Israel-Hamas war: Live updates as IDF launches daring raids into Gaza, death toll mounts

The IDF says it has launched a series of small but daring raids into the Gaza Strip under the cover of night to kill terrorist cells and try to learn information about the hundreds of hostages who remain in Hamas’s custody.

Meanwhile its bombardment of Gaza continues. Local health authorities claim the Palestinian death toll has risen to 5,087, including 2,055 children, with a further 15,273 people injured. In the last 24 hours, the death toll has been reported at 436, 182 of whom are children.

Those are figures from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. They have not been independently verified.

The ministry also claims most of those most recent deaths were in southern Gaza, to which Israel has advised Palestinian civilians to evacuate for their own safety. Again, that claim has not been independently verified.

Read on for the latest news.

‘Hard to imagine’: Israel’s frustration at hostage crisis

A minister in the Israeli government has expressed frustration at Hamas over its continuing refusal to release the hostages it took back to Gaza earlier this month.

Yoav Kisch, who is Israel’s minister for education, was appearing on Britain’s GB News.

“We demand the immediate and unconditional release of these hostages,” Mr Kisch said.

“We’re dealing with uninvolved people – babies, kids, elderly women. It’s crazy that we even have to speak about it.

“It’s such a war crime that it’s even hard to imagine. So this thing has to happen immediately. We will continue our efforts to make sure that Hamas will not control Gaza.

“This is for the benefit of both Israel and the Palestinians. Hamas is the main cause for the suffering of both people.”

He went on to say that “killing Jews because they are Jews” was “not going to be an option anymore” for any potential enemies of Israel.

‘They betrayed us’: Civilians’ terror as shelter bombed

Reuters has interviewed an 18-year-old Palestinian woman who says 13 of her family members were killed in an air strike, despite heeding Israeli warnings to move south for their safety.

Dima Al-Lamdani told the news service her immediate family and that of her uncle travelled south from a refugee camp in Gaza City in two cars, ending up at a temporary shelter in Khan Younis, a city in southwestern Gaza, near the border with Egypt.

In the early hours of the morning, the shelter was bombed.

“Suddenly I woke up in the middle of ruins. Everyone around me was screaming, so I screamed,” Ms Al-Lamdani said.

After searching for her family members in the morgue, she found that only her brother and two of her young cousins had survived the blast.

“I went to look for my mother, my father and my siblings at the morgue. At first they said, ‘Come, see your mother.’ They didn’t show me her face, but I recognised her from what she had on her feet,” she said.

“I felt heartbroken. It was like a nightmare.

“I had a 16-year-old sister among the dead. And they had written my name on her sheet, because they thought it was me.

“They also showed me my little sister. She’s in first grade, and they asked, ‘Who is she?’ At first I didn’t recognise her due to the cuts and burns on her face.

“I never would have thought my family would end up like this. It’s a nightmare. I couldn’t believe it until now that they are all dead.”

Ms Al-Lamdani said she felt the Israelis had “betrayed” her family.

“They told us to evacuate your place and go to Khan Younis, because it is safe,” she said.

“They betrayed us and bombed us.”

In a statement to Reuters, the IDF said: “The IDF has been encouraging residents of the northern Gaza Strip to move southward and not to stay in the vicinity of Hamas terror targets within Gaza City.

“But, ultimately, Hamas has entrenched itself among the civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip. So wherever a Hamas target arises, the IDF will strike at it in order to thwart the terrorist capabilities of the group, while taking feasible precautions to mitigate the harm to uninvolved civilians.”

Daring night-time raids into Gaza

While no official ground invasion has been initiated yet, the IDF today confirmed small strike teams had been operating within the Gaza Strip, launching daring but limited night-time raids to take out Hamas terrorists.

Military spokesman Daniel Hagari said small “armoured and infantry forces” had been deployed overnight “to kill terrorist cells that are preparing for next phases of war”.

“During the night there were raids by tank and infantry forces. These raids are raids that kill squads of terrorists who are preparing for our next stage in the war,” he said.

“These are raids that go deep.”

The operation was also focused on gathering more information on the 222 hostages still held by Hamas, most of whom are Israeli citizens.

Hospitals operating without painkillers

Aid agencies across the globe have continued calls to cease violence in Gaza, with hospitals now forced to operate without basic painkillers and morphine as casualties stack up.

Aid trucks from various nations have arrived, but there are still fears over civilians getting adequate supplies as Gaza runs out of basic items.

“What is extremely important are the trauma kits, the surgery kits,” the Head of Mission for Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) Leo Cans said.

Doctors working in the warzone are “doing surgical operations without the correct dose of narcotics, without the correct dose of morphine”, according to Cans.

“In terms of pain management, it‘s not happening. We currently have people being operated on without having morphine. It just happened to two kids. We have a lot of kids that are unfortunately among the wounded, and I was discussing with one of our surgeons, who received a 10-year-old yesterday, burnt on 60 per cent of the body surface, and he didn‘t end up having painkillers.

“There is no justification at all to block these essential medicines to reach the population.”

The lack of fuel to power vehicles and generators has also been noted by aid agencies working in the region.

“Fuel is essential for the water plants in order to desalinate to water. If you don’t have fuel, you don‘t have quality water,” Cans said.

“Even war has rules, and you cannot bomb civilians. We have too many children, too many women arriving at the hospital. It is not acceptable.”