Israel Palestine news LIVE: Hamas is accused of using Gaza population as 'shield' as Israeli defence minister says permission, ideas and money for terror group's attacks 'come from Iran'

Defiant Gazans have refused to evacuate after Israel gave them 24 hours to flee.

Many say they would rather die than leave their homes.

While some heeded the call to leave, by Friday afternoon there is little sign of a mass exodus, despite the UN warning the area is 'fast becoming a hellhole'.

'Death is better than leaving,' said Mohammad, 20, standing in the street outside a building reduced to rubble in an Israeli air strike two days ago near the centre of Gaza. 'I was born here, and I will die here, leaving is a stigma.'

Read our full report here

Israel is on the cusp of an armed military incursion into the Gaza Strip.

As it gathers its forces, its air force is pounding the enclave with constant airstrikes in an attempt to reduce Hamas infrastructure and military targets to rubble.

There's just one problem.

Hamas does not operate like a normal enemy, nor do they live in obvious, above-ground compounds. They also don't travel through the streets like most Palestinian civilians bearing the brunt of Israel's bombs.

Instead, they work in a complex network of reinforced underground tunnels, built by the Islamist organisation and financed and supplied by Iran.

This means Israel can bomb Gaza all it likes - but would likely need to deploy hundreds of thousands of troops if it is to wipe the organisation out

Such an operation would likely share stark similarities with the bitter urban warfare famously seen in Mosul and other areas of Iraq.

In this story, MailOnline explores the 'Gaza Metro'...

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen and the Israeli president were forced to take cover in a bomb shelter as air raid sirens blared.

Watch the video here:

US President Joe Biden has held a virtual meeting with families of American hostages who were captured by Hamas terrorists.

NBC News reports the meeting, citing an unidentified White House official.

Biden's message to the families was 'We're going to do everything in our power to get them home, if we can find them,' NBC says.

As many as 27 Americans were killed in Saturday's attack by Hamas.

Iran has warned of a response from its allies, which include Hamas and the powerful Hezbollah movement in Lebanon if Israel continues its bombardment of Palestinians in Gaza.

• 'The continuation of war crimes against Palestine and Gaza will receive a response from the rest of the axis,' Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said, referring to Hezbollah and militant groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people are in a race against time to evacuate northern Gaza after Israel's military told some one million people to flee south.

The unprecedented order gave a 24 hour deadline, and came ahead of an expected ground invasion tasked with eradicating the Hamas terrorist group.

As the clock ticks down this evening, here's what you need to know:

• The war has claimed at least 2,800 lives on both sides since Hamas launched an incursion on October 7 (Around 1,300 in Israel and 1,500 in Gaza)
• The UN has warned that so many people fleeing would plunge the Gaza Strip into a deeper humanitarian crisis as the enclave continues to be shelled by Israel
• It is already running dangerously low on power, water, food and medicine
• Hamas, which staged the shocking and brutal attack on Israel nearly a week ago that sparked the new conflict, called on people to stay in their homes, saying the order was 'psychological warfare' to break their solidarity
• Meanwhile, the leader of Iran-backed Hezbollah has said the terror group is 'ready' to enter the conflict
• Israel's defence minister Yoav Gallant today called Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran an 'axis of evil' in comments during a press conference alongside his American counterpart Lloyd Austin
• Meanwhile, there have been pro-Palestinian protests around the Musim world after a former Hamas leader called for Friday to be a 'Day of Jihad'
• Germany's foreign minister today accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields, as Israel gears up for its expected invasion

The Palestinian president has warned against a 'second Nakba' facing Palestinians after the Israeli army ordered 1.1 million people to flee north Gaza.

Mahmud Abbas's evocation of the Nakba, Arabic for 'catastrophe', is a reference to the mass displacement of Palestinians from their homes during the 1948 creation of Israel.

According to the United Nations, more than 423,000 people have already fled their homes in the long-blockaded territory of 2.4 million.

In 1948 more than 760,000 Palestinians either fled or were forced off land claimed by the new state as the Israeli military razed more than 400 towns and villages.

The exodus created huge numbers of refugees spread across the region, and is at the core of the Israel-Palestine conflict today.

(Pictured below: US Secretray of State Antony Blinken meets Abbas in Jordan today)

Israel has said trains and planes will continue to run tomorrow on Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.

• Trains do not usually run for the general public during Shabbat, which starts from Friday evening for 25 hours.
• 'As part of the preparations for providing a response... to the home front and security needs, trains will operate during Friday night and throughout Saturday,' the statement from Israel Railways.
• Israel's El Al Airlines said yesterday it would break a four-decade-long policy of not flying during Shabbat in order to bring Israeli reservists home

Scores of Palestinians, including young children, are fleeing their homes in northern Gaza and moving south after Israel told them to evacuate 'immediately'.

More photographs are emerging of Palestinians racing to move south.

Read our full coverage of the evacuation order here

Hamas is using Gaza residents as a 'shield', the German foreign minister said Friday, as Israel prepared an expected ground offensive in retaliation for the militants' deadly weekend assault.

• 'Hamas is now barricading itself behind more innocent people and is using them as a shield in Gaza,' Annalena Baerbock said in a news conference in Israel alongside her Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen.
• 'Hamas has taken the entire population of Gaza hostage,' Baerbock said on a visit close to the border with the Gaza Strip.
• 'Their tunnels, their weapons depots and command centres are deliberately located in residential buildings, supermarkets and universities. Maybe even in hospitals,' Baerbock said.
• Fears for Gaza's inhabitants have grown after Israel's army called for 1.1 million - nearly half of the total population - to clear the territory's north ahead of a possible ground invasion.
• Baerbock said democracies, among them Germany and Israel, 'take seriously' the protection of the civilian population.

The Israeli military warned residents of a village near the Lebanese border on Friday to hole up at home and lock doors and windows, saying a suspected armed infiltration was underway and that it was responding with artillery fire into Lebanon.

The alert took place in Hanita, 500 metres from the border and opposite the Lebanese community of Aalma El-Chaeb.

The military statement said there had been an explosion at the adjacent border fence, which was lightly damaged.

Israeli forces have shelled villages in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel, security forces said.

More to follow...

Israel is waging all-out war on Hamas militants to effect permanent change and safeguard its future as a prosperous democracy, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has said.

He described the faction as part of an 'axis of evil' with Iran and Hezbollah.

Asked during a news conference with his U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin whether Tehran consented to the weekend Hamas onslaught from the Gaza Strip, Gallant said: 'It doesn't matter ... (because) the idea is an Iranian idea.'

As fighting raged into its seventh day, Gallant said Palestinian civilians 'who want to save their lives' must heed Israel's warning to evacuate southward in the enclave.

He declined, however, to answer a reporter's question on whether Israel would stick to the 24-hour evacuation notice it issued on Friday morning.

This is a war for the existence of Israel as a prosperous state, as a democratic state, as homeland of the Jewish people. We are fighting for our home. We are fighting for our future. The path will be long, but ultimately I promise you we will win.

Hezbollah's chief has said the group is 'fully prepared' to join Hamas in its war against Israel which today declared the two terror groups and Iran 'one axis of evil.'

The leader of the powerful Iran-backed Lebanese terror group said it was 'ready' and would 'contribute' to confrontations against its southern neighbour according to its own plan.

Sheikh Naim Qassem spoke to a crowd of cheering supporters waving Hezbollah flags and holding pictures of burning Israeli ones.

His rally came as Israel's defence minister Yoav Gallant said this afternoon that Hamas is part of an 'axis of evil' with Iran and Hezbollah.

Read our full story here

Gaza's Health Ministry has said 1,799 Palestinians had been killed and 6,388 wounded in Israeli air strikes on the blockaded enclave since Saturday.

As the new toll was announced, the commissioner general of the UN's Palestinian refugee agency said Gaza is 'fast becoming a hellhole and is on the brink of collapse'.

