Israel-Hamas war updates: ‘Long and difficult’ fight as Israel pummels Gaza

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Read more about the strategic implications of Israel’s ongoing incursion into Gaza here. An opinion on how the war has changed the Middle East is here. And the expansion of Israel’s attack is here.

We will be bringing this live page to a close shortly. Here’s a recap of today’s events:

• Prime Minister Netanyahu says the fighting has entered its “second stage”, signalling the long-anticipated ground incursion is under way, while warning Israelis to prepare for a long war.
• Israel’s military says ground operations have continued since Friday in northern Gaza, although they appeared to be in a relatively limited capacity.
• The head of the Red Cross decried the limited humanitarian access to Gaza as a “catastrophic failing” of the international community as UN officials continued to appeal for a ceasefire.
• Heavy bombardment continued in Gaza, including in the south where Israel told residents to flee.
• A near-total communications blackout continues in Gaza, hampering emergency rescue operations.
• On the Israel-Lebanon border, fighting continued with a shell hitting a UN peacekeeping facility and injuring a peacekeeper.
  

  

Israeli relatives are increasingly angry over the fate of the Hamas captives, particularly during the military’s large-scale bombing campaign of Gaza where they’re held.

Netanyahu made no commitment to any prisoner-swap deal with Hamas but told families of the taken: “We will exhaust every possibility to bring them home.”

Read the full story here.

A UN peacekeeper was injured by shelling in southern Lebanon.

The UN previously said its peacekeeping headquarters had been hit by a shell as Israel-Lebanon border skirmishes intensify during the war in Gaza, but had not reported any injuries.

“One peacekeeper was lightly injured” near the border village of Hula, said Andrea Tenenti, a spokesperson for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said a Nepalese peacekeeper was “moderately injured in the stomach and arm”.

Tenenti said UNIFIL is trying to verify who fired the shells.

In a post on X, the Israeli prime minister did not say specifically what he was referring to, but began the message with, “Contrary to the false claims”.

“Under no circumstances and at no stage was Prime Minister Netanyahu warned of war intentions on the part of Hamas,” the post said.

“On the contrary”, he said, the assessment of Israel’s security council and intelligence agency was that Hamas was “deterred” at the time.

The post comes after Netanyahu took his first questions from the media following the October 7 attacks.

The Palestine Red Crescent team in Gaza was able to send a message through a “rare communication with our team in Al-Arish, Egypt”, it said in a post on X.

The emergency worker said ambulances have been geographically distributed throughout Gaza because of the near-total communication blackout. The worker noted that “this action increases the danger to the field teams”.

He added that central points have been established at hospitals to more quickly disseminate information and allow “faster access to the injured”.

🚨This voice message has reached us from our colleagues in #Gaza through a rare communication with our team in Al-Arish, Egypt.#Gaza_Genocide #Gazabombing #NotATarget pic.twitter.com/SXAgSOid2m

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) October 28, 2023

Israeli settlers have shot and killed a Palestinian man who was harvesting olives on his farm in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus.

Watch below:

The near-total communications blackout in Gaza has left residents disconnected from each other in the bombarded enclave and isolated from the world.

During an Al Jazeera Arabic live broadcast, an elderly man appeared to be trying to reassure his family of his safety from behind the speaker.

Watch the video below.

Despite a news conference that saw Netanyahu and Defence Minister Gallant take questions for the first time since the beginning of the war, Israel has yet to articulate a realistic endgame, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara says.

So far, Israel says it wants to eradicate Hamas, a goal that Bishara said could lead to an open-ended conflict.

“I think we are 20 days in and they are trying to make up their minds as they go along. Because this is an impossible mission. They kept telling us for 25 minutes in their propaganda that this is a long and painful war, because they are preparing the Israeli public for that.”

Elijah Magnier, a military and political analyst, says the Israeli government is “fully aware” that captives in Gaza cannot be freed through military force.

“Israel has never managed to release anyone in captivity by military action,” he said.

“History has shown how Netanyahu’s predecessors who opted for a protracted conflict suffered political setback, and lost their position. At the end of the day, he has to sit at the table and negotiate.”

Mirjana Spoljaric, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, says the “tragic loss of so many civilian lives is deplorable”.

“It is unacceptable that civilians have no safe place to go in Gaza amid the massive bombardments, and with a military siege in place there is also no adequate humanitarian response currently possible,” Spoljaric said in a statement.

“This is a catastrophic failing that the world must not tolerate.”

Over 2 million civilians are trapped in the Gaza Strip.

The immediate imperative must be to save lives & preserve humanity.

Healthcare, water, and electricity must be immediately restored.

Civilian life must be protected & respected on all sides.

👉 https://t.co/pMXLjilghZ pic.twitter.com/bLK0dAtIFX

— ICRC (@ICRC) October 28, 2023

Israeli attacks have accelerated during the last couple of hours.

We can clearly hear massive bombardment in the eastern areas of the Gaza Strip from Israeli artillery and Israeli air forces.

