Israel-Hamas conflict live updates: Israeli ambassador says Gaza humanitarian situation is ‘fair’ as death toll continues to rise

The New York Times is reporting that the Biden administration has asked Israel to delay a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip for a few days to give the United States more time to put air defence batteries, fighter planes and other military assets in place to protect American troops, US officials said.

US officials have been pushing Israel for a delay for multiple reasons. They include giving more time to negotiate the release of hostages held in Gaza, allowing more aid into the region and providing the Israeli military with time to refine its military objectives and potentially move away from a grinding urban fight that would incur large casualties.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has held off on a land invasion in the nearly three weeks since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. The Israeli government says more than 1400 civilians and soldiers were killed, and 200 hostages were taken back to Gaza.

The prime minister’s office declined to comment. Earlier on Wednesday, Netanyahu said the Israeli military was still preparing for a ground operation in the Gaza Strip. “I will not spell out when, how, how much,” he said. “I also won’t detail all the considerations we’re taking into account, most of them totally unknown to the public.”

US officials say it will take them a few more days to get many of those new anti-missile batteries in place. Another US official said the United States already had some air defence assets in the region that have been protecting troops from attacks in Syria.

New York Times

Australians in Lebanon are not listening to the federal government’s advice to leave the region at their soonest opportunity.

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials told Senate estimates this morning that there are usually about 15,000 Australians in Lebanon at any time, including long-term residents. Only 400 have registered with the department since conflict broke out in the region.

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said the high number of people in Lebanon and the history of the 2006 war between Israel and the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah made it a “much bigger, more challenging proposition” for government officials.

Asked by Coalition senator Simon Birmingham whether people were listening to the government’s advice to leave, DFAT deputy secretary Craig Maclachlan said: “I think we have every indication that it’s not. We’re not alone in that experience, either.

“Frankly, the level of calls we receive in relation to Lebanon have diminished to very low numbers ... People have not, in the numbers we would like to see, decided to follow our advice and leave,” he said.

“There are many reasons for that. Australians have a long-term connection with family and friends in Lebanon; many are resident there. Many are hoping, and we are working … to try and avoid an escalation and regional spread of this conflict. But we don’t have the luxury of relying on hope.”

As the war in Gaza continues to create unease in the Middle East, Jordan’s Queen Rania Al Abdullah spoke to international media to condemn Israel’s bombing of Gaza and the West’s “double standard”.

“Are we being told it is wrong to kill an entire family at gunpoint but it’s OK to shell them to death?” she told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday.

Queen Rania, who has Palestinian heritage, said the world was silent while Palestinians were being killed in Gaza and people across the Middle East were “shocked and disappointed by the world’s reaction to this catastrophe”.

“We just can’t believe the images we are seeing every day coming out of Gaza,” she said.

She also slammed the West’s failure to support a ceasefire in Gaza.

“When October 7 happened, the world immediately and unequivocally stood by Israel and its right to defend itself and condemned the attack that happened … but what we’re seeing in the last couple of weeks, we’re seeing silence in the world.”

More than 2 million registered Palestine refugees live in Jordan, the largest number in the Middle East, according to the UN.

The UN warned on Wednesday that it was on the verge of running out of fuel in the Gaza Strip, forcing it to sharply curtail relief efforts in the territory that has been blockaded and devastated by Israeli airstrikes since Hamas militants launched an attack on Israel more than two weeks ago.

The warning came as hospitals in Gaza struggled to treat masses of wounded with dwindling resources.

More than half of Gaza’s primary healthcare facilities and roughly a third of its hospitals have stopped functioning, the World Health Organisation said.

At Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, the lack of medicine and clean water had led to “alarming” infection rates, the group Doctors Without Borders said. Amputations are often required to prevent infection from spreading in the wounded, it said.

Gaza’s population has been running out of food, water and medicine, under Israel’s seal. About 1.4 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have fled their homes, with nearly half of them crowded into UN shelters.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Israel’s UN ambassador Gilad Erdan are exchanging tense words after Guterres said the Hamas massacre that sparked the fighting did not “take place in a vacuum”.

“The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation,” Guterres said on Tuesday. “The grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

In response, Erdan said Israel would stop issuing visas to UN personnel. It was unclear what the action, if implemented, would mean for UN aid personnel working in Gaza and the West Bank.

“It’s time to teach them a lesson,” Erdan told Army Radio, accusing the UN chief of justifying a slaughter.

Guterres said on Wednesday he was “shocked” at the misinterpretation of his statement “as if I was justifying acts of terror by Hamas”.

“This is false. It was the opposite,” he told reporters.

AP

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong is fronting Senate estimates this morning, and started her appearance with an update on Australia’s response to the crisis in the Middle East.

She said the Australian government had helped more than 600 Australians leave Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories and was still assisting many who remain, including 79 people trapped in Gaza who have been unable to leave the enclave.

“We are deeply distressed that international efforts to secure civilian passage out of Gaza, efforts Australia has engaged in and is actively supporting, are yet to be successful,” Wong said.

Wong repeated the call for a humanitarian pause to hostilities, and said Australia wanted to see “an enduring peace in the Middle East grounded in a two-state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians can live securely behind internationally recognised borders”.

“The international community must work together to chart a path out of this crisis towards a political process. That political process must end in a just and enduring peace, in the form of a two-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians can live securely behind internationally recognised borders,” she said.

She said the issue was among many critical matters being discussed between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and United States President Joe Biden in Washington this week.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese earlier announced that Australia will provide an extra $15 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza.

He announced the extra support for civilians in a joint press conference with US President Joe Biden.

“This adds to the $10 million Australia has already committed and will help deliver life-saving assistance such as emergency water and medical services,” Albanese told reporters in Washington DC.

He said Australia “unequivocally condemns the terrorism of Hamas” and grieved for the loss of innocent lives in the region, whether it was Israeli or Palestinian.

“In times of crisis, respect for international humanitarian law is paramount – it is a recognition of our common humanity.”

Biden reaffirmed his support for a two-state solution, and said that would put the region on a “path toward peace”.

The two leaders reaffirmed their support for a two-state solution to the 75-year-long dispute over Israel and Palestine and a “path towards peace”.

Al-Jazeera said the wife, son and daughter of one of its correspondents in Gaza were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday night that the Hamas-run enclave’s health ministry said killed at least 25 people.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strike, which the network said hit the area where Wael al-Dahdouh’s family had fled to following an Israeli warning as it plans a Gaza ground incursion.

Al-Dahdouh is Al-Jazeera Arabic’s bureau head in Gaza.

“Their home was targeted in the Nuseirat camp in the centre of Gaza, where they had sought refuge after being displaced by the initial bombardment in their neighbourhood, following [Israeli] Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s call for all civilians to move south,” Al-Jazeera said in a statement.

Al-Jazeera said other members of Dahdouh’s family were buried under the rubble. The network broadcast live footage of Dahdouh crying as he saw family members lying lifeless in hospital.

“The network strongly condemns the indiscriminate targeting and killing of innocent civilians in Gaza, which has led to the loss of Wael Al-Dahdouh’s family and countless others,” Al Jazeera said.

Reuters