US launches airstrike in response to attacks on bases housing US troops as Syrian state media reports strikes in south by Israel – as it happened

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Tens of thousands of Palestinians fled northern Gaza on Wednesday, the Israel Defence Forces said, as the World Health Organization (WHO) warned of “worrying trends” in the risk of disease in the territory after weeks of Israeli airstrikes.

The accelerating exodus came as Israeli forces closed in on the centre of Gaza City, launching intense bombardments, and claimed that Hamas had lost control of the north of the territory.

Those fleeing Israel’s expanding ground assault included children, older people and people with disabilities, and most walked with minimal belongings, the UN said. Many carried makeshift white flags amid fears they could be targeted. The Israeli military said 50,000 people had fled the north on Wednesday, up from 15,000 on Tuesday.

The Israeli military has escorted journalists from some outlets through parts of Gaza. Here is some of the first-person report by AFP:

Gaza City’s suburbs began to appear after about 30 minutes of navigating broken roads. We were approaching the focal point of the fight between Israel and Hamas in the territory.

On Wednesday, AFP was embedded with Israeli soldiers, and witnessed the devastation of a month of war at first hand. Our still and video images were submitted to the Israeli military censor for approval.

Security was at a maximum for the incursion which lasted a few hours, and was organised for several representatives of the foreign media covering the Israel-Hamas war.

We drove the few kilometres (miles) from the southern border of Israel into northern Gaza City in an Israeli armoured vehicle which jolted over bumps in the road.

The outside landscape could be seen on screens inside the vehicle: broken palm trees, distorted road signs and twisted lampposts along the ruins of what was once north Gaza’s main arterial route.

Israeli flags now fly over buildings at beach resorts in northern Gaza. There is little sign of any human presence amid the destruction.

After a month of fighting, the Israeli military says it has cut the Gaza Strip in two in an offensive becoming more intense by the day.

Here is our full report on the US Republican debate:

At least 19 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house near a hospital in north Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp on Wednesday, the Gaza’s interior ministry said.

There was no immediate Israeli comment or details on the reported attack, which if confirmed would be the third on Gaza’s largest refugee camp in a week.

The Guardian has not verified this independently.

Israeli air strikes devastated parts of Jabalia on 31 October and 1 November, killing at least 195 civilians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

At least 1,000 members at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have now signed a letter calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, Al Jazeera reports. The letter began circulating last week.

Part of the letter reads:

“While we appreciate and acknowledge efforts by USAID to call for an urgent humanitarian response in Gaza and understand that the Agency is working tirelessly to make this happen, we must remember that humanitarian assistance efforts and life-saving aid are largely rendered moot in situations of escalating and indiscriminate bombing and violence”.

Reuters has this update on what Republican candidates had to say in the US Republican debate: Donald Trump’s rivals for the Republican presidential nomination pledged unconditional support for Israel during the third debate. They also attacked Democratic President Joe Biden’s handling of the crisis.

Asked what message they would send to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said, “I will be telling Bibi, ‘Finish the job once and for all with these butchers Hamas, they’re terrorists,’” using Netanyahu’s nickname.

Nikki Haley, a former UN ambassador who has staked much of her candidacy on her foreign policy credentials, faulted Biden for pressing Israel to consider humanitarian pauses.

“The last thing we need to do is to tell Israel what to do,” she said. “The only thing we should be doing is supporting them and eliminating Hamas.”

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South Carolina Senator Tim Scott said Biden should carry out direct strikes against Iran, a sponsor of Hamas, in retaliation for attacks on US military personnel by Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq. He spoke shortly after the US carried out strikes against a weapon storage facility in Syria that the Pentagon said was used by Iranian forces.

“If you want to make a difference, you cannot just continue to have strikes in Syria on warehouses,” he said. “You actually have to cut off the head of the snake, and the head of the snake is Iran and not simply the proxies.”

The discourse on the Israel-Hamas conflict followed the debate’s opening segment, in which the candidates were asked to make the case for being the Republican standard-bearer over Trump, the race’s clear frontrunner in national opinion polls.

For the third time, the former president did not show up for his party’s debate, instead holding a rival event close by, where he again suggested the Republican Party should cancel future debates.

