Jerusalem, Nov 4 (AP) Palestinians in Gaza reported Israeli airstrikes overnight into Saturday across the besieged enclave, including explosions in the south where Israel had told civilians to seek refuge as its ground operation intensifies in northern Gaza.

Calls for a humanitarian pause increased with the UNRWA, the United Nations' agency for Palestinian refugees, reporting the average Palestinian in Gaza is surviving on two pieces of bread a day, and only one of three water supply lines from Israel is operational.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, “We are going full steam ahead” unless the hostages held by Hamas are released.

The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war has reached 9,227, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, more than 140 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids. The UNRWA says 72 of its staff members have been killed.

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More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them in the October 7 Hamas attack that started the fighting, and 242 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by the militant group.

Roughly 1,100 people have left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing since Wednesday under an apparent agreement among the United States, Egypt, Israel and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas.

Currently:

1. Blinken tries to cajole Arab leaders on support for post-conflict Gaza.

2. Israel's fortified underground blood bank processes unprecedented amounts.

3. Honduras becomes the latest Latin American country to recall its ambassador to Israel.

4. Israel deports thousands of Palestinian workers back to Gaza's war zone.

5. A UN official says the average Palestinian in Gaza is living on two pieces of bread a day

Here's what is happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:

AT LEAST 21 REPORTED WOUNDED IN AIRSTRIKE NEAR HOSPITAL

The Palestinian Red Crescent says at least 21 people taking shelter outside Al-Quds hospital in Gaza city were wounded on Saturday afternoon when an Israeli airstrike hit a building close to the entrance of the emergency ward.

Writing on X platform, formerly Twitter, the charity said the bombing, the closest to the facility, stoked panic and fear among displaced families camping outside the hospital. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Israel's military has repeatedly demanded the evacuation of the hospital and other medical facilities in northern Gaza. Such a demand was deemed impossible by the UN health agency and other aid groups given the increasing number of patients and thousands of people sheltering in the facilities.

LEBANON REPORTS ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES AND HEZBOLLAH SHELLING

Israeli warplanes conducted airstrikes along the border with Lebanon on Saturday as the militant Hezbollah group attacked several Israeli army posts along the tense frontier.

The escalation came a day after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his powerful group is already engaged in unprecedented fighting along the border and threatened a further escalation.

Hezbollah said in a statement that its fighters attacked at least six Israeli posts along the border with “suitable rockets and weapons”.

On the outskirts of the border village of Rmeish, an Israeli airstrike in a rugged area along the border caused thick gray smoke. Artillery shelling could be heard from a distance.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported airstrikes on the outskirts of several border villages including Labbouneh and Hibarieh.

ERDOGAN SAYS HE CAN NO LONGER SPEAK WITH NETANYAHU

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he could no longer speak to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in light of the bombardment of Gaza, Turkish media reported on Saturday.

“Netanyahu is no longer someone we can talk to. We erased him and threw him away,” Erdogan told journalists on a flight back from a summit in Kazakhstan.

Erdogan, however, added that his foreign minister and intelligence chief would continue to talk to “the Israeli side” as well as Hamas and other Palestinian groups.

Since Israel launched its attack on Gaza, Erdogan's rhetoric against the operation has become increasingly critical, ending efforts for Turkiye and Israel to reconcile after more than a decade of mostly hostile relations.

Erdogan, in remarks reported by state-run Anadolu news agency and other Turkish media, also reiterated the possibility of Turkey being a guarantor for any future long-term peace deal between Israel and Palestine.

“If Greece can be a guarantor country, England can be a guarantor country and Turkey is a guarantor country in Cyprus, why can't there be a similar structure in Gaza?” the president said, referring to a 1960 treaty on the east Mediterranean island.

He added that Ankara was “taking initiatives and developing formulas” to find peace.

Criticising international support for Israel, Erdogan said “the whole West, especially America, is currently on Israel's side” and that people “should not expect a fair attitude” from the European Union over Gaza.

SEVERAL REPORTED KILLED AFTER AIRSTRIKES HIT SHELTER FOR DISPLACED

Places where displaced Palestinians sought refuge from Israeli bombardment came under attack on Saturday, with Israeli strikes killing several people at a UN shelter and outside the gates of a major hospital.

The UN Palestinian refugee agency says that two strikes hit a shelter that it runs for internally displaced in the northern Gaza Strip, killing several people who had sought refuge in tents in the schoolyard as well as women baking bread inside the building.

The agency's spokesperson, Juliette Touma, said that initial reports indicated that 20 people were killed by the strikes on Fakhoura School just west of the Jabliya refugee camp. She said the agency could not confirm the death toll. The Gaza-based Health Ministry reported that 12 people were killed at Fakhoura School and another 50 were wounded.

Some 18,000 Palestinians were sheltering at Fakhoura School, according to the agency's most recent estimates.

Earlier on Saturday, an airstrike hit the gates of al-Nasser Hospital in Gaza City, where thousands had sought shelter. The strike killed at least two people, according to the Health Ministry.

US OFFICIALS BELIEVE ISRAEL'S RESISTANCE T0 AID DELIVERIES WILL EASE

Two senior US officials travelling with Secretary of State Antony Blinken have compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's opposition to humanitarian pauses in the fighting to Israel's initial refusal to allow any assistance in to Gaza in the early days of the war.

After the Israelis realized the strategic implications of denying food, water, electricity and other supplies to Palestinian civilians, their resistance began to erode, according to the officials who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to describe private diplomatic discussions.

About 100 trucks entered Gaza over the past two days and the current capacity is about 100-105 per day, but the Israelis have indicated they are now willing to consider screening and allowing in as many trucks as can be handled efficiently by the implementers on the ground, including drivers, warehouse operations, distributors and others from a variety of international organisations like the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and the World Food Programme, the officials said.

Given the already exponential increase in southern Gaza's population by roughly 800,000 to 1 million and the potential for many of the 300,000-400,000 still in the north to flee to the south, the needs are expected to grow to require as many as 500-600 trucks per day, the officials said.

But increasing to that capacity will also depend on the relative stability of the security situation on the ground, something unlikely to be achieved without humanitarian pauses, which would give a measure or confidence to not only Palestinian civilians but also to aid workers and distributors, according to the officials.

The officials said they believed the Israelis would come to understand the necessity of providing adequate assistance to Gaza's growing southern population but were still grappling with what pauses might mean for the intense pressure they are currently applying against Hamas to get them to release Israelis and others who are still being held hostage by the group, the officials said.

In terms of fuel, the officials said that Israel had agreed in principle to allow UN fuel depots in southern Gaza to be refilled once they have been exhausted for use by desalination plants, hospitals and aid convoys. But they said no new fuel has yet entered southern Gaza and none is available in the north. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)