Israel Hamas war live: Gaza death toll crosses 8,000

Israeli air strikes targeted two army posts in Daraa in southwestern Syria, Reuters reported, citing local media.

The raids led to “some material losses”, it added.

The Israeli military earlier said rockets were fired from Syria, which fell into open Israeli territory. The Israeli forces retaliated, firing back at the site from which the rockets were launched.

Hamas could be preventing British nationals from leaving Gaza, US president Joe Biden’s security adviser has suggested.

Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said Egypt and Israel were prepared to allow foreign nationals to leave Gaza via the Rafah crossing.

But he said the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules the bombarded territory, had not agreed to terms that would grant foreigners an opportunity to depart for Egypt and reach safety.

The Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza is the only border point in the territory that is not controlled by Tel Aviv.

Vice president Kamala Harris said the US has “absolutely no intention” of sending American troops to support Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

“We have absolutely no intention nor do we have any plans to send combat troops into Israel or Gaza, period,” Ms Harris said in a “60 Minutes” interview.

She argued that Israel had a right to defend itself after Hamas slaughtered hundreds of young people at a concert.

“By most estimates, at least 1,400 Israelis are dead,” she said, adding: “That being said, it is very important that there be no conflation between Hamas and the Palestinians.”

Ms Harris continued: “The Palestinians deserve equal measures of safety and security, self-determination and dignity”.

“And we have been very clear that the rules of war must be adhered to, and that there be humanitarian aid that flows.”

More children have been killed in Gaza in three weeks of war so far than the combined total killed in conflicts around the world in any year since 2019, Save the Children said.

Since the 7 October Hamas attack, more than 3,257 children are reported to have been killed, including at least 3,195 in Gaza, 33 in the occupied West Bank, and 29 in Israel, Save the Children said, citing various health authorities.

Children made up over 40 per cent of the 8,000 people killed in Gaza, and more than a third of all fatalities across the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel. Another 6,360 children in Gaza have also been injured, as well as at least 180 children in the West Bank, and at least 74 children in Israel.

With a further 1,000 children reported missing in Gaza and assumed buried under the rubble, the death toll is likely much higher, the organisation said.

The UN in 2019 said that 4,019 children were killed in conflicts around the world that year.

“The numbers are harrowing and with violence not only continuing but expanding in Gaza right now, many more children remain at grave risk,” said Jason Lee, Save the Children’s country director in occupied Palestinian territory.

More than 8,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have died in Gaza in Israel’s three-week-long bombardment since the Hamas attack on 7 October, according to the Strip’s health ministry

.Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during the initial attack.

Communications were restored to most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people on Sunday after an Israeli bombardment described by residents as the most intense of the war knocked out phone and internet services late on Friday.

On Sunday, 33 trucks carrying water, food and medicine entered the only border crossing from Egypt, a spokesperson at the Rafah crossing, Wael Abo Omar, told The Associated Press.

Hundreds of protesters have stormed an airport in Russia reportedly in search of a flight arriving from Israel.

A large crowd poured out into the landing field and runway of Makhachkala airport on Sunday evening as videos on social media showed young men among the protesters carrying Palestinian flags.

Footage also showed some in the crowd trying to overturn a police car. Antisemitic slogans can be heard being shouted and some in the crowd examined the passports of arriving passengers.

The Israeli military struck targets in Lebanon and Syria on Sunday after projectiles were fired into Israel from the north.

Clashes have taken place across Israel’s tense border with Lebanon since the onset of the Hamas-Israel war.

Israel’s military provided video of multiple strikes inside Lebanon, showing explosions erupting among trees and missiles hitting a building on a hillside. The military said it shot down a drone and killed a militant who tried to approach the border fence.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, also said it downed an Israeli drone over southern Lebanon with a surface-to-air missile.

It said one missile that was fired across the border had hit an Israeli infantry unit near the town of Birket Risha and caused “confirmed injuries”.

The military said rockets were also fired from Syria, falling into open Israeli territory. The IDF said it fired back at the site from which the rockets were launched.

Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf says he has spoken to his in-laws trapped in Gaza amid the ongoing conflict.

He said earlier that he and his wife, Nadia El-Nakla, had not been able to contact her parents since the previous day after communications were knocked out and they did not know if they were dead or alive.

Ms El-Nakla’s parents, Elizabeth and Maged, travelled to Gaza from Scotland prior to the conflict to visit family.

Mr Yousaf on Sunday said on X, formerly Twitter, that he has now heard from them.

Airstrikes could be heard from as far as an Egyptian town in the Sinai as the attacks on the 42km-long strip throughout Friday night.

Just one day after Hamas launched an attack on Israel, 56-year-old Abdel Naser Shamalakh and his entire family were killed after rockets hit their home in Gaza.

“The whole family was buried under the rubble. They only found two whole bodies. The others were in parts or unrecognisable,” his British-Palestinian niece, 37-year-old Waf’a Shamalakh, told The Independent.