Israel-Hamas War HIGHLIGHTS: US advises Israel to delay ground attack as Gaza death count crosses 5,000

Mahmoud Shalabi, an aid worker with the Medical Aid for Palestinians group, said the aid shipments that Israel allowed to cross into Gaza were a “drop in the ocean of the needs” required to address the rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis there.

Israel is preparing for a "multilateral operation" on Hamas from the "air, ground, and sea," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a video statement released Monday, CNN reports.

A third small aid convoy from Egypt has entered Gaza, where the population of 2.3 million has been running out of food, water and medicine under Israel’s two-week seal.

A hospital in Gaza City was overrun with patients from airstrikes Monday with people lying on a blood-covered floor and two children at a time being treated on exam tables.

Hamas Political Bureau member Jamila Al-Shanti was killed after an Israeli airstrike on her home in Gaza City, Hamas said in a statement released on October 19, CNN reported. 

Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital, in Rafah, registered 61 deaths since Monday morning following a day of intense airstrikes in the southern Gaza Strip.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says the UK will give a further £20m of humanitarian aid to Gaza, doubling its earlier funding, BBC reported.

The British government says it has concluded that a devastating explosion at a hospital in Gaza was likely caused by a misfired missile from within Palestinian territory, rather than an Israeli strike.

"This is a moment for great care and caution, but also for moral clarity," BBC quoted British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. "Hope in humanity must win out" against terrorism, he said. Comparing the war in Gaza to the war in Ukraine, Sunak said: "Putin will fail, and so will Hamas."

The Israel Defense Forces believe that in order to attain the objectives of the war against Hamas, laid out by government officials, the military must begin its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip sooner rather than later, The Times of Israel reports.

The Lebanese government does not want a war with Israel, Lebanese Acting Minister of Information Ziad Makari said in an interview with the Russian state media on Monday, CNN reported.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in Jerusalem, telling him that “we are in a battle of civilization against barbarism”, reported The Times of Israel.

The US has advised Israeli officials that a delay in a possible ground offensive in Gaza would allow more time for the U.S. to work with its regional partners to release more hostages, according to a U.S. official familiar with Biden administration’s thinking on the matter.

Norway is willing to assist in a possible investigation of alleged war crimes in Gaza and Israel, its justice minister said Monday.

Dutch authorities detained 19 activists who occupied the entrance to the International Criminal Court on Monday, denouncing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Israel's actions during the war with Hamas.

"Spoke with His Majesty @KingAbdullahII of Jordan. Exchanged views on the developments in the West Asia region. We share concerns regarding terrorism, violence and loss of civilian lives. Concerted efforts needed for early resolution of the security and humanitarian situation," tweeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says the death toll in the Strip since Israel’s bombing campaign began has risen to 5,087, including over 400 killed in the last 24 hours, reported The Times of Israel.

The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has sharply criticized the United Nations Security Council for failing to confront the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza, CNN reported. 

Gaza’s Hamas-run Interior Ministry said at least 18 people were killed in Israeli attacks on neighborhoods in Rafah city on Monday. It said scores of Palestinians were also wounded.

Israeli warplanes struck targets across Gaza on Monday, including in areas where Palestinian civilians have been told to seek refuge, after another small aid shipment was allowed into the besieged Hamas-ruled territory.

A suspected drone infiltration alert is sounding in the southern community of Nir Oz, close to the border with the Gaza Strip, reported The Times of Israel.

Some 436 people, including 182 children, were killed in overnight Israeli strikes on Gaza, CNN reported citing the Palestinian Health Ministry's statement.

Iraq’s army spokesperson says the state will go after militants who have carried out attacks against army bases housing US troops in the country.

As conditions rapidly worsen, Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry appealed on Monday for blood donations for hospitals in the besieged territory that are suffering from dire shortages of blood and medical supplies.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out raids “along the contact line” with Gaza overnight to “kill terrorist squads," a spokesperson said, as it ramps up its bombardment on the Palestinian enclave ahead of an anticipated ground assault, CNN reported.

A third fleet of vehicles carrying desperately needed aid entered Gaza via the Rafah crossing with Egypt on Monday, according to a CNN journalist on the ground.

At least 85 people have been arrested in the occupied West Bank by Israeli forces Sunday night and early Monday morning, according to a statement published by the Palestinian Prisoners Club, CNN reports.

DF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says the military has so far notified the families of 222 hostages that their loved ones are being held in the Gaza Strip, Times of Israel reported.
He says that the number includes a not insignificant number of foreign nationals, and that it has taken time for them to be identified and for their families to be notified.

European Union foreign ministers are meeting Monday to discuss ways to help vital aid get into Gaza, particularly fuel, after two convoys entered over the weekend.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that “in normal times, without war, 100 trucks enter into Gaza every day. So it’s clear that 20 is not enough.”

 Israeli warplanes struck targets across Gaza early Monday, including in areas where Palestinian civilians have been told to seek refuge after another small aid shipment was allowed into the besieged Hamas-ruled territory. Israel is widely expected to launch a ground offensive in Gaza following Hamas' brutal October 7 rampage into southern Israeli communities. Tanks and troops have been massed at the Gaza border, and Israel says it has stepped up airstrikes in order to reduce the risk to troops in the next stages. Fears of a widening war have grown as Israeli warplanes have struck targets in the occupied West Bank, Syria and Lebanon in recent days.

In yet another incident of a massive attack by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), more than 30 Palestinians were killed in an airstrike that hit a residential building in Gaza.

Read full story here 

The IDF Spokesperson's Unit unveiled aerial images on Sunday captured during the Swords of Iron war, providing evidence of Hamas's strategy of initiating rocket attacks in close proximity to civilian locales from within the Gaza Strip.

 A premature baby squirms inside a glass incubator in the neonatal ward of al-Aqsa Hospital in the central Gaza Strip. He cries out as intravenous lines are connected to his tiny body. A ventilator helps him breathe as a catheter delivers medication and monitors flash his fragile vital signs. His life hinges on the constant flow of electricity, which is in danger of running out imminently unless the hospital can get more fuel for its generators. Once the generators stop, hospital director Iyad Abu Zahar fears that the babies in the ward, unable to breathe on their own, will perish. “The responsibility on us is huge,” he said.

The White House said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to allow the “continuous flow” of international aid into Gaza from Egypt during a phone call Sunday with US President Joe Biden.

The United Nations humanitarian chief says it’s unclear whether more aid will enter Gaza on Sunday. “We had hoped for more today,” Martin Griffiths told Sky News. “I‘m not sure we’re going to get it. We’re deep in negotiation at the moment with the Israelis, the Egyptians, with a huge amount of help, by the way, from the United States.

Deadly violence has been surging in the West Bank as the Israeli military pursues Palestinian militants in the aftermath of the Hamas attack from Gaza, with at least 90 Palestinians killed in the Israeli-occupied territory in the past two weeks, mainly in clashes with Israeli troops.

Thousands of pregnant women in the Gaza Strip who are expected to give birth this month are in grave danger because they are not able to reach a medical facility to deliver, an aid agency says.
Guillemette Thomas, medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in the Palestinian territories, said women have already given birth in UNRWA schools that have turned into shelters housing tens of thousands of displaced people.

 Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday said the United States expects the Israel-Hamas war to escalate through involvement by proxies of Iran and asserted that the Biden administration is prepared to respond if American personnel or armed forces become the target of any such hostilities.

Israel says Sunday that a second batch of humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza, at the request of the U.S. and according to instructions from other political officials.
On Saturday, 20 trucks entered in the first shipment into the territory since Israel imposed a complete siege two weeks ago. Sunday’s batch included only water, food, and medical equipment, with no fuel, Israel said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited troops stationed near the border with Lebanon, where the Israeli army and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants also have traded fire during the Hamas-Israel war.
A top official with Iran Hezbollah vowed Saturday that Israel would pay a high price whenever it starts a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and said Saturday that his militant group based in Lebanon already is “in the heart of the battle.”