Israel’s foreign minister calls on UN chief to resignIsrael’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, has called on the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, to resign, saying he was not fit to head the organisation.
Cohen, at a press conference inside the UN building in Geneva, said:
Guterres does not deserve to lead the United Nations. Guterres did not promote any peace process in the region… Guterres, like all the free nations, should say clearly and loudly: ‘Free Gaza from Hamas’.
The Israeli minister also held meetings with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), the Times of Israel reported.
Cohen demanded that the ICRC “work through all channels” to secure visits to the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. He said:
We expect the Red Cross to put the issue at the top of the organization’s priority list, to use all levers of pressure, and not rest until it visits all the hostages, assesses their condition, and makes sure they are receiving the medical care they need.
Key events
Show key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this feature
Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen’s latest comments mark an intensification of the country’s criticism of the UN.
Israel’s representative to the UN, Gilad Erdan, last month called for António Guterres to resign after the UN chief urged a humanitarian pause and said that “it is important to also recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” pointing to “56 years of suffocating occupation” suffered by the Palestinian people.
Guterres had “lost all morality and impartiality”, Erdan said in a press briefing. “When you say those terrible words that these heinous attacks did not happen in a vacuum, you are tolerating terrorism, and I think that the secretary-general must resign.”
On Monday, the UN head observed a minute of silence in memory of the more than 100 staff who have been killed in Gaza since 7 October. UN flags also flew at half-mast at UN facilities across the world.
Today, the @UN family observed a moment of silence to mourn & honour our colleagues killed in Gaza.
Since the start of this conflict, more than 100 @UNRWA staff have lost their lives – the highest number of UN aid workers killed in a conflict in such a short time.
They will… pic.twitter.com/O9ZBy92Xu0
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) November 13, 2023 Israel’s foreign minister calls on UN chief to resignIsrael’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, has called on the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, to resign, saying he was not fit to head the organisation.
Cohen, at a press conference inside the UN building in Geneva, said:
Guterres does not deserve to lead the United Nations. Guterres did not promote any peace process in the region… Guterres, like all the free nations, should say clearly and loudly: ‘Free Gaza from Hamas’.
The Israeli minister also held meetings with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), the Times of Israel reported.
Cohen demanded that the ICRC “work through all channels” to secure visits to the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. He said:
We expect the Red Cross to put the issue at the top of the organization’s priority list, to use all levers of pressure, and not rest until it visits all the hostages, assesses their condition, and makes sure they are receiving the medical care they need.
Living in Gaza, we wake up feeling grateful every morning to have survived for one more day, writes Ibrahim Muhtadi.
For more than 30 days, we have lived surrounded by death, devastation and desperation. To say that the situation is exceptional does not begin to describe the reality of nonstop Israeli bombardments, huge missile strikes from air, land, and sea, and the collective struggle to stay alive. Nowhere in the Gaza Strip is safe. More than 11,000 people have been killed – over 4,500 of them children.
When I hear the phrase “humanitarian pause”, it sounds like a farce. How can it be that when we are in the worst imaginable crisis, some leaders call for a pause and not a ceasefire?
A “humanitarian” pause will only prolong our suffering. A humanitarian pause is nothing but a small bandage on an open wound and a way to draw this horror out longer. There is nothing humanitarian about starving, being made homeless, living in rubble. When the fighting resumes, we are forced to wonder: what good is a humanitarian pause for aid if the killing doesn’t stop? If you want to give aid and be humanitarian then the killing must stop, through an immediate ceasefire.
Read the full opinion piece: A ‘humanitarian pause’ in Gaza will just prolong our suffering
Human Rights Watch have called for an Israeli strike that killed three children and their grandmother in southern Lebanon to be investigated as an apparent war crime.
The strike by Israeli military forces on 5 November hit the family in a car as they travelled from south Lebanon to Beirut, the rights group said.
Inside the car were the three adolescent girls –Rimas, 14, Taline, 12, and Liane, 10, Chour – their grandmother, Samira Ayoub, and their mother, Hoda Hijazi Chour. Only the mother survived and was in stable condition.
The Israeli military admitted carrying out the strike, telling the Times of Israel that it struck a vehicle “that was identified as a suspicious vehicle containing several terrorists”. According to the NGO’s research, they provided no further evidence to justify their claim.
“This attack by Israeli military forces that struck a car carrying a family fleeing violence shows a reckless disregard for civilian life,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at the organisation.
Three young girls and their grandmother have lost their lives, our investigations show, as a result of the Israeli military’s failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Their killing is a violation of the laws of war, and Israel’s allies, like the US, should respond to this apparent war crime by demanding accountability for this unlawful strike.
Ella Creamer
Pro-Palestine protesters twice interrupted the ceremony for a prestigious Canadian literary award held on Monday night.
The event for the C$100,000 Scotiabank Giller prize was first disrupted when protesters jumped onstage with signs that read “Scotiabank funds genocide”. Event host Rick Mercer attempted to rip one of the signs from a protester’s hands.
Video footage shows another protester standing in the audience area shouting that Scotiabank “currently has a $500m stake in Elbit Systems” and that “Elbit Systems is supplying the Israeli military’s genocide against the Palestinian people”.
A protester holding a sign saying ‘Scotiabank Funds Genocide’ is escorted off the stage during the Scotiabank Giller prizegiving in Toronto. Photograph: Rob Gillies/APElbit Systems is an Israel-based arms manufacturer that has long been criticised by activists for supplying the Israeli military. In April, American investigative news outlet the Intercept reported that Scotiabank’s stake in the company was estimated to be $500m, making it the largest foreign shareholder.
“We will not be silent any more,” a protester added. The group was quickly escorted out by police and later arrested, Giller spokesperson Robyn Mogil said, according to the Globe and Mail.
The families of Israelis being held hostage by Hamas have started a five-day march on Tuesday from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to demand the government does more to secure their release.
The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is coming under fierce criticism from some relatives for not doing more to secure their release, even as Israeli troops push further into the Gaza Strip and the region is bombarded by the Israeli air force.
Families of hostages and their supporters walk past Azrieli towers in Tel Aviv where billboards read: ‘Do you know where you kids are sleeping tonight, SOS’ Photograph: Alexi J Rosenfeld/Getty Images“I demand from Benjamin Netanyahu and the cabinet to give us answers and actions,” said Shelly Shem Tov, whose 21-year-old son Omer was dragged into Gaza five weeks ago.
“Where are you? Where are you?” Reuters reports that she said, addressing the government in an impassioned plea at the start of the march.
Hamas fighters are believed to have seized about 240 hostages during their 7 October attack on southern Israel, with the captives ranging in age from nine months to 85-years-old.
Families of hostages and their supporters begin their march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Photograph: Alexi J Rosenfeld/Getty Images“I don’t feel like we are in good hands. We don’t feel like we get enough information. We fell into the darkness. We want answers,” said Amit Zach, the nephew of 72-year-old hostage Adina Moshe.
“I don’t have a solution, but it’s not my job to get a solution. It’s my job to demand my family back,” he added.
Holding up pictures of the captives, the crowd chanted: “Bring them home now!”
Hamas has so far released four hostages.
Demonstrators on the ‘March for the Hostages’ stand in front of graffiti that reads ‘bring them home now’ Photograph: Ohad Zwigenberg/APAndrew Mitchell, the UK minister of state for development and Africa, has said in parliament in London that he will be going to Egypt this evening.
PA Media reports that answering a question about the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, he told MPs: “Discussions are going on with Jordan and also Egypt on that very point, and I can tell him that I will go tonight to Egypt to try and further those discussions.”
It has just gone 4.30pm in Gaza City and in Tel Aviv. Here is a summary of the latest news from the Israel-Hamas war …
Al-Shifa hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya has said the hospital is being forced to bury 179 people, including babies and patients who died in the intensive care unit, “in a mass grave” in the complex. A journalist who has been working with AFP said the stench of decomposing bodies was everywhere in the facility. BBC reporter Rushdi Abualouf spoke to a source inside the hospital who said tanks are surrounding the hospital from all directions and that access in and out of the hospital is impossible. Israel has accused Hamas of building command centres underneath medical infrastructure, accusations denied by both Hamas and medical staff.
Another 200,000 people have fled northern Gaza in the past 10 days, the UN has said, as fierce fighting between Hamas militants and the Israeli army encroaches on hospitals where patients are dying due to energy shortages and dwindling supplies. The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (Ocha) said on Tuesday that only one hospital in the northern half of the blockaded Gaza Strip, al-Awda, still had electricity and was able to receive patients, with other medical facilities in sprawling Gaza City now mostly functioning as shelters for those fleeing the violence.
The Israel Defense Forces claims to have struck 200 targets inside Gaza in the past 24 hours, “including terrorist operatives, weapon production sites, anti-tank missile launchers and operational command centres”. The claims have not been independently verified.
The UK is considering using “air and maritime options” to get more aid into Gaza, including through its bases in Cyprus, a government minister has said. Updating parliament, the foreign office minister Andrew Mitchell said: “We also are urging the Israeli government to increase humanitarian access including by Rafah and by opening up the Kerem Shalom crossing. He added that longer humanitarian pauses covering wider areas would be needed in order to deliver aid to the region”. On Tuesday Israel offered a four-hour cessation of hostilities in a limited area of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli authorities say they have now identified the remains of 859 civilians killed during the 7 October Hamas attack inside southern Israel. The work to identify bodies is ongoing, they say. On Friday the initial estimated death toll from the 7 October attack was revised down to 1,200.
Vivian Silver, a Canadian-Israeli peace activist believed to have been among the hostages taken by Hamas into Gaza on 7 October, was in fact killed in the initial attack, her family has told Canada’s CBC News.
Israel’s military has confirmed the death of Noa Marciano, a soldier seen in a hostage video posted by Hamas. Marciano, 19, was abducted by Hamas on 7 October. The al-Qassam Brigades claimed she was killed in an Israeli airstrike on 9 November. The IDF had condemned the video, saying “The Hamas terrorist organization continues to exploit psychological terrorism and act inhumanely, through videos and photos of the hostages, as done in the past,” and this morning listed her as a “fallen soldier held captive by a terror group.”
A senior member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said on Tuesday Gaza could not survive as an independent entity, and Palestinians there should agree to “voluntary emigration” and leave for other countries. The finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said: “I welcome the initiative of the voluntary emigration of Gaza Arabs to countries around the world. This is the right humanitarian solution for the residents of Gaza and the entire region after 75 years of refugees, poverty and danger. The state of Israel will no longer be able to accept the existence of an independent entity in Gaza.”
The leader of Yemen’s Houthis has said they will continue to attack Israel, and are looking to target Israeli vessels in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait.
Humanitarian aid sent by Italy to Gaza is entering the area, the Italian foreign minister said.
The US on Tuesday, in coordination with the UK, imposed a third round of sanctions aimed at the Palestinian militant group Hamas since 7 October, targeting its leaders and financiers.
Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said that Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s accusation of fascism against Israel was “absurd”. Israel “is a democracy” and “a country that is bound to human rights and international law and acts accordingly”, Scholz said.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, told his Australian counterpart Penny Wong in a call on Tuesday that Israel’s targeting of hospitals and schools in Gaza amounted to an “open violation of international law”.
The Hamas-led health ministry in Gaza says that over 11,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military action since Israel began its campaign in Gaza. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
A dozen film-makers and artists have withdrawn their work from the world’s largest documentary festival, being held in Amsterdam, after its organisers strongly condemned the use of the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” at an opening night protest.
The Football Association in England has suspended a council member who said “Adolf Hitler would be proud of Benjamin Netanyahu”. Wasim Haq, who joined the FA as a BAME football communities representative in 2019, became the subject of an investigation after a post on social media about Israel’s war with Hamas led him to be accused of antisemitism.
Israel has identified 859 civilian victims of 7 October Hamas attackIsraeli authorities say they have now identified the remains of 859 civilians killed during the 7 October Hamas attack inside southern Israel. The work to identify bodies is ongoing, they say.
The Times of Israel reports that the number is an increase of 16 on the last figure given in public.
On Friday 10 November, Israel revised down the number of Israeli deaths on 7 October from the previously given figure of 1,400 to 1,200. As well as Israeli civilians and IDF casualties during Israeli efforts to repel the attack, the aftermath of the pogrom has left the authorities with the bodies of approximately 1,500 Hamas fighters.
It is estimated that Hamas seized about 240 hostages during the murderous rampage in southern Israel.
The Hamas-led health ministry in Gaza says that more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military action since Israel began its campaign in Gaza, and an additional number of Palestinians have also been killed in the occupied West Bank.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
Reuters has a quick snap that the leader of Yemen’s Houthis has said they will continue to attack Israel, and are looking to target Israeli vessels in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb strait.
Earlier there were reports of an alert in the southern Israeli post city of Eilat, which the Houthis have previously targeted.
The UK’s minister of state for development, Andrew Mitchell, said on Tuesday that longer humanitarian pauses covering wider areas would be needed in the Israel-Hamas conflict in order to deliver aid to the region.
He told MPs in the House of Commons: “Longer pauses that cover wider areas will be needed. We are discussing with the UN and other partners how best to achieve this.” Mitchell said that all deaths of civilians “were to be profoundly regretted”.
The opposition shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, said the current pauses offered by Israel were not enough, adding: “Gaza is in a humanitarian catastrophe, more than 1.5 million people have been displaced, there are desperate shortages of basic essentials, does the minister agree that the short pauses in the north are clearly not enough?”
Earlier today the Israeli military announced a four-hour cessation of hostilities covering a limited area in the Gaza Strip.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s accusation of fascism against Israel was “absurd”, days before the German leader is to host the Turkish president for talks in Berlin.
Israel “is a democracy” and “a country that is bound to human rights and international law and acts accordingly. Therefore, the accusations against Israel are absurd,” Scholz told a press conference.
The Hamas-led health ministry in Gaza says that more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military action since Israel began its campaign in Gaza.
Scholz was responding to a question about Erdoğan’s comment on Friday that Israel’s legitimacy was “being questioned due to its own fascism”.
AFP reports Erdoğan first visit to Germany since 2020 is proving controversial over the Turkish leader’s accusations against Israel and his characterisation of Hamas as “liberators” fighting for their land.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Israel and Gaza.
A smoke plume erupts during an Israeli bombardment in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, an area where Israel has told Palestinians to move to for safety. Photograph: Ismael Mohamad/UPI/ShutterstockFamilies and friends of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza call for their return as they begin a five-day ‘March for the Hostages’ from Tel Aviv to the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem. Photograph: Ohad Zwigenberg/APA destroyed street near al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu/Getty ImagesPalestinian children at a UNRWA school take shelter during a downpour as strong winds and flooding hit Rafah. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu/Getty ImagesUK considering ‘air and maritime options’ to get more aid into GazaThe UK is considering using “air and maritime options” to get more aid into Gaza, including through its bases in Cyprus, a government minister has said.
Updating parliament, the foreign office minister Andrew Mitchell said: “We also are urging the Israeli government to increase humanitarian access including by Rafah and by opening up the Kerem Shalom crossing.
“At this point we assess that land presently offers the most viable and safe way to get humanitarian aid into Gaza in the quantities needed, but we are also considering air and maritime options, including through our bases in Cyprus.”
PA Media reports Mitchell also told MPs more British nationals had left Gaza through the Rafah crossing into Egypt, but did not give exact numbers.
He said: “Since I spoke to the House last week more British nationals and their families have left, and we will continue to offer all the support we can to those British nationals still in Gaza so that they too can cross into Egypt.”
Unusually, the UK’s newly appointed foreign secretary, David Cameron, is not an MP, and so cannot appear in the House of Commons to address lawmakers directly himself. Cameron sits in the UK’s unelected second chamber.
The US on Tuesday imposed a third round of sanctions aimed at the Palestinian militant group Hamas since 7 October, targeting its leaders and financiers.
Reuters reports the US Treasury department said the action, taken in coordination with the UK, targeted key Hamas officials and the mechanisms through which Iran provided support to Hamas and the group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
Philip Oltermann
Philip Oltermann is the Guardian’s European culture editor:
A dozen film-makers and artists have withdrawn their work from the world’s largest documentary festival, after its organisers strongly condemned the use of the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” at an opening night protest.
During a speech by the artistic director of the International Documentary festival Amsterdam (IDFA), Orwa Nyrabia, at the start of the event last Thursday, three activists took to the stage holding a sign with the slogan, which some say is a call for a secular state in historic Palestine, but which others note is used by radical Islamist groups to promote the eradication of Israel.
Nyrabia reportedly joined sections of the audience in applauding the intervention, but later said he could not see the words on the banner from where he sat on stage. “I clapped to welcome freedom of speech, and not to welcome the slogan,” he said, adding that the slogan was “a triggering statement and an offensive declaration for many, regardless of who carries it”.
The organisers of the IDFA, which runs until 19 November, said the use of the words went against their aim to provide a safe space for civic debate. Before the film festival issued its statement, 16 leading figures from the Israeli film industry had signed an open letter expressing their “uttermost dismay, disappointment and concern” at the opening-night protest and reports of its positive reception.
The IDFA’s statement in turn prompted protests from the Palestine Film Institute (PFI). As of Tuesday morning, 12 film-makers had followed the PFI’s call to withdraw their films from the festival.
Read more of Philip Oltermann’s report here: Film-makers pull out after Amsterdam festival condemns Palestine protest
The UK prime minister Rishi Sunak is meeting London’s police chief Sir Mark Rowley, following last Saturday’s far-right unrest around the Cenotaph in central London, which was billed as a counter-demonstration to a much larger march calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Sunak’s official spokesperson said: “The public rightly expect that the full force of the law is used to bear down on some of the shocking scenes of criminality we saw over the weekend, whether it was [far-right group] English Defence League protesters or those seemingly supporting Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation.”
PA Media reports he said that Sunak would be speaking to Rowley to “get a shared understanding of how to approach these protests should there be significant protests in the future”.
There have been pro-Palestinian demonstrations in central London every Saturday since the Israel-Hamas war began on 7 October. The Metropolitan police said about 300,000 people had attended on 11 November, when the march was scheduled to take place a couple of hours after Armistice Day commemorations at the Cenotaph.
Met assistant commissioner Matt Twist said the violence from rightwing protesters towards the police “was extraordinary and deeply concerning”. The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, pinned the blame for the violence on former home secretary Suella Braverman, who he claimed had stoked the tension and stirred up people on the far right. Sunak sacked her on Monday.