Israel

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.

JERUSALEM, Nov 1 (Reuters) - The Israeli military said it had deployed missile boats in the Red Sea on Wednesday as reinforcements, a day after the Iran-aligned Houthi movement said it had launched missile and drone attacks on Israel and vowed to carry out more.

Images disseminated by the military showed Saar-class corvettes patrolling near Eilat port in the Red Sea, which Israel sees as a new front as its war in Gaza draws retaliation from Iran-aligned pro-Hamas forces elsewhere in the region.

GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 1 (Reuters) - A first group of civilian evacuees from Gaza crossed into Egypt under a Qatari-mediated deal on Wednesday while Israeli forces bombed the Palestinian enclave from land, sea and air anew as they pressed their offensive against Hamas militants.

Another blast shook Jabalia, Gaza's largest refugee camp, on Wednesday, a day after Palestinian health officials said an Israeli air strike killed about 50 people and wounded 150 there. Israel said it had killed a Hamas commander in Tuesday's attack.

JERUSALEM, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- Israel sent missile boats to the Red Sea, the army said on Wednesday after Houthi forces in Yemen fired missiles and drones toward Israel's resort city of Eilat.

"Israeli Navy missile boats arrived in the area of the Red Sea," the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement, noting the move was made following a "situational assessment and as part of defensive efforts in the area."

JERUSALEM (AP) — The latest Israel-Hamas war has quickly become the deadliest and most destructive of the five wars fought between the sides since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 from the Palestinian Authority.

The fighting erupted Oct. 7 when Hamas carried out a bloody attack in southern Israel. Since then, Israel has relentlessly pounded the Gaza Strip with airstrikes that have wrought unprecedented destruction, flattening entire neighborhoods.

01 November 2023; MEMO: Israeli forces have paid a “heavy price” during their ground operation in the Gaza Strip despite making “significant” achievements, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, Anadolu has reported. Gallant made his comments on Tuesday during a meeting at Palmachim Air Base in central Israel with troops of the Air Force’s elite Shaldag and 669 units, said Israeli Army Radio.