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Wrapping up today’s news
By Lucy Cormack
That’s where we will leave our live coverage for today. Let’s quickly recap today’s developments:
- The letter was signed by former prime ministers John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison. It was the initiative of former treasurer Josh Frydenberg and drafted by Turnbull.
- Palestinians in northern Gaza reported fierce air and artillery strikes as Israeli troops backed by tanks pressed into the enclave. Israel’s chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the IDF was “gradually moving ahead according to plan”.
- Israel’s military said it had struck over 600 militant targets over the past few days as it continued to expand ground operations, including one Hamas post with more than 20 terrorist operatives inside.
- Sixty people were detained after hundreds of anti-Israel protesters stormed an airport in Russia’s predominantly Muslim Dagestan region on Sunday. The protesters spread onto the landing field to protest the arrival of an airliner coming from Tel Aviv.
- Overrun hospitals in northern Gaza face growing threats as heavy air strikes continue. All 10 hospitals still working in northern Gaza have received evacuation orders in recent days. As well as patients and doctors they are supporting around 117,000 displaced people, the UN said.
You can catch up with all our latest news and analysis on the Israel-Hamas war here.
I’m Lucy Cormack. Thank you for joining us. Good night.
Hezbollah leader to give first public address since war began
Hezbollah’s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah is expected to make a televised speech in Lebanon on Friday, in what would be the first public address by the leader of the Iran-backed group since the war began.
Bloomberg is reporting Nasrallah will speak during a ceremony being held to honour the “martyrs who rose on the road to Jerusalem in defence of Gaza, the Palestinian people and holy sites,” according to the group’s Al Manar TV.
Dozens of Hezbollah fighters have been killed during cross-border clashes with Israel in the past three weeks. Hezbollah, one of the Middle East’s most powerful militia groups, has said it has 100,000 fighters and a missile stockpile able to reach all across Israel.
Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group that emerged in the early 1980s during the 15-year Lebanese civil war. Its ideology calls for the destruction of the Israeli state and pledges allegiance to Iran’s supreme leader.
The group has been peppering Israeli military positions with fire from mortars, rockets and anti-tank weapons since the fighting began.
UK to hold emergency meeting on terrorism threat
Britain will convene a meeting of the government’s COBRA emergency response committee on Monday to discuss the domestic security risk from the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents have surged in Britain since a deadly rampage by Hamas gunmen in Israel on Oct. 7 sparked retaliatory attacks on Gaza.
Massive pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been held in London and other major UK cities, while Jewish groups have held vigils for hostages who were taken by the militants.
MI5 currently regard the threat to the country from terrorism as substantial.Credit: AP
“We have to make sure that British systems are safe and secure from the threat of terrorism as the government always does,” higher education minister Robert Halfon told Times Radio.
Britain’s MI5 intelligence agency currently regard the threat to the country from terrorism as substantial, meaning an attack is likely.
There are two higher categories of threat level - severe, meaning an attack is highly likely, and critical, meaning an attack is highly likely in the near future.
Reuters
Former PMs’ joint statement was Josh Frydenberg’s idea: Tony Abbott
By Olivia Ireland
Former prime minister Tony Abbott has confirmed the idea for releasing a joint statement condemning Hamas came from former Liberal treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who drafted an initial version of the letter before Malcolm Turnbull wrote the final statement.
Speaking with Chris O’Keefe on 2GB, Abbott said it was rare he would be singing Malcolm Turnbull’s praises, but gave credit to his former colleague for writing the joint statement.
“Josh [Frydenberg] approached us all … Josh, as I understand it, had drafted a statement. Malcolm, I think quite suitably said: ‘Look, if it’s going to come from all of the former prime ministers it should be drafted by one of us’. And Malcolm drafted the words,” Abbott said.
Six of Australia’s seven former prime ministers released a statement condemning the “hatred” spread by Hamas.
“We all had our say, there were one or two minor amendments made, I think Malcolm has done a wonderful job and I think it’s a beautiful, beautiful statement that I’m certainly proud to be a part of.”
Abbott said he did not know why Paul Keating declined to be a part of the letter, but pressed the importance of the joint letter as he described Hamas as a “death cult”.
“I think we do have to take sides when it comes to Hamas and the people and government of Israel, we’ve got to be absolutely on Israel’s side,” Abbott said.
“Israel does need to destroy Hamas as an organisation. They do have to go into Gaza, they do have to find all these terrorist hiding spots. They do need to find the leadership and suitably deal with it and there is just no alternative.”
Palestinian Advocacy Network says ex-PMs’ letter is biased
The Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network has criticised a joint statement on the Israel-Hamas conflict made by six former prime ministers on Monday, saying the statement alienates Palestinian Australians and exhibits pro-Israel bias.
The network said the statement minimised Israel’s “gross violations of international law for the past 75 years” and failed to recognise Israel’s responsibility in killing 8000 people in Gaza.
Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni.Credit: Justin McManus
“The statement’s reference to ‘Australian values of love and respect’ rings hollow, given that the former Prime Ministers failed to acknowledge the tens of thousands of Australians expressing their horror about Israel’s behaviour, and ignored the anguish that many thousands of Palestinian Australians are currently feeling,” the network’s president Nasser Mashini said.
Every living former prime minister bar Paul Keating signed the statement, which condemned Hamas, extended solidarity to Jewish and Palestinian Australians, called for humanitarian access to Palestinians and urged the nation to support those who are grieving and distressed.
Read the full statement:
As the sun rises in Gaza, Palestinians report fierce artillery strikes
It’s about 8am Monday in Gaza, and Palestinians in the northern strip have reported fierce air and artillery strikes early in the morning as Israeli troops backed by tanks pressed into the enclave with a ground assault that prompted more international calls for civilians to be protected.
Israel’s military said it had struck over 600 militant targets over the past few days as it continued to expand ground operations in the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian civilians are in dire need of fuel, food and clean water as the conflict enters its fourth week.
Smoke rises following Israeli bombardment on Gaza City over the weekend.Credit: AP
“IDF troops killed dozens of terrorists who barricaded themselves in buildings and tunnels, and attempted to attack the troops,” the military said in a statement.
Israeli air strikes hit areas near Gaza’s Shifa and Al-Quds hospitals, and Palestinian militants clashed with Israeli forces in a border area east of the city of Khan Younis in the south, Palestinian media said.
There was no comment from Hamas. Reuters was not able to independently confirm the reports.
Israel’s self-declared “second phase” of a three-week war against Iranian-backed Hamas militants has been largely kept from public view, with forces moving under darkness and a telecommunications blackout cutting off Palestinians.
People search through buildings that were destroyed during Israeli air raids in the southern Gaza Strip.Credit: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images
The phone and internet cuts appeared to ease on Sunday, but telecoms provider Paltel said Israeli air strikes had again knocked out internet and phone service in parts of the enclave’s northern sections, where Hamas has command centres.
The outages have severely hampered rescue operations for casualties of Israeli barrages.
The reported strikes near hospitals came after the Palestinian Red Crescent said on Sunday it had received warnings from Israeli authorities to immediately evacuate al-Quds hospital, where some 14,000 people have sought shelter.
Palestinian officials said about 50,000 people had also taken shelter in Shifa Hospital, adding that they were concerned about Israeli threats to the facility.
Reuters
Sixty arrested in Russia following anti-Israel airport protest
Sixty people were detained after hundreds of anti-Israel protesters stormed an airport in Russia’s predominantly Muslim Dagestan region on Sunday, the RIA news agency (a Russian state-owned agency) reported on Monday.
RIA said the identity of 150 of what it called the most active protesters had been identified. It said nine police officers had received injuries in the incident, two of whom were being treated in hospital.
The protesters stormed the airport on Sunday, where a plane from Israel had just arrived, forcing security forces to close the airport and remove the demonstrators.
Reuters
What was it like inside Gaza’s 34-hour communications blackout?
Phone and internet connectivity was partially restored to Gaza on Sunday morning (local time) after a 34-hour communications blackout shrouded the besieged strip and exacerbated the humanitarian crisis unfolding there.
“I felt that I had become blind and deaf, unable to see or hear,” Fathi Sabbah, a journalist based in Gaza, wrote on his Facebook profile Sunday, reported The New York Times.
Ahmed Yousef, a 45-year-old civil servant, said the communications blackout was worse than losing access to electricity and water because he couldn’t contact friends, family or the people he buys food from for his loved ones.
Palestinians line up at a bakery in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.Credit: Samar Abu Elouf/New York Times
Two US officials said the United States believed Israel was responsible for the communications loss.
Israeli officials have so far declined to comment. The two US officials said they had urged their Israeli counterparts to do what they could to restore communications.
Go inside the 34-hour blackout that cut Gaza off from the world here.
US threatens to stop supplying rifles to Israel
The US has threatened to stop supplying rifles to Israel after their national security minister was seen handing them out to civilians.
The diplomatic spat was prompted by images on social media of Itamar Ben-Gvir giving rifles to community security squads across the country, according to Israel’s daily Haaretz.
The images appeared to show Ben-Gvir distributing the arms at political events in Bnei Brak and El’ad, two towns near Tel Aviv.
Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, attends an event to deliver weapons to volunteer security group members in Ashkelon, Israel, last week.Credit: AP
After several days of diplomatic exchanges, Israel committed to distributing the weapons only through its police or army, although politicians can be present when they are handed out.
A state department spokesperson said: “President [Joe] Biden directed his team to ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself, consistent with international law, and we are actively providing additional security assistance to the Israeli Defence Forces.
“Our assistance will flow quickly to meet Israel’s urgent needs.”
A spokesman for Ben-Gvir did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Since the start of the war with Hamas, Israel has set up hundreds of volunteer security squads and has been arming them in view of possible unrest in Palestinian communities.
Ben-Gvir has predicted that this war could see a repeat of the tensions that followed the last Gaza war of 2021 and has ordered an easing of regulations for issuing gun licences to private citizens.
The Telegraph
Clashes on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon and Syria
The Israeli military struck targets in Lebanon and Syria on Sunday (local time) after projectiles were fired into Israel.
Clashes have been taking place across Israel’s tense border with Lebanon since the onset of the Hamas-Israel war, mostly contained to several border towns.
Homes and buildings in Lebanon seen from the Israeli town of Margaliot.Credit: Kate Geraghty
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.
On Sunday evening, Hamas said its forces in Lebanon had fired 16 missiles at the northern Israeli town of Nahariya. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, also announced it had fired missiles at several sites across the border Sunday afternoon, including one that it said had hit an Israeli infantry unit near the town of Birket Risha and caused “confirmed injuries.”
Rockets were fired from Syria as well on Sunday, falling into open Israeli territory, the military said, which fired back at the site where the rockets were launched. It did not report any injuries.
AP
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