These kinds of attacks are giving clear permission to the Israeli ground troops to keep going deeper into the territory.

The bombing also continued relentlessly in the northern areas of the besieged territory where the surrounding areas of the Indonesian Hospital, which is considered to be one of the vital hospitals and medical centres in the north of the Gaza Strip, has been massively bombarded.

Only 84 aid trucks have entered Gaza since October 20 – a “vastly inadequate response to the constant and growing needs in Gaza”, Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) said.

“The actions of world leaders are too weak, too slow, as a non-binding UN resolution for a ceasefire has done nothing to reign in the indiscriminate violence unleashed on a helpless people,” the medical charity said in a statement. “The international community must take stronger action to urge Israel to stop the bloodshed.”

MSF said it had “teams on standby ready to send medical supplies and to enter Gaza, as soon as the situation allows it”.

“But if the bombing continues with the current intensity, any effort to increase medical aid will inevitably fall short.”

We have teams on standby ready to send medical supplies and to enter Gaza, as soon as the situation allows it. But if the bombing continues with the current intensity, any effort to increase medical aid will inevitably fall short.

Our full statement 👇https://t.co/UiC7QpaQoB

— MSF International (@MSF) October 28, 2023

The progressive US senator had earlier called for humanitarian pauses to allow aid into the bombarded enclave.

“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire, and getting worse by the minute,” Sanders wrote on X. “Israel must obey international law and allow innocent men, women, and children the food, water, medical supplies, and fuel that is desperately needed. NOW.”

Despite an agreement to allow aid to enter Gaza via the Rafah crossing with Egypt, humanitarian groups and the UN say only a trickle has been allowed in, far short of the needs of the population.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire, and getting worse by the minute. Israel must obey international law and allow innocent men, women, and children the food, water, medical supplies, and fuel that is desperately needed. NOW.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) October 28, 2023

A group of Israelis have gathered outside one of the dormitories of Netanya Academic College in the city of Netanya where Palestinian students reside, chanting “death to Arabs”.

Israelis chanting “Death to Arabs” in Netanya and trying to break down gate to attack Palestinian students. pic.twitter.com/UwKz5kIVi8

— Diana Buttu (@dianabuttu) October 28, 2023

Fighters in Lebanon have regularly exchanged cross-border fire with Israel since the beginning of the war.

Most recently, Israel said aircraft “attacked a number of military targets of the terrorist organisation Hezbollah in Lebanese territory”.

A military post and observation positions were destroyed. Earlier in the day, a shell hit the headquarters of the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon.

A Lebanese military source told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity, “an Israeli shell penetrated the cement wall” around the peacekeeping mission’s headquarters.

Reporting from New York City, Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomy says people are again taking to the street.

“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of demonstrators who’ve come out in support of Palestinians calling for an immediate ceasefire,” Saloomey said, adding protesters gathered at New York’s Grand Central station last night.

“There’s been a lot of demonstrations here in New York since the beginning of this conflict organised by pro-Palestinian groups and pro-Israeli groups. But as the devastation in Gaza has grown, as the calls for a ceasefire have gotten louder, the pro-Palestinian demonstrations have gotten bigger and bigger.”

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds said protesters are also gathered in front of the White House.

“People are chanting slogans denouncing the war, demanding an end of the war, and demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands,” he said.

Israeli forces have hit public telecom infrastructure in Gaza, which is now under an almost total communications blackout.

The only means to get information out to the world are the few remaining satellite telephones, but those could be targeted at any time.

Israeli Air Force dedicated electronic warfare aircraft can pinpoint every device exchanging data with low-orbit communication satellites and direct deadly air-to-ground missiles against it.

However, the destruction of communication nodes and the use of electronic countermeasures to block any remaining public lines that survived will not harm Hamas fighters who – knowing Israeli tactics and capabilities – appear to have prepared for this course of action.

You can read more of our analysis on the impact of Israel’s land incursion, bombing and information blackout here.

A source familiar with the talks tells Reuters news agency negotiations between Israel and Hamas aimed at de-escalating the war are continuing but at a “much slower pace” than before Friday’s escalation.

Sources told Al Jazeera on Friday that negotiations, mediated by Qatar, on a ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas had been “progressing and at an advanced stage”.

But the increased air and artillery attacks, severing of communications, and Israeli ground incursion appear to have stymied the truce discussions.

Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, says the group is ready for an “immediate” prisoner swap with Israel.

“We are ready to conduct an immediate prisoner exchange deal that includes the release of all Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in exchange for all prisoners held by the Palestinian resistance,” Sinwar said in a statement.

Qatar has been conducting behind-the-scenes diplomacy for more than three weeks, speaking to Hamas officials and Israel to promote peace and secure the release of hostages. Its mediation last week led to the release of two American hostages, a mother and daughter, and two elderly Israeli women.

There are 19 prisons within Israel and one inside the occupied West Bank that hold thousands of Palestinian prisoners.