Israel Palestine war news LIVE: ‘Majority’ of 200 people kidnapped by Hamas are still alive, says IDF as Gaza death toll ‘rises to 4,137

• The majority of some 200 people kidnapped in Israel by Hamas militants and taken to the Gaza Strip are still alive, the Israeli military said Friday.
• In a statement by the Israeli Army, a spokesman said: ‘The majority of the hostages are alive. There were also dead bodies that were taken… to the Gaza Strip.’
• The news comes ahead of an expected Israeli ground offensive to assault key Hamas positions following more than 100 strikes by the IDF overnight.
• The military said more than 20 hostages were children, while between 10 and 20 were over the age of 60.
• Israel adds between 100 and 200 people are still considered missing since the Hamas attacks.
• Meanwhile, the Hamas-controlled health ministry claimed at least 4,137 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Israel began bombarding the Palestinian enclave.
• In figures yet to be independently verified, the ministry added another 13,162 people have been wounded in the Israeli strikes, which have been ongoing since October 7.

• Any escalation of military activities in the Gaza Strip will be “catastrophic” for people there, the UN high commissioner for refugees said Friday.
• “(I) can tell you with certainty that any further escalation or even continuation of military activities will just be catastrophic for the people of Gaza,” Filippo Grandi told reporters in Japan.
• While stressing that refugee agency UNHCR has no formal mandate in the Palestinian Territories or Israel, Grandi said that he “shares the extreme worry and anguish that has been expressed by many of my colleagues including the UN secretary general” about the conflict.
• It comes as the UN said the first aid delivery into the besieged Gaza Strip via the Rafah border crossing with Egypt should take place “in the next day or so”.
• The Israeli military said it had struck more than 100 targets across Gaza linked to the territory’s Hamas rulers overnight, including a tunnel and arms depots.

• Israel’s defense minister today said one objective in the military campaign in the Gaza Strip is to end Israel’s responsibility over the Palestinian coastal enclave.
• Defense Minister Yoav Gallant made the remarks during a briefing to parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, his office said.
• ‘Gallant detailed the objectives of the campaign including the elimination of Hamas and destruction of both its military and governing capabilities, the complete removal of Israeli responsibility from the Gaza strip, and the creation of a new security reality in the region,’ the statement said.

‘Three Hezbollah terrorists were identified in the area of the border with Lebanon. Israel Defence Forces aircraft struck the terrorists,’ Israeli authorities said.

‘In addition, a short while ago, IDF snipers opened fire toward gunmen that were identified operating in the area of the border with Lebanon.’

Another plane carrying fresh humanitarian aid has arrived in Egypt just 20 minutes from the border with Gaza.

The arrival comes as calls increase to open up a corridor to send vital ‘life-saving’ supplies into Palestine.

Overnight, barriers blocking the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt were removed.

The World Health Organization called for the ‘immediate, unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access, including through Rafah’.

The Kremlin said on Friday that remarks by U.S. President Joe Biden comparing Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Palestinian militant group Hamas were ‘unacceptable’.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters the current time was a potentially dangerous moment on the international agenda, and that the threat to Russian citizens would grow exponentially once Israel started its expected ground operation to try to oust Hamas from Gaza.

Peskov declined to say who would represent Russia at a peace summit for the Palestinian conflict in Cairo on Saturday, referring the query to the foreign ministry.

The comments from the Kremlin official come as Putin’s forces continue their murderous invasion of Ukraine, with Russian shelling of the city of Vovchansk reportedly injuring two men, aged 57 and 69, and damaged a children’s building and four residnetial properties

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), has told of his anguish at the war between Israel and Gaza.

In an emotive post on X, formerly Twitter, the health chief said: ‘All of us at the WHO have been shocked, appalled and saddened by the conflict in Israel and Gaza.’

Deploring the ‘attacks on health care in boith Gaza and Israel’, Dr Adhanom Ghebreyesus pleaded for more ‘life-saving supplies’ to be delivered into Gaza.

Calling on Israel to send fuel as part of its contribution, the health boss added: ‘Our trucks are loaded and ready to go.’

He continued: ‘Bullets and bombs are not the solution to this situation. War will bring nothing but destruction and horror.’

• About 1,000 protesters from several mosques in Jakarta marched on the heavily-guarded US embassy in Indonesia’s capital, on Friday.
• They were denouncing the staunch American support for Israel and demanded an end to Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.
• Similar protests also took place outside the UN mission, a few miles from the US embassy, and in the compound of the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• In Kuala Lumpur, Malasyia, demonstrators torched pictures of Israeli President Isaac Herzog outside the US embassy.

• Ashley Perry, former senior advisor to the Israeli government accuses Hamas of using aid money to build an underground network of tunnels in Gaza.
• Mr Perry told Sky News Hamas bunkers were built ‘for them and their families’ adding Hamas ‘don’t care about the average civilian on the ground’.
• He adds Israeli blockade was ‘ensuring the water, electricity and air was cut out’ from the bunkers ‘pushing’ Hamas chiefs onto ground to allow IDF to target them.

• The Israel Defence Forces posted an update to X sayinng fighter jets attacked more than hundred ‘operational targets’ run by Hamas
• Attacks destroyed ‘tunnel shafts, munitions warehouses and dozens of operational headquarters’, IDF said.
• Israel also claimed to have ‘eliminated a terrorist who was in the naval force’ of Hamas who ‘took part in the murderous terrorist operations in the Gaza Strip’.

• Trucks stuffed with international aid for Gaza should be rolling “in the next day or so,” the United Nations said Friday.
• A spokesman for UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told reporters in Geneva they were in “deep and advanced negotiations” with all sides to ensure aid moves “as quickly as possible.”
• “A first delivery is due to start in the next day or so,” they said.
• Medicine, water purifiers and blankets were being unloaded at El Arish airport near Gaza, an AFP reporter saw, with Ahmed Ali, head of the Egyptian Red Crescent, saying he was getting “two to three planes of aid a day”.

• The Israel Defence Forces has changed its messaging over the evacuation of Kiryat Shmona near the border of Lebanon.
• Some 20,000 residents were told to leave their homes earlier today but the IDF now says the evacuation order is not mandatory.

• French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna will attend a meeting on the Palestinian-Israeli issue in Egypt on Saturday, a French diplomatic source said on Friday.
• Colonna had already travelled to Cairo, Beirut and Israel last week as Paris looks to reduce the risk of an escalation across the region.
• Diplomatic sources said there was still a possibility that President Emmanuel Macron would attend the meeting.
• It comes as British PM Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden visited the region this week.

• Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox church in the Gaza Strip is destroyed overnight, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem said.
• Unconfirmed reports by Gaza health officials claimed 500 Muslims and Christians were sheltering in it at the time of the blast.
• The Israeli military told AFP that its fighter jets had hit a command and control centre involved in launching rockets and mortars towards Israel.
• In a statement, the IDF said ‘as a result’ of the strike, ‘a wall of a church in the area was damaged’, adding: ‘We are aware of reports on casualties. The incident is under review.’
• Footage from the scene shows rescue workers sifting through large piles of rubble and debris.
• The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem expressed its ‘strongest condemnation’ of the strike.

• Columns of Israeli tanks have massed on the Israel-Gaza border and tens of thousands of soldiers appear to be steeling themselves for battle today.
• The massing of artillery and men at the border comes after heavy machine gunfire was heard along the border in the early hours of this morning.

It was supposed to be a scene of joy – a mother reaching out to her crying newborn daughter and cradling her to her chest after months of feeling her little kicks.

But instead, the hospital room was silent as the doctor carefully placed the unborn baby, no bigger than his palms, onto her mother’s unmoving body.

• The Israeli military said it had struck more than 100 targets across Gaza linked to the territory’s Hamas rulers overnight, including a tunnel and arms depots.

• China and Russia “share the same position on the question of Palestine,” China’s Special Envoy on the conflict, Zhai Jun has declared.
• “China and Russia share the same position on the question of Palestine, and China is ready to maintain communication and coordination with the Russian Federation in order to cool down the situation as soon as possible,” the envoy said in comments carried by Chinese broadcaster CCTV.
• Beijing argues the conflict is inflamed because ‘the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people have not been guaranteed,’ according to Zhai.

• Hamas spokesman Hassan Yousef was arrested by Israeli troops amid a raid on the West Bank yesterday.
• Israel’s security agency Shin Bet confirmed the arrest this morning speaking with CNN.
• Yousef is top Palestinian politician and also serves as Hamas’ official spokesperson in the West Bank.

• Rishi Sunak and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani have agreed to work together to prevent the spread of violence throughout the Middle East.
• Downing St. statement said the pair “underlined the imperative of avoiding any escalation in the violence” and “agreed that leaders had a responsibility to do everything possible to prevent it”.
• “They agreed on the urgent need to get food, water and medicine to civilians who are suffering,” the statement read.
• “The leaders looked forward to meeting again soon to deepen the bilateral relationship between our countries.”

• Sir Keir Starmer has said Israel does not have the right to withhold humanitarian aid from Gaza.
• ‘(Israelis) have the right to self-defence – that right they do have – but not the right to withhold that humanitarian aid that needs to get in. It is now absolutely urgent.’

• Rishi Sunak is travelling to Egypt as part of an intensive diplomatic effort to prevent the Israel-Hamas war spiralling into a wider regional conflict.
• The Prime Minister has already held talks with Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia‘s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
• Downing Street said he would hold further meetings with counterparts from the region in Egypt.

• The death toll from a raid by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank rose to 13, Palestinian health officials said Friday, as casualties mounted in the territory while war rages in Gaza.
• At least 81 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops or settlers in the West Bank since the Gaza conflict erupted on October 7, according to figures from the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah.
• One member of the Israeli security forces has also been killed in the territory.

• A senior Israeli official said the government could take action if the BBC continued ‘crossing the line in accordance with our laws’.
• It came after Israel’s president Isaac Herzog said its policy of referring to Hamas as militants was ‘atrocious’.
• Israel’s communications ministry is currently looking at the possibility of closing Qatari-owned

Al Jazeera’s local bureau over claims its coverage was favourable to Hamas.

• Heavy machine gun fire was heard along the Israel-Gaza border in the early hours of Friday, after the green light was given for a ground invasion.
• Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, on Thursday visited troops positioned along the Gaza border, and told them that they would soon see the Palestinian enclave ‘from inside’.
• An infantry commander in the IDF told DailyMail.com on Thursday that they were ready to invade, adding there was ‘a very high level of optimism’ among his troops.