Israel Hamas war live: Israeli tanks enter Gaza ahead of ground invasion

The confirmed number of people held hostage in the Gaza Strip since 7 October is now 224, according to the Israeli Defence Forces.

The Israeli Defence Forces said it struck “numerous terrorist cells”, “infrastructure” and “anti-tank missile launch posts” in its overnight raid of Gaza.

“In preparation for the next stages of combat, the IDF operated in northern Gaza. IDF tanks & infantry struck numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts.

“The soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory,” it wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has warned the Israel-Hamas conflict could spill over “far beyond the borders” of the Middle East.

“Our task today, our main task, is to stop the bloodshed and violence,” Mr Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript.

“Otherwise, further escalation of the crisis is fraught with grave and extremely dangerous and destructive consequences. And not only for the Middle East region. It could spill over far beyond the borders of the Middle East.”

The UK will hold a Cobra meeting today to discuss five UK nationals still missing in the Middle East following Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel.

Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said he would be chairing the meeting, while calling for for a pause in hostilities between Israel and Hamas so humanitarian aid can enter Gaza.

However, Mr Dowden ruled out a ceasefire. “We shouldn’t be saying to the Israel government ‘you’ve got to stop action’ in a way that wouldn’t enable it to eliminate this threat,” he told Sky News.

An Al Jazeera reporter covering the war in Israel was on air when he was told his wife and children had been killed in an airstrike.

Wael Al-Dahdouh reported on the same attack in Gaza on Wednesday evening without knowing his family had been killed, in an area they had fled to for safety after Israel’s warning of a ground incursion.

The Gaza bureau chief lost his son Mahmoud, a senior in high school, and his seven-year-old daughter Sham in the blast, his network said.

Palestinians inspect the damage of destroyed buildings following Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City,” his network said.

Rishi Sunak has called for temporary pauses in the conflict between Israel and Hamas to allow British nationals and hostages to be freed and for humanitarian aid to be provided in the Gaza Strip.

But the prime minister continued on Wednesday to reject calls for a longer ceasefire, with Downing Street arguing the move would “only serve to benefit Hamas”.

Mr Sunak said “specific pauses” are necessary for humanitarian purposes as Israel pummels the small strip of land, which is home to more than two million Palestinians.

He said such breaks had been discussed at the United Nations as he announced that an RAF plane is flying to Egypt with 21 tonnes of humanitarian supplies.

More than 80 MPs have urged the Government to call for a ceasefire, as five UK nationals remain missing, some of whom are believed to be hostages in Gaza.

The UN has warned that unless there is an immediate delivery of fuel to Gaza, their support to Gaza’s hospitals, bakeries, and water systems “can stop tomorrow”.

World leaders including UK prime minister Rishi Sunak have joined urgent calls for temporary “pauses” in the fighting to allow delivery of aid and for foreign citizens to evacuate, as hospitals across Gaza shut down due to critical shortages.

The health ministry in the besieged enclave – run by Hamas – has said the healthcare system has “collapsed”.

Speaking to The Independent, Tamara el-Rifae, a spokesperson for UNRWA, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, said that unless fuel arrives imminently their critical support across many facets of life in Gaza may stop.

“There has to be a way to get the fuel in otherwise everything can stop tomorrow, or we have to make extremely hard choices,” she said.

Bel Trew reports from Tel Aviv.

UK defence secretary Grant Shapps has said the call for a ceasefire is “to essentially say don’t go after Hamas”.

He said a ground invasion of Gaza would fall under Israel’s right to defend itself “as long as the people that they are going after are the Hamas terrorists”.

He told Sky News: “To call for a ceasefire is to essentially say to Israel hadn’t gone through that absolutely horrific, horrendous terrorist attack just two and a half weeks ago.

“You know, don’t go after Hamas. And I don’t think anyone thinks that would be right, because they have the perfect right to go after Hamas under international law.”

Mr Shapps also said UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres needed to withdraw his remarks suggesting the Hamas attacks should be seen in the context of “years of suffocating occupation”.

He told ITV: “I certainly thought his remarks were incredibly inappropriate and I really do hope that he finds a way to withdraw them or clarify them.”

More than 750 people in Gaza were killed over the past 24 hours, higher than the 704 killed the previous day, Gaza’s health ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, said on Wednesday.

Since the 7 October Hamas massacre, Israeli retaliatory strikes have killed more than 6,500 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the ministry.

Hospitals in Gaza struggled to treat masses of wounded with dwindling resources as the death toll soared due to Israel’s constant bombardment of the Strip.

Workers pulled dead and wounded civilians, including many children, out of landscapes of rubble in cities across the territory.

The fighting has killed more than 1,400 people in Israel, mostly civilians slain during the initial Hamas attack, according to the Israeli government.