Israel

JERUSALEM, Nov 9 (Reuters) - The armed wing of the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad in Gaza released a video on Thursday showing an elderly woman and a young boy who were among around 240 hostages seized by militant gunmen who attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

It said it was prepared to release the two for humanitarian and medical reasons once appropriate conditions were met. It did not give further details.

JERUSALEM, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Israel vowed on Thursday that its forces would keep intensifying the fighting in the heart of Gaza City in the next few days, despite the implementation of a four-hour daily humanitarian pause.

Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Herzi Halevi toured the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday with Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet internal security agency. They were shown in videos released by the military sitting inside a moving tank and later talking with commanders in a dimly lit room.

JERUSALEM (AP) — At a time when world sentiment has begun to sour on Israel’s devastating offensive in Gaza, the vast majority of Israelis, across the political spectrum, are convinced of the justice of the war.

Still under rocket and missile attacks on several fronts, they have little tolerance for anyone railing against the steep toll the conflict has exacted on the other side. They have rallied to crush Hamas, which breached the country’s borders from the Gaza Strip, killing more than 1,400 people and taking over 240 hostage in an Oct. 7 rampage that triggered the war.

JERUSALEM, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Friday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet in Tel Aviv as Israel pressed ahead with its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

It was Blinken's fourth visit to Israel since the fighting erupted on Oct. 7. He was shown an Israeli army video that purportedly documented part of the killing of Israeli civilians by Hamas on the first day of the conflict, according to a statement from Netanyahu's office.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel on Friday deported thousands of Palestinian workers from the Gaza Strip back to the besieged territory, Palestinian authorities said, capping what many described as harrowing weeks trapped in legal limbo since their detention when the Israel-Hamas war erupted.

RAMLA, Israel (AP) — Hours after Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, the country’s new fortified, subterranean blood bank kicked into action. Staffers moved equipment into the underground bunker and started saving lives.

The Marcus National Blood Services Center in Ramla, near Tel Aviv, had been scheduled to open within days, but with more than 1,400 people in Israel killed since the Hamas raids — most killed during the initial attack — the timeline changed.

A growing list of Israeli officials have accepted responsibility for failing to prevent Hamas’ brutal attack on Israeli communities during the Oct. 7 incursion that triggered the current Israel-Hamas war. Conspicuously absent from that roll call is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday to press for a humanitarian pause in the fighting with Hamas, as Israeli troops tightened their encirclement of Gaza City.

Tensions escalated along the northern border with Lebanon ahead of a speech planned later Friday by Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Hamas ally. It is his first public speech since Hamas attacked Israel last month, stoking fears the conflict could become a regional one.

JERUSALEM, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu built his reputation as a security hawk on the back of his service in an elite special forces unit that carried out some of Israel's most daring hostage rescues.

His legacy as his country's longest serving leader will now be shaped by one of the worst security failures it has known and by the fate of more than 200 hostages seized by Palestinian Hamas gunmen from Gaza who Israel says killed 1,400 people on the deadliest day of its 75-year-old history.

JERUSALEM/GAZA, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- The death toll has exceeded 10,000 since the Israel-Hamas conflict broke out on Oct. 7, according to Palestinian and Israeli sources.

The number of Palestinian casualties in Gaza has now reached at least 8,796, including 3,648 children and 2,290 women, according to the Gaza-based Health Ministry, while more than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, said the Israeli Foreign Ministry.