Benjamin Netanyahu to hold press conference with international media this afternoon
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to hold a press conference with international media in Jerusalem at 4:30pm local time (13:30 GMT; 14:30 GMT; 15:30 BST).
He will likely be asked about the security cabinet’s controversial decision on Friday to expand its assault on Gaza and take control of Gaza City.
The decision saw Netanyahu ignore the advice of the Israeli military and warnings that expanding the war could endanger the hostages being held there and kill even more Palestinian civilians. Hamas warned of “fierce resistance” to the move.
Key events
Invasion of Gaza risks turning into a Vietnam for Israeli soldiers, Italy’s foreign minister says
“The invasion of Gaza risks turning into a Vietnam for Israeli soldiers,” Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, has said in an interview with daily Il Messaggero.
Senior Israeli military officers and former senior commanders have warned that Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to occupy Gaza City would endanger the lives of the remaining Israeli hostages, risk further international isolation of Israel and require its soldiers to administer a population in which Hamas fighters were still present.
My colleague Lorenzo Tondo has written more on the divisions between the PM and the military.
A group of Dutch activists have been blocking access to the grounds of the Microsoft data centre in Middenmeer, north of Amsterdam, following revelations from the Guardian that the Israeli military had undertaken an ambitious project to store a giant trove of Palestinians’ phone calls on the company’s servers.
Several activists climbed the roof and lit flares. The group, Geef Tegengas (Push Back), is demanding that all data from Israeli intelligence services be removed from the site and is calling for a boycott of Microsoft products.
Police in London are braced for another day of demonstrations as protesters demanding the immediate release of all the remaining hostages in Gaza plan to march through central London to the prime minister’s residence at No 10 Downing Street.
The march on Sunday comes a day after police arrested 474 people at a protest in support of Palestine Action, which is proscribed in the UK.
Associated Press reports that among those expected to attend Sunday’s rally is Noga Guttman, a cousin of 24-year-old hostage Evyatar David. Last week Hamas released a video showing an emaciated David who said that he is digging his own grave inside a tunnel in Gaza.
Hamas-led militants kidnapped 251 people when they attacked Israel on 7 October 2023. Some 50 of the hostages still haven’t been released, of whom 20 are thought to be alive.
“We are united in one clear and urgent demand: the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” Stop the Hate, a coalition of groups organizing the march, said in a statement. “Regardless of our diverse political views, this is not a political issue — it is a human one.”
The far-right Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has criticised Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to take over Gaza City, describing it as half hearted.
Smotrich said:
The prime minister and the cabinet gave in to weakness. Emotion overcame reason, and they once again chose to do more of the same – launching a military operation whose goal is not decisive victory, but rather to apply limited pressure on Hamas in order to bring about a partial hostage deal.
They decided once again to repeat the same approach, embarking on a military operation that does not aim for a decisive resolution.
The far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, meanwhile, told Kan radio on Sunday: “It is possible to achieve victory. I want all of Gaza, transfer and colonisation. This plan will not endanger the troops.”
Netanyahu’s fragile right-wing coalition is extremely reliant on Smotrich and Ben Gvir. The Israeli leader is on trial for corruption and fending off calls for an official inquiry into the 7 October 2023 attacks, and is also keen to avoid early elections.
Death toll from Israeli attacks on Gaza reaches 61,430, says health ministry
At least 61,430 Palestinian people have been killed and 153,213 others injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
At least 61 Palestinian people were killed and 363 others injured in the last 24 hours alone, the ministry said.
Details about Israel’s plan to take over Gaza City
Here are some details about Israel’s Gaza City takeover plan, which could be the first phase of a full scale takeover of the Strip (you can read the full story by my colleagues, Lorenzo Tondo and Julian Borger, here):
The proposal is reported to have opened a deep rift between Netanyahu and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) leadership but has not been opposed by the Trump administration, Israel’s most important backer…
Before the security cabinet meeting, which began on Thursday and ran through the night, the Israeli prime minister had said Israel planned to take control of the entire territory and eventually hand it to friendly Arab forces opposed to Hamas.
The plans announced on Friday morning stop short of that goal, perhaps reflecting the opposition of the IDF chief of general staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, who told Netanyahu on Tuesday he was “walking into a trap” according to Israeli press reports, warning it would endanger the remaining 20 or so living hostages held by Hamas and further strain Israel’s army after nearly two years of regional wars.
However, in a meeting with the leadership of the IDF southern command on Friday, Zamir vowed to carry out the government’s orders…
Israel has repeatedly bombarded Gaza City and carried out numerous raids in its devastated streets, returning to different neighbourhoods again and again as militants regrouped. It is one of the few areas of Gaza that has not been turned into an Israeli buffer zone or placed under evacuation orders.
The Netanyahu plan would mean sending ground troops into the few areas of the territory that have not been totally destroyed, making up about 25% of the Gaza Strip. It would force approximately 1 million Palestinians in Gaza City and surrounding areas into evacuation zones in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Sources familiar with details of the meeting said the evacuation of the city was scheduled to be completed by 7 October.
Benjamin Netanyahu to hold press conference with international media this afternoon
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to hold a press conference with international media in Jerusalem at 4:30pm local time (13:30 GMT; 14:30 GMT; 15:30 BST).
He will likely be asked about the security cabinet’s controversial decision on Friday to expand its assault on Gaza and take control of Gaza City.
The decision saw Netanyahu ignore the advice of the Israeli military and warnings that expanding the war could endanger the hostages being held there and kill even more Palestinian civilians. Hamas warned of “fierce resistance” to the move.
The Israeli military has just posted to X to say that two projectiles were “likely” launched from Gaza and crossed into Israel.
It wrote:
Following the alerts activated in the Gaza Envelope, it is likely that two launches from the Gaza Strip crossed into the country’s territory, interception attempts were made, and their results are under review.
Here are some of the latest images coming out of the newswires from Gaza:
Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, is reporting that earlier today the al-Awda hospital received the bodies of five people killed by the Israeli military near an aid distribution point in the central Gaza Strip. Three other people brought to the hospital were also targeted near the aid distribution point (on Salah al-Din street) and are being treated for injuries, according to Wafa.
One person was killed and several others waiting for aid were injured in the al-Shakoush area, northwest of the southern city of Rafah, Wafa reported. We have not yet been able to independently verify this information.
Israel has been widely accused of using food as a political weapon and of flagrantly breaking international law by collectively punishing the civilian population of Gaza by its aid blockade.
Aid organisations were bringing somewhere between 500 and 600 aid trucks a day into Gaza during the ceasefire earlier this year, but now Israeli restrictions mean much less aid is being allowed into the territory.
The Guardian’s chief Middle East correspondent, Emma Graham-Harrison, has broken down in great detail how Israel has deliberately caused a famine in Gaza. Here is an extract from her piece:
The mathematics of famine are simple in Gaza. Palestinians cannot leave, war has ended farming and Israel has banned fishing, so practically every calorie its population eats must be brought in from outside.
Israel knows how much food is needed. It has been calibrating hunger in Gaza for decades, initially calculating shipments to exert pressure while avoiding starvation.
“The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger,” a senior adviser to the then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said in 2006…
Data compiled and published by Israel’s own government makes clear that it has been starving Gaza. Between March and June, Israel allowed just 56,000 tonnes of food to enter the territory, Cogat records show, less than a quarter of Gaza’s minimum needs for that period.
Even if every bag of UN flour had been collected and handed out, and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation had developed safe systems for equitable distribution, starvation was inevitable. Palestinians did not have enough to eat.
Israel imposed a total aid blockade for 11 weeks starting in March (ostensibly to put pressure on Hamas to release hostages), and the trickle of food, fuel and medical supplies allowed in since May has not relieved extreme hunger.
Aid groups have said Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip is the principal cause of the starvation crisis.
When Israel allowed aid back in, it did so mostly under a contentious new aid delivery system – run by the Israeli-backed logistics group the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Israel says the new distribution system stops aid going to Hamas.
At least 1,400 people have been killed while seeking aid since 27 May 2025, most of whom were killed near GHF sites, while other Palestinian people were killed along the routes of aid convoys, the UN has said.
Responding to a global outcry provoked by images of widespread starvation and malnutrition in Gaza, along with the regular killings of aid seekers by Israeli forces, the Israeli military increased the scale of aid allowed into the Strip at the end of last month.
But the amount of aid Israel allowed in is still totally inadequate for the humanitarian needs of Gaza’s two million population that is now experiencing catastrophic levels of famine, according to aid and human rights organisations.
Letting in small numbers of trucks and airdropping supplies (which is costly, dangerous and inefficient) is nowhere near enough to reverse the famine trend.
At least 100 children in Gaza have died from famine and malnutrition, health ministry says
Over the past 24 hours, hospitals in the Gaza Strip recorded five new deaths due to famine and malnutrition, including two children, according to the territory’s health ministry.
This brings the total number of Palestinian people who have died from famine and malnutrition to 217, including 100 children.
The request for the UN security council was reportedly endorsed by all members of the security council except Panama, which is its current chair, and the US, Israel’s most powerful ally and biggest arms supplier.
The security council is the UN’s most powerful body; it has the authority to issue legally binding resolutions that can be backed up by sanctions and peacekeepers.
There are five permanent members of the council (China, the Russian Federation, France, the UK and the US). They can vote against, and effectively veto, any proposal put forward by the council.
The ten non-permanent members are currently Algeria, Denmark, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia and Somalia.
UN security council to meet over Israel’s Gaza City takeover plan
The UN security council will shortly hold an emergency session to discuss Israel’s plan to capture and occupy Gaza City, which if carried out would give Israel control of about 85% of the strip (the Israeli military currently controls about 75% of the territory).
The meeting, requested by Denmark, France, Greece, the UK and Slovenia, is scheduled to start at 10am (14:00 GMT) in New York and will see UN rapporteurs outline the likely disastrous consequences of seizing Gaza’s main city.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was among foreign leaders urging Israel to reconsider its decision to advance into Gaza City.
Regional power Saudi Arabia, which has said it could not normalise ties with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state, condemned any move to occupy Gaza.
Germany, Israel’s second-biggest arms supplier and strongest backer in Europe, on Friday suspended the delivery of weaponry that could be used in Gaza.
Foreign ministers from the UK, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and Australia released a joint statement rejecting the plan on the same day, saying it would “aggravate” the already “catastrophic” situation in Gaza.
“Any attempts at annexation or of settlement extension violate international law,” they added.
Tens of thousands protest in Israel over plan to escalate war on Gaza
Welcome to our live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night to oppose Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to escalate his war on Gaza.
The plan lists five so-called “principles” for ending the war: disarming Hamas, returning all hostages, demilitarising the Gaza Strip, taking security control of Gaza, and setting up “an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority”.
The demonstration against the plan, estimated to have attracted more than 100,000 protesters by organisers, saw calls for an immediate end to the military assault and for the release of hostages.
Authorities did not provide an official estimate for the size of the crowd, though it dwarfed other recent anti-war rallies.
Public opinion polls show an overwhelming majority of Israelis favour an immediate end to the war to secure the release of the remaining 50 hostages held by militants in Gaza. Israeli officials believe about 20 hostages are still alive.
In other developments:
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The Israeli government has faced sharp criticism at home and abroad, including from some of its closest European allies, over the announcement that the military would expand the war to seize Gaza City. The full cabinet is expected to give its approval as soon as Sunday.
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The Palestinian Authority on Saturday lambasted the Israeli government’s decision to expand its assault in Gaza, as it called on the international community to push for the entry of aid into the strip. According to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, the PA’s presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said the Israeli government’s moves were “an unprecedented challenge and provocation to the international will to achieve peace and stability”.
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Several Arab and Muslim countries on Saturday condemned as a “dangerous escalation” Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza City. About 20 countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, said the plan constituted “a flagrant violation of international law, and an attempt to entrench the illegal occupation and impose a fait accompli… in contravention of international legitimacy”. Muslim nations must work in total unison and work to mobilise the international community against Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza City, Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan said on Saturday after talks in Egypt. Speaking at a joint press conference in El Alamein with his Egyptian counterpart after meeting Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Fidan also said the Organisation of Islamic cooperation had been called to an emergency meeting.
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More than 450 people were arrested in central London on Saturday at the largest demonstration relating to Palestine Action since the group was proscribed as a terrorist organisation. On Saturday night, police said that as of 9pm, 466 people had been arrested for showing support for Palestine Action. There were a further eight arrests for other offences including five assaults on officers. Police said the total of 474 was the most arrests it had made related to a single operation in at least the past decade.
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The UK announced another £8.5m for UN aid to Gaza after Israel unveiled plans to expand its military operations in the territory. Development minister Baroness Jenny Chapman said the money would “help address urgent need” in Gaza, but only if Israel allowed the region to be “flooded with aid”.
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Five Lebanese soldiers were killed in a blast on Saturday while removing munitions from a Hezbollah military facility in south Lebanon, a military source told AFP.
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Iran’s judiciary said Saturday it was investigating the cases of 20 people arrested over their suspected links with Israel after the 12-day war between the two arch-foes.