'The scale and speed of the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza is bone-chilling,' Philippe Lazzarini said.

Sirens warning of incoming rockets have sounded across northern Israel.

Israel's military says it intercepted a rocket fired from Gaza that was targeting the north of the country.

Hamas claimed it had launched Ayyash 250 rockets from the Gaza Strip, which have a range of 250 kilometers (155 miles).

A rocket with that range could theoretically hit any part of Israel from Gaza.

According to The Times of Israel, a military source said the country's 'David's Sling' medium-range air defence system intercepted the missile.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has spoken today in Israel, saying Hamas terrorists took 'evil to another level' from Islamic State jihadists.

He also pledged 'iron-clad' backing for Israel in its war against Hamas.

In encountering ISIS I felt as if we were staring evil in the eye - it was truly evil. And what we've seen from Hamas, it takes that evil to another level. [There is] never any justification for terrorism and that's especially true after this rampage by Hamas.

Washington, Austin said, will provide Israel with what it needs to defend itself, but also cautioned that the fightback against Hamas must have limits.

The United States has Israel's back and that is not negotiable and it never will be. Democracies like ours are stronger and more secure when we uphold the laws of war.

Israel's call for more than 1 million civilians in northern Gaza to move within 24 hours is going to be a 'tall order', White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Friday.

• 'That is a lot of people to move in a very short period of time,' Kirby said in an interview on MSNBC.
• 'We understand what they're trying to do and why they're trying to do this - to try to isolate the civilian population from Hamas, which is their real target.'

Chilling video has emerged of the moment Hamas terrorists ran towards homes in the Be'eri kibbutz and unleashed a hail of bullets on the terrified families living there.

You can read our coverage of the attack here

Hezbollah deputy chief said on Friday that the powerful Iran-backed group was 'ready' and would 'contribute' to confrontations against Israel according to its own plan, despite foreign powers asking them to stay on the sidelines.

Sheikh Naim Qassem said that major powers, Arab countries and the United Nations had 'directly and indirectly' told Hezbollah 'not to interfere' in ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas.

Jordanian riot police on Friday forcibly dispersed hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters trying to reach a border zone with the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

• Thousands held anti-Israel demonstrations across the country
• Jordan is worried a regional widening of violence arising from the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza could have repercussions for itself given that a large percentage of its population are Palestinians
• Jordan lost the West Bank including East Jerusalem to Israel in the 1967 Middle East war
• The Palestinian territory was seeing a rise in violence between Palestinians and the Israeli military and settlers even before the Gaza conflict erupted
• Witnesses today said police fired tear gas to halt about 500 demonstrators who had reached a highway security checkpoint outside the capital Amman
• The highway leads to a main border crossing into the West Bank
• The interior ministry had issued a ban against holding anti-Israel marches in the sensitive border area, but said other licensed protests would be allowed
• The outpouring of Arab anger against Israel over its siege and bombardment of Gaza retaliating for a devastating cross-border Hamas attack also fuelled a large rally on Friday in downtown Amman (pictured below)

We're seeing pictures from across the world of pro-Palestinian protests after former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal demanded thousands of Muslims take to the streets to demonstrate amid the ongoing conflict.

The former terror leader, who is based in Qatar , said the governments and peoples of Jordan, Syria , Lebanon and Egypt have a bigger duty to support the Palestinians in comments recorded earlier this week.

You can read our full story on the protests here

British families living on the border with Gaza have the fear of living under constant threat of rocket attacks, and of Hamas gunmen bursting into their homes.

But they have also explained why they are refusing to move to safer parts of Israel.

• Beverley Jamil and Steve Malnick are part of a close-knit expat community that has set up home in Ashkelon, ten miles north of Hamas-ruled Gaza
• Beverley says she and Steve walk around with automatic pistols strapped to their belts and barricade their homes at night
• But despite the horrific atrocities suffered close by and the clear danger they face, they are refusing to be moved to safer parts of Israel
• She told MailOnline: 'This war has affected everyone in Israel. We all know someone who has been killed, captured or is missing

Read our full story here

BBC Arabic reporter Adnan El-Bursh fell to his knees today after seeing dozens of friends and neighbours among the dead in war-torn Gaza.

He described the situation in Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in the 25-mile strip, as traumatic with 'bodies everywhere'.

He was reporting there amid Israel's bombardment on the Gaza enclave.

Speaking to camera at the end of his report, El-Bursh admits: 'I have seen things I can never unsee.'

Read our full story here

Further to our update at 9:22, here is the video of Defence Secretary Grant Shapps clashing with the BBC's Mishal Husain over the corporation's refusal to call Hamas 'terrorists'

You can read the full story here

Russian President Vladimir Putin has today said an Israeli ground operation in Gaza would result in civilian losses and that the main thing was to stop the bloodshed.

Israel's military on Friday called for all civilians of Gaza City, more than 1 million people, to relocate south within 24 hours, as it amassed tanks ahead of an expected ground invasion after a devastating weekend attack by the militant group Hamas.

Putin, speaking in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, said the conflict should be resolved by peaceful means and that Russia supports a two-state solution.

He appeared to make no mention of the fact that Russian forces are currently invading Ukraine, or that they have killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians in countless strikes on residential buildings across the country since last year.

Israel's army has claimed it killed the brother of the current leader of Hamas.

• The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it struck five residential buildings in the Gaza Strip it said were being used by Hamas operatives.
• One of the buildings, it said, was being used by the brother of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar. It is presumed that Muhammad Sinwar was inside the building at the time.
• The IDF released a video it said showed the moment of the strike.
• Aerial footage from above Gaza (below) showed the building in its cross-hairs as smoke and rubble erupted in all directions.

Read the full story here

The Israeli military has dropped flyers on Gaza warning residents to flee 'immediately' to the south, AFP correspondents in the Palestinian territory said.

'Evacuate your homes immediately and go south of Wadi Gaza,' read flyers dropped by drones and seen by the news agency.

A map featured on the flyers showed an arrow pointing south across a line in the central Gaza Strip.

Read our full story on the evacuation here

A total of 447 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, according to UNICEF.

The UN organisation said that the number is likely to rise as Israel continues to strike the enclave around the clock in retaliation to Hamas' attack on Saturday.

Some reports suggest the figure has already risen since it was last reported.

So far, more than 2,800 lives have been lost on both sides of the conflict.

Terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired hundreds of rockets towards Israel on Friday, a journalist working for AFP news agency has reported.

The strikes came as the Israeli military continued pounding the Palestinian enclave with air strikes.

A barrage of rockets were fired within the past 15 minutes, the correspondent said.

Pictures from Israel show Israeli forces mobilising around Gaza.

• The IDF has given Palestinian residents in northern Gaza 24 hours to evacuate to the south as expectation mounts over an Israeli ground offensive into the enclave
• The Israeli army confirmed Friday it had called on Gaza City residents to move 'to the area south of the Wadi Gaza', which is just below Gaza City in the 25 miles territory
• 'In the following days, the IDF will continue to operate significantly in Gaza City and make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians,' the army said
• 'Hamas terrorists are hiding in Gaza City inside tunnels underneath houses and inside buildings populated with innocent civilians.'
• Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas after the terrorist group launched a barbaric assault in the south of the country, targeting civilians

Israel's armed forces have released dramatic footage of the moment elite troops retook control of a checkpoint overrun by Hamas and freed 250 hostages.

Video from body cameras worn by members of the Flotilla 13 elite unit was released on Thursday evening. The naval commando unit - the equivalent of the U.S. Navy SEALS - is specialized in counter terrorism.

Read our full story here

Israel's military on Friday called for all civilians of Gaza City, more than 1 million people, to relocate south within 24 hours, as it amassed tanks ahead of an expected ground invasion after a devastating attack by the militant group Hamas.

Pictures from the enclave today show desperate Palestinian people gathering what few belongings they can carry and fleeing their homes, on foot if necessary.

The IDF issued the evacuation order early this morning, meaning people now have less than 24 hours to reach safety.

Read our full story on the evacuation here

Shocking video shows the moment two women tear down posters of innocent Israeli children who were taken hostage by Hamas - with one saying 'this is for Palestine!'

The British-Israeli woman who filmed the encounter has revealed how she received verbal abuse from other members of the public while putting the fliers up in north London.

Read our exclusive story here, and watch the video below:

Protests have taken place in Japan and Iraq as the rest of the world braces for the 'day of jihad' in the wake of former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal's call for Muslims to 'take the streets' in the wake of the terror group's brutal assault on Israel.

• Meshaal, who currently heads Hamas's diaspora office, said: '[We must] head to the squares and streets of the Arab and Islamic world on Friday.'
• The former terror leader, who is based in Qatar , said the governments and peoples of Jordan, Syria , Lebanon and Egypt have a bigger duty to support the Palestinians
• On Friday, photos and videos posted on X showed thousands of Iraqis flooding Baghdad's Tahir Square in support of Hamas. Giant Palestinian flags were seen laid on the ground alongside the flag of Iraq
• In New York City , home to around 1.6 million Jewish people, Mayor Eric Adams announced that there would be a step up in security
• On Thursday, the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement that they have deployed extra forces around Jewish cultural sites in the wake of Meshaal's claims
• Meanwhile in London, Jewish schools announced that they would close on Friday as a result of the threats

Read our full story here

The UK's Defence Secretary has clashed with a BBC presenter over the broadcaster's refusal to brand Hamas 'terrorists'.

• The tense exchange came as he spoke with Mishal Husain on the flagship Radio 4 Today programme
• Mr Shapps suggested that the broadcaster did not seem 'interested' in condemning the bloody attacks
• He stressed Parliament had tagged Hamas as a terror group, and highlighted an 'unfortunate' article by veteran foreign correspondent John Simpson justifying the language in coverage
• But Husain shot back that other major broadcasters were doing the same, arguing that they were following the Ofcom code
• The BBC refers to Hamas as a 'militant' group and described the slaughter of Israeli civilians as a 'militant' attack, as opposed to 'terrorist' group or 'terrorist' attack

Read our full story here

Israel is drawing on its huge military might - including thousands of tanks, warplanes and troops - to obliterate Hamas after the terrorists launched their ruthless attacks this weekend that has killed more than 1,300 Israelis.

• Israeli forces have already used their strike force of 600 planes and 300 rocket launchers to relentlessly pound the Gaza Strip
• Airstrikes and artillery have destroyed thousands of targets belonging to Hamas and killed 1,530 Palestinians as their neighbourhoods were obliterated
• The ruthless onslaught won't stop there, with Israel's 173,000 soldiers, backed by 300,000 reservists, vying for the opportunity to kill Hamas terrorists who massacred 1,300 Israelis
• This huge force, along with 300 military tanks including self-propelled howitzers, are now preparing to launch a huge co-ordinated ground assault that will likely bring higher casualties on both sides

Here, MailOnline looks at Israel's military arsenal

Hamas, founded as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, took control of Gaza after winning a shock election there in 2006 and now rules with an iron fist.

After launching an unprecedented attack on Israel on Saturday that killed more than 1,300 civilians, the IDF has now vowed to wipe them out.

Here, MailOnline explains the history behind the terrorist group.

Hamas terrorists said today that at least 13 Israeli and foreign hostages held in the northern Gaza Strip have been killed in Israeli air strikes in the past 24 hours.

• The terrorists stormed Israeli communities near the Gaza border on Saturday, killing thousands of Israelis and taking more than 150 people - including women and children - hostage.
• 'Thirteen prisoners... including foreigners' were killed in five locations targeted by Israeli fighter jets, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement.
• Israel has rained air and artillery strikes on the blockaded Gaza Strip - a densely populated enclave of 2.4 million people - flattening buildings and killing more than 1,500 people.
• According to the Hamas media office in Gaza, at least 500 children are among the dead.
• The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades had warned this week that 'every targeting of our people without warning will be met with the execution of one of the civilian hostages'.

Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of using white phosphorus munitions in its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon.

The group has shared videos that it claims show Israel using the weapons.

Read our full story here

Last night, Israel released a series of harrowing images of tiny babies who were murdered and burned by Hamas terrorists in their barbaric incusion.

One appalling image show the small body of a baby, who couldn't be more than 12 months old, lying on a bloodied white body bag.

Another two photographs released by Israel show the blackened and charred bodies of two more babies, murdered when Hamas gunmen stormed their homes in southern Israel.

The images confirmed reports from earlier in the week about Hamas brutally murdering babies, which some initially dismissed as Israeli propaganda.

MailOnline has chosen to publish heavily blurred versions of these images to show the horrors that Hamas terrorists unleashed on hundreds of Israelis after they stormed over the border from Gaza on Saturday...

Read the full story here

Despite the IDF's ominous order to evacuate, the Hamas terrorist group has urged Palestinians living in northern Gaza to stay in their homes.

The Hamas Authority for Refugee Affairs called on residents of the north of the territory to 'remain steadfast in your homes and to stand firm in the face of this disgusting psychological war waged by the occupation'.

Israel's order comes ahead of an expected ground assault into the Gaza Strip, and as the IDF continues to bombard the region with airstrikes.

Hamas has long been accused of using civilians as human shields to hide from Israeli attacks, thus increasing the number of civilian casualties.

Israel's military sent one evacuation order directly on Friday morning, telling the 1.1 million people living north of an area called Wadi Gaza to move south.

This would mean the entire population of Gaza City and its surroundings fleeing their homes, shown in the green area in the map below.

The UN says it is impossible to move that many people without devastating humanitarian consequences, and has urged Israel to rescind the order.

The 2.3 million people living in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip are densely packed into a sliver of land that is just 25 miles long and 7 miles wide.

It is already facing a dire humanitarian crisis, with no power, food, water or medicine coming into the enclave, as Israel levels entire neighbourhoods with strikes.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has today accused Israel of using white phosphorus munitions in its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, saying the use of such weapons puts civilians at risk of serious and long-term injury

• Israel's military said it was 'currently not aware of the use of weapons containing white phosphorous in Gaza' when asked for comment on the allegations by Reuters news agency
• Israel did not provide comment on the rights watchdog's allegations of their use in Lebanon
• HRW said it verified videos taken in Lebanon on October 10 and Gaza on October 11 showing 'multiple airbursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over the Gaza City port and two rural locations along the Israel-Lebanon border'
• It provided links to two videos posted on social media that it said show '155mm white phosphorus artillery projectiles being used, apparently as smokescreens, marking, or signalling'. Both show scenes near the Israel-Lebanon border, it said
• The group did not provide links to videos showing their alleged use in Gaza

Good morning, and welcome to MailOnline's live blog covering the unfoilding Israel-Gaza conflict on October 13, 2023.

Here's what you need to know today:

• Israel's military hs ordered more than one million civilians living in Gaza City to evacuate Friday ahead of a feared Israel ground offensive
• The directive came on the heels of what the United Nations said was a warning they received from Israel to evacuate 1.1 million people living in northern Gaza within 24 hours
• Suffering in Gaza has been rising dramatically with Palestinians desperate for food, fuel and medicine and the territory's only power plant shut down for lack of fuel as Israel's blockade of the enclave continues
• The morgue at Gaza's biggest hospital overflowed as bodies came in faster than relatives could claim them
• US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was set to visit on Friday, a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
• The war has claimed at least 2,800 lives on both sides since Hamas launched an incursion on Oct. 7
• Last night, Israel released harrowing images of tiny babies who had been slaughtered by Hamas during Saturday's attack