“It’s time for the Republican establishment to stop wasting time and resources,” Trump said, adding that the debate was “not watchable.”

Here is the full story on the US strike in Syria:

Negotiations are underway for the release of a dozen hostages held by Hamas, including six Americans, in return for a three-day ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, a source close to Hamas told AFP Wednesday.

Another source said Qatar was mediating negotiations in coordination with the US to free “10-15 hostages in exchange for a one- to two-day ceasefire”.

Qatar, like Egypt, has been playing a key role in attempts to bring more aid into the Gaza Strip.

Macron spoke to Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on Tuesday, his office said.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron will on Thursday host a conference on humanitarian aid for Gaza although Israel.

All governments nevertheless have “an interest in the humanitarian situation improving in Gaza, including Israel”, a Macron aide told reporters on condition of anonymity ahead of the gathering.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there will be no fuel delivered to Gaza and no ceasefire with Hamas unless the hostages are freed.

Macron spoke to Netanyahu on Tuesday and the pair will talk again once Thursday’s aid conference is over, the Elysee Palace said.

Earlier on Wednesday, a US MQ-9 drone was shot down near Yemen by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement over the Red Sea, Reuters reports.

Officials said the drone was believed to be in international waters when it was shot down.

The United States has sent warships and fighter aircraft to the region since 7 October, including two aircraft carriers, to try to deter Iran and Iran-backed groups. The number of troops added to the region is in the thousands.

Reuters has reported that the US military was taking new measures to protect its Middle East forces during the ramp-up in attacks by suspected Iran-backed groups, and was leaving open the possibility of evacuating military families if needed.

The measures include increasing US military patrols, restricting access to base facilities and boosting intelligence collection, including through drone and other surveillance operations, officials say.

Returning now to the US strike on Syria. A senior US military official, speaking to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said the military had watched the location in Deir al Zor province for some time and was confident there were no civilian casualties.

The official said the military had tracked a “couple” of people near the facility overnight, though they were not believed to be civilians and an analysis was ongoing to see if anyone was killed.

9 Nov 202320.37 EST

Australia sees largest anti-war rallies since Iraq war

Mostafa Rachwani

Assala Sayara’s voice rings out over Hyde Park in Sydney, Australia, clear as a bell.

“This is my favourite chant,” she says into the mic. “Follow along. Gaza, Gaza, don’t you cry, Palestine will never die!”

For five weekends running, Sayara has been leading the chants at the pro-Palestine rallies in Sydney, thundering through a popular set list that has become a defining part of the protests.

The rallies have become central to the pro-Palestinian movement in Australia, growing week to week across capital cities.

They began as a response to Israel’s declaration of war on Gaza, after the ruling faction of the coastal strip, Hamas, attacked Israel and killed 1,400 people on 7 October.

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The rallies have grown as Israel’s bombardment of Gaza continues, with the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza reporting over 10,300 deaths (including over 4,200 children) as of Wednesday.

Organisers reported 100,000 people turned up to the rally in Melbourne, up to 50,000 in Sydney despite rain and more than 6,000 in Brisbane. Collectively, they amount to the largest and most consistent anti-war rallies in Australia since the Iraq war.

A US senator said Wednesday that it is “vital” for Israel to carry out a more targeted offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to limit civilian casualties.

Chris Murphy, a Democrat on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stressed that Israel has every right to defend itself from aggression, and that he opposes a ceasefire as it would give Hamas, the Islamist group responsible for the attacks against Israel, time to “regroup.”

But “I am concerned that if Israel’s strategy and end goal is to defeat Hamas, then this pace of civilian casualties, which certainly comes with a moral cost, also comes with a strategic cost,” he told AFP in an interview.

“I think that the civilian death toll has been too high, and a more surgical approach would be important and vital,” Murphy said, adding Israel “should be directing the strikes perhaps more so with ground forces than with airstrikes.”

British foreign minister James Cleverly has left Japan to travel to Saudi Arabia after the G7 Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Tokyo, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said in a statement on Thursday.

Cleverly will meet with foreign ministers from the Middle East, who are gathering in Saudi Arabia ahead of a League of Arab States emergency meeting about Gaza on Saturday.