Israel-Hamas war updates: Up to 250 captives held in Gaza, Hamas says

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You can read about the situation in the besieged Gaza Strip here and here.

For the latest live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, follow along here.

We are going to bring our live coverage to an end soon. Here’s a summary of today’s main events:

• Health officials in Gaza say 2,808 people have been killed and 10,859 others wounded as a result of Israeli attacks.
• The spokesman for Hamas’s Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, has said that Palestinian factions have taken between 200 and 250 people captive from Israel.
• Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian chief, is heading to the Middle East amid a continuing push for humanitarian aid access to the besieged Gaza Strip.
• Israeli forces detained at least 92 Palestinians in the West Bank in the last 24 hours, a local human rights group has said.
• The World Health Organization warns there are only “24 hours of water, electricity and fuel left” in Gaza as Israel continues its bombardment of the enclave.
• Israel and Hamas both deny reports of a ceasefire in southern Gaza after security sources in Egypt said such a deal was due.
• The head of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency has taken responsibility for failing to prevent Hamas from carrying out its attack on Israeli towns on October 7.
• The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate says 11 journalists and more than 20 others have been wounded since the conflict began.

The Israeli military says it is “currently striking Hezbollah terrorist targets in Lebanon”.

It did not provide additional details but we will bring you more information as soon as we have it.

Hundreds of Jewish-American activists have called for a ceasefire during an hours-long protest outside the White House in Washington, DC.

Footage shared by the youth-led Jewish-American progressive group IfNotNow showed activists blocking intersections and trying to cross into a restricted area outside the White House to urge Biden to back an end to the fighting in Gaza.

“People getting arrested – and getting replaced by more people willing to commit civil disobedience to make sure those inside the White House know this is urgent & the world is watching,” the group said in a social media post.

NOW: Three big groups of Jews and allies have shut down the major exit of the White House on 17th st.

We’re not leaving until Biden calls for a ceasefire and neither should they. pic.twitter.com/yYfFFGuX7a

— IfNotNow🔥 (@IfNotNowOrg) October 16, 2023

Mourners in the US have gathered to honour Wadea Al-Fayoume, the six-year-old boy stabbed to death by a man police say targeted him and his mother because they were Muslim and Palestinian Americans.

The funeral took place at the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, Illinois, a community southwest of Chicago with a large Palestinian population. The suspected attacker, 71-year-old Joseph Czuba, has been charged with murder and hate crimes.

“This is a heavy day. It is a worst nightmare come true. It is something we’ve tried to warn against,” said Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). “It pains me that the sacrificial lamb to this atmosphere was this beautiful young six-year-old boy.”

Read more here.

Iran’s foreign minister earlier ratcheted up the potential several groups Iran and its supporters collectively refer to as the “resistance” to get involved in the fighting in Israel and Gaza.

“In the coming hours, we can expect a preemptive action by the resistance front,” said Amir-Abdollahian (20:32 GMT).

The term has been used for years now and refers to groups that are part of the pro-Iranian camp in the wider Middle East, which, in their eyes, resist the power of the US, Israel and their allies in the region. The majority of the groups adhere to Shia Islam, and view Iran’s religious leadership, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as their ultimate guide.

The most known organisation, and the most powerful, is Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Led by Hassan Nasrallah, it has already involved itself in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, but in a limited capacity for now.

There are also pro-Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq, as well as the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Hamas, while a majority Sunni group, is also associated with the “resistance” due to its links to Iran but the group also has friendly relations with Qatar and Turkey, giving it a more independent position.

Irish President Michael D Higgins has criticised European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for comments she made about the Israel-Hamas conflict as “thoughtless and even reckless”.

Von der Leyen, who visited Israel at the weekend, has drawn criticism for initially failing to explicitly call on Israel to comply with international law in its war in Gaza.

Higgins said he agreed with those who criticised her intervention and did not know where the top European official’s position came from.

“I don’t know where the legitimation for it was, and I don’t know where the authority for it is, and I don’t think it is helpful,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a food security event at the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation in Rome.

“It may not have been meant to have malevolent consequences but certainly we need a better performance in relation to European Union diplomacy and practice,” Higgins said.

More on the meeting between Netanyahu and Putin held earlier on Monday, with the Israelis releasing a short statement that focuses on the Israeli prime minister’s threats towards Hamas.

“The Prime Minister made it clear that Israel had been attacked by brutal and abhorrent murderers, had gone to war determined and united, and would not stop until it had destroyed Hamas’s military and governing capabilities,” the statement said.

The Kremlin had earlier adopted a different tone and said that Putin had offered to help broker a deal to achieve “a peaceful settlement through political and diplomatic means”.

