Israel Gaza war live: Netanyahu attacks Hezbollah targets

A second aid convoy destined for desperate Palestinian civilians reached Gaza on Sunday as Israel widened its attacks to include targets in Syria and the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli prime minister also warned Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group that if it launches its own war, “we will cripple it with a force it cannot even imagine”.

For days, Israel has been on the verge of launching a ground offensive in Gaza following Hamas’s brutal 7 October rampage through a series of Israeli communities. Tanks and troops have been massed at the Gaza border, waiting for the command to cross.

Israel’s military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the country had increased airstrikes across Gaza to hit targets that would reduce the risk to troops in the next stage of the war.

Fears of a widening war grew as Israeli warplanes struck targets across Gaza, two airports in Syria and a mosque in the occupied West Bank allegedly used by militants.

Israel has traded fire with Hezbollah militants since the war began, and tensions are soaring in the West Bank, where Israeli forces have battled militants in refugee camps and carried out two airstrikes in recent days.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told troops in northern Israel that if Hezbollah launches a war, “it will make the mistake of its life. We will cripple it with a force it cannot even imagine, and the consequences for it and the Lebanese state will be devastating”.

Thousands of people waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Gaza, Paris is with you” gathered on Sunday for the first pro-Palestinian demonstration allowed by police in the French capital since the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel.

Around 15,000 people turned out at the Place de la Republique, according to police figures, to express solidarity with Palestinians and call for a ceasefire as the death toll from Israeli strikes in Gaza rose to more than 4,700.

“We are here to defend the freedom (of) the people of Palestine, especially with what’s happening in Gaza – it’s unacceptable,” said Noureddine Mansour, a protester present at the Paris rally.

A similar protest in Brussels drew around 12,000, Belgian police said.

French police said the Paris protest was authorised, unlike others, because a declaration by organisers condemned the 7 October attacks, which killed 1,400 people.

On Thursday, a protest was authorised at the last minute after a Paris court overturned the police decision to ban it.

In the last few days, other protests have been authorised in cities across France, after France’s highest administrative court ruled that pro-Palestinian protests were to be banned on a case-by-case basis, not systematically as an earlier instruction by the French interior minister had suggested.

The protest in Paris was called by the collective “National Collective for a sustainable and just peace between Palestinians and Israelis”, made up of more than 40 organisations, including left-wing party France Unbowed, the CGT trade union and the organisation “France Palestine Solidarity”.

At a peace summit in Cairo on Saturday, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said Israel had a right to self-defence and must respect international law, and that a humanitarian corridor to Gaza was necessary and could lead to a ceasefire.

In Brussels, thousands marched through the streets, waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Free Palestine” before gathering outside the European Commission’s headquarters.

At a vigil attended by thousands in London’s Trafalgar Square, participants held posters bearing the images of hostages and the missing. They chanted “bring them home,” falling silent as the names of the hostages were read out.

Speakers from both the UK’s governing Conservative Party and the opposition Labour Party addressed the crowd. Communities secretary Michael Gove said Hamas’ 7 October attack was an act of “unparalleled evil and barbarism.”

“We must stand together against it. We must stand for life. We must bring the hostages home,” he said.

Thousands of people joined vigils in Berlin and London on Sunday to oppose antisemitism and support Israel, while in Paris and other cities, thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators demanded a cease-fire and relief for people in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Some of those who gathered in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate carried Israeli flags or posters with photos of some of the more than 200 people seized by Hamas as hostages during the militants’ deadly 7 October incursion into Israel.

“It is unbearable that Jews are living in fear again today — in our country of all places,” president Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the crowd, estimated at 20,000 by organizers and 10,000 by police. “Every single attack on Jews, on Jewish institutions is a disgrace for Germany. Every single attack fills me with shame and anger.”

Earlier, German chancellor Olaf Scholz inaugurated a new synagogue in the eastern city of Dessau and said he was “outraged” by the upsurge in antisemitism since the conflict began.

Several buildings in Berlin where Jews live had the star of David painted on doors and walls, and assailants threw two Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in Berlin last week.

“Here in Germany, of all places,” Mr Scholz said, vowing that “our ‘never again’ must be unbreakable.”

As Israel makes preparations for a ground invasion, some of those who have lost loved ones tell our chief international correspondent Bel Trew that while they are devastated, military escalation is not the answer.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday that the US expects the Israel-Hamas war to escalate through involvement by proxies of Iran and asserted that the Biden administration is prepared to respond if American personnel or armed forces become the target of any such hostilities.

“This is not what we want, not what we’re looking for. We don’t want escalation,” Mr Blinken said. “We don’t want to see our forces or our personnel come under fire. But if that happens, we’re ready for it.”

Mr Blinken’s warning came as Israel‘s military response to a deadly 7 October attack by Hamas on civilians in communities in southern Israel entered its third week.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has condemned the bombing of civilians in Gaza and stressed the urgent need for a ceasefire and the setting up of a humanitarian aid corridor into the territory under siege from Israel.

Speaking in Jerusalem, Justin Welby called for an end to the bloodshed in which thousands have been killed.

Following attacks on Israel by Hamas, intensive air strikes on Gaza have resulted in 4,651 deaths, according to Palestinian authorities, reports our world affairs editor Kim Sengupta:

In taking on such powerful and ruthless forces without clear war aims, or anything like an exit strategy, Benjamin Netanyahu is making some grievous mistakes.

Read the Independent view here:

An Israeli-American reservist has been killed by an anti-tank missile fired by Hezbollah along the Israel-Lebanon border.

Staff Sgt Omer Balva, of Rockland, Maryland, was serving as a platoon commander in the 9203 battalion of the Alexandroni Brigade when he died on Friday, roughly 115 miles from Gaza, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Balva was among 360,000 reservists called up to combat Hamas after terrorist attacks on Israel two weeks ago, leaving more than 1,000 dead.

My colleague Alex Woodward reports: