Palestinian relatives reacts outside the morgue of the Jenin Hospital prior to the funeral of a man killed during an overnight incursion and clashes with the Israeli army in the Jenin refugee camp on Friday — AFP GAZA, Nov 03 (Agencies): The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Friday that an Israeli strike killed 14 Palestinians who were fleeing from the bombarded territory's north to its south.
"The occupation committed a new massacre against displaced civilians and killed 14 citizens, children and women," ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said in a statement.
Israel’s military has announced that its forces have surrounded Gaza’s main city while rejecting growing international calls for a ceasefire to halt bloodshed in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Thursday that Gaza City has been encircled nearly a week after its forces expanded ground operations in the Hamas-governed enclave.
“Israeli soldiers have completed the encirclement of the city of Gaza, the centre of the Hamas terror organisation,” Hagari told journalists. Hagari said a “ceasefire is not currently on the table at all”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who last week said the war against Hamas had entered the “second stage” amid an escalating ground war, said on Thursday night that Israeli forces were at the “height of the battle”.
“We’ve had impressive successes and have passed the outskirts of Gaza City,” he said. “We are advancing.”
Bahrain halts trade ties with Israel, envoys return
Bahrain's lower house of parliament announced on Thursday the halting of economic ties with Israel and the return of ambassadors on both sides over the Israel-Hamas war.
Bahrain's National Communication Centre (NCC), the government's media arm, confirmed the return of ambassadors "some time ago", but made no mention of trade relations.
Israel's foreign ministry said it had not been notified of any decision by Bahrain, a US ally which established diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020.
"The Council of Representatives confirms that the Israeli ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain has left Bahrain, and the Kingdom of Bahrain decided to return the Bahraini ambassador from Israel to the country," a parliament statement said.
Thousands of Gazan workers sent back from Israel, occupied West Bank
Thousands of cross-border Gazan workers and labourers in Israel and the occupied West Bank were sent back to Gaza on Friday, Reuters journalists said.
Some of the Gazan workers returned through the Kerem Shalom crossing east of the Rafah border crossing between the besieged Gaza Strip and Egypt, they said.
UN launches $1.2b aid appeal to
help Gaza, West Bank residents
The UN on Friday launched an emergency aid appeal seeking $1.2 billion to help some 2.7 million people in Gaza and the West Bank.
"The cost of meeting the needs of 2.7 million people - that is the entire population of Gaza and 500,000 people in the occupied West Bank - is estimated to be $1.2 billion," the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. "The original appeal, launched 12 October, asked for $294 million to support nearly 1.3 million people. The situation has grown increasingly desperate since then," it added.
UAE warns against risk of regional
spillover from Gaza war
Gulf Arab power the United Arab Emirates warned on Friday that there was a real risk of a regional spillover from the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, adding that it was working "relentlessly" to secure a humanitarian ceasefire.
The UAE was the most prominent Arab country to sign the 2020 Abraham Accords, a series of pacts with Israel, which the latter hoped would pave the way to normalisation of ties with Muslim superpower Saudi Arabia, but the war dealt those plans a blow.
Blinken seeks pauses in Gaza war
as Israeli troops claim advances
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was meeting Israeli leaders on Friday to push for humanitarian pauses in the Gaza war as Israeli troops surrounded the Palestinian enclave's biggest city, the focus of its drive to wipe out Hamas.
Israeli forces pounded the Gaza Strip from ground, sea and air throughout the night amid global alarm over scarcities, collapsing medical services and the rising civilian death toll.
© 2026 - All Rights with The Financial Express