With global attention turned to the situation in Gaza, a new report by a UN-mandated investigative body has found that Israeli forces used “lethal force without justification” when they shot and killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank last year.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel “concluded on reasonable grounds that Israeli forces used lethal force without justification under international human rights law”, the report said.

Read more about the findings here.

Aid agencies have warned of a “catastrophic” shortage of medical and other supplies in the Gaza Strip after 10 days of relentless Israeli bombings.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) described the situation in Gaza as “abhorrent” as residents scramble for basic necessities such as food and water and struggle to get medical care in hospitals at breaking point.

Read more here about the worsening humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) advocacy group has warned that Canada is experiencing a “major spike in Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism” since the Israel-Hamas war erupted.

The group said officials in the city of Markham, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto, tried to “secretly end Islamic Heritage Month” in response to the situation in the Middle East. “Let’s call this what this. Islamophobia. Pure and simple,” NCCM wrote on social media.

The organisation also said the phrase, “Kill all Muslims!!” was scrawled in an apartment in London, Ontario.

That’s the same city where four members of a Muslim family were killed in 2021 when a driver ran them down with his truck in what authorities said was an Islamophobic attack.

There has been a major spike in #Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism since events unfolded overseas. The human cost has been horrifying.

Officials at Markham, allegedly including a city councillor, apparently responded to this sad situation by trying to secretly end… pic.twitter.com/8Up2z3d4Bg

— NCCM (@nccm) October 16, 2023

A top Democratic Party lawmaker in the US has said the Senate will seek to pass a resolution supporting Israel and approve additional funds for the country this week.

Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, said he plans to work with the Biden administration on “an emergency supplemental [spending bill] that will give Israel the tools it needs to defend itself”.

“That means military assistance, intelligence assistance, diplomatic assistance and humanitarian assistance to care for innocent civilians. We want to move this package quickly,” Schumer said.

The US already provides Israel, which leading rights groups have accused of imposing a system of apartheid against Palestinians, with at least $3.8bn in military assistance annually.

It’s nearly midnight (21:00 GMT) in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, so let’s bring you up to speed with all the latest developments:

• The spokesman for Hamas’s Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, has said that Palestinian factions have taken between 200 and 250 people captive from Israel.
• Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian chief, is heading to the Middle East this week amid a continuing push for humanitarian aid access to Gaza.
• Israeli forces detained at least 92 Palestinians in the West Bank in the last 24 hours, a local human rights group has said.
• More than 110 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza and the West Bank have been recorded between October 7 and 15, according to the World Health Organization.
• Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called for unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza and a humanitarian corridor.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his US counterpart Biden underlined the necessity of containing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict so that it doesn’t threaten regional security, el-Sisi’s office has said.

Both leaders also agreed in a phone call that it is a priority to protect civilians and deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, an Egyptian presidency spokesman said in a statement.

Iran’s top envoy has said that a “preemptive action by the resistance axis” against Israel is “conceivable”, Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem reports.

“If the opportunity is lost, there’s no escape from opening new fronts against Israel. Time is running out, and the resistance has the capability to engage in long-term wars with the enemy,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told Iranian state television.

Amirabdollahian also warned the US to “stop the crimes against civilians before it’s too late”, Hashem wrote in a series of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter.

AmirAbdollahian: Any preemptive action by the resistance axis or the Islamic Republic of Iran against the Zionist regime in the coming hours is conceivable.

— Ali Hashem علي هاشم (@alihashem_tv) October 16, 2023

Commenting on possible International Criminal Court (ICC) investigations into allegations of war crimes by Hamas and Israel, international human rights lawyer Toby Cadman says ICC Prosecutor Karim Kham and his team face a very challenging situation.

“Israel has stated in the past they will not cooperate in any investigation, and they may not even allow Karim Khan and his team to enter Israel to carry out investigations unless they are only aimed at investigating conduct by Hamas,” Cadman told Al Jazeera.

“The investigations into the attacks on Gaza would be carried out in Gaza, but we’re looking at a conflict situation, which makes it very difficult to investigate.”

He added, however, that despite the challenges, it will be “very, very important that that process starts”.

Israel’s prime minister is attending a security cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv, the Israeli press office says.

Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, has described a US congressional resolution calling for de-escalation and a ceasefire as “a very important move”.

“It’s very simple,” Bennis told Al Jazeera about the proposal, which was put forward by a group of progressive Democrats earlier today.

“It doesn’t get into long discussions about the origins of the crisis and what led to it, but it calls for the immediate … need for a ceasefire,” she said. “And I think right now that’s what’s so desperately needed.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called for unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza and a humanitarian corridor.

Trudeau also said Canada is deeply concerned by the dire – and worsening – humanitarian crisis in the besieged Palestinian territory.

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) News has apologised after one of its presenters, Maryam Moshiri, described people taking part in marches in support of Palestine as backing Hamas.

Moