Khadour, a resident of the town of Biddu, north of West Jerusalem, has died.

Just 19 years old, he was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers while in a vehicle in Kharb al-Lahm, before being rushed to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah. He died of his wounds there.

10 Feb 2024 - 22:25
 (22:25 GMT)

WATCH: Israeli snipers kill Palestinians in Gaza

At least 21 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli snipers since Thursday.

Watch our video report below:

10 Feb 2024 - 22:10
 (22:10 GMT)

Several killed in Deir el-Balah attack: Red Crescent

The Palestine Red Crescent Society says four people were killed and eight injured in the central Gaza city following an attack on the al-Hakr area.

Deir el-Balah has become the target of relentless air raids by the Israeli army since the war began on October 7.

10 Feb 2024 - 21:55
 (21:55 GMT)
Developing

Nablus is being raided by Israeli forces

Video verified by Al Jazeera shows that a raid has begun on the Alawite cooperation area in the occupied West Bank city.

The video shows Israeli army vehicles in the streets of the city.

Earlier, we reported on a raid taking place in Hebron, also in the occupied West Bank.

These raids by Israeli security forces are a daily occurrence there, often leading to vandalism of Palestinian homes and businesses, clashes between soldiers and residents, injuries, arrests and even deaths.

10 Feb 2024 - 21:40
 (21:40 GMT)

EU diplomat says Israeli offensive in Rafah will lead to ‘humanitarian catastrophe’

Furthermore, the European Union’s top foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the offensive would also result in “grave” tensions between Israel and Egypt.

“Release of hostages and resumption of negotiations to fit hostilities is the only way to prevent bloodshed,” he posted on X.

10 Feb 2024 - 21:25
 (21:25 GMT)

Israelis forces raid town in Qalqilya

Our colleagues are reporting that Israeli soldiers have stormed the occupied West Bank town of Azzun.

Earlier, Israeli forces also raided the al-Dhahr area in the town of Beit Ummar in Hebron.

More than 6,900 Palestinians have been arrested in the occupied West Bank since the war on Gaza began on October 7.

Members of Israeli security forces arrest a demonstrator in the occupied West Bank [Hazem Bader/AFP]
10 Feb 2024 - 21:10
 (21:10 GMT)

Israeli media reports say many details of Israeli Rafah assault still not finalised

As the nearly 2 million displaced Palestinians in Rafah wait in terror for the Israeli army to follow through with its stated plans to begin a ground operation against the city, reports from media outlets within Israel say the assault may not be starting as soon as expected.

Newspaper Haaretz is reporting that the Israeli government has not concluded the details of the Rafah operation with Egypt, specifically how to handle action against Hamas’s tunnels that cross from Gaza into Egyptian territory. For this and other reasons, the newspaper says citing a source familiar with Israeli war cabinet deliberation, a date for the beginning of the assault has not yet been set.

Supporting the assertion that the operation is not imminent is a report from broadcaster Channel 12, which says that while an attack plan has been finalised by the Israeli army, no green light has been given from the government.

Prominent members of the international community have been drawing attention all week to the dire humanitarian consequences of any attack on Rafah.

10 Feb 2024 - 20:55
 (20:55 GMT)
Analysis

Hind Rajab’s death shows defencelessness of Palestinians in Gaza

Political commentator Nour Odeh says the deaths of Hind Rajab and two paramedics are evidence of how “brutal” the continuing war is.

Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who had been missing for 12 days after an Israeli tank targeted her family’s car in Gaza, was found along with the bodies of two medics dispatched to look for them.

“It brings into very sharp focus … how defenceless these civilians are, and how impossible the work of paramedics and first responders, and doctors is,” she told Al Jazeera.

“We’ve seen the killing of dozens of paramedics, first responders, and doctors over the past four months,” she added. “Some of them were shot inside hospital compounds, in addition to patients.”

Odeh said Rajab’s death should be a wake-up call for the international community.

“The question is, will we see countries spring to action? We saw them spring to action to defend, for example, the one organisation [UNRWA] that is able to help and provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza on no evidence,” she added.

“And yet all of this insurmountable evidence and the ICJ order saying that Israel must stop any genocidal acts, yet we see very little in the way of action by states that can make a difference.”

10 Feb 2024 - 20:40
 (20:40 GMT)

UK’s Cameron the latest to express concern about impending Rafah assault

A number of high-profile people, from top UN and government officials to the leaders of major NGOs, have sounded the alarm on Isareal’s planned military operation in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

The UK’s foreign secretary is the latest to add his voice to the chorus, drawing attention to the fact that “over half of Gaza’s population are sheltering there”.

“The priority must be an immediate pause in the fighting to get aid in and hostages out, then progress towards a sustainable, permanent ceasefire,” he wrote in an X post.

10 Feb 2024 - 20:25
 (20:25 GMT)

WHO calls for immediate release of staff, patients at al-Amal hospital

The director of the UN health agency Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says reports of the Israeli raid into the Khan Younis hospital, and the detention of health staff and patients, are “extremely concerning”.

“We urge for patients’ and health workers’ immediate release. Health personnel, patients and facilities MUST be protected at all times,” he posted on X.

We previously reported that the Palestinian Red Crescent Society had said its headquarters in al-Amal Hospital were being raided by Israeli forces.

10 Feb 2024 - 20:10
 (20:10 GMT)

One person killed in Israeli bombing in central Gaza

Our colleagues are reporting an Israeli attack on a home in Deir el-Balah, leading to the death of one woman and the injury of several other Palestinians.

Deir el-Balah, an area that has been largely designated as safe in the initial weeks of the war, has become the target of relentless air raids by the Israeli army.

 

 

10 Feb 2024 - 19:55
 (19:55 GMT)

Quds Brigades say they carried out multiple attacks in Khan Younis

Fighters of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad say that, after returning from front-line areas in the west of the city, they took the following actions:

  • Quds fighters attacked a group of Israeli soldiers inside a house with a rocket, killing and wounding several.
  • They said that an Israeli position in the al-Hawoz area was targeted with a barrage of mortar shells.
  • Fighters from the group clashed with Israeli soldiers and vehicles using machine guns and explosives.
10 Feb 2024 - 19:40
 (19:40 GMT)

Report: Netanyahu wants to re-mobilise Israeli army reservists for Rafah operation

The Israeli prime minister urged Israeli army chief of staff Herzi Halevi to recruit again reservists who had been released from military service, Israeli broadcaster Channel 13 reports.

Halevi’s response, according to the report, was to tell Netanyahu that the army can handle any task.

Channel 13 goes on to say, citing a “senior Israeli official”,  that the army’s Rafah operation is getting closer to starting, but that coordination with the Egyptians has not yet been achieved.

10 Feb 2024 - 19:25
 (19:25 GMT)
Developing

Israeli forces hit Deir el-Balah

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera are reporting that Israeli forces have hit a home in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

It was not immediately clear how many casualties resulted from the attack.

 

10 Feb 2024 - 19:10
 (19:10 GMT)

Police in Tel Aviv break up anti-Netanyahu protests

Israeli media outlets are reporting that police took action against the demonstrators, who number in the thousands, after they tried to block Kaplan Street in central Tel Aviv.

The protesters are demanding elections and showing their anger at the Israeli prime minister for his failure to bring captives still held in Gaza home.

Reports say that these protests are occurring at dozens of other locations throughout Israel’s capital.

Video published by one outlet shows protesters blocking Kaplan Street:

European organisations have no plan to ban Israel, unlike swift action that was taken against Russia.

Published On 9 Feb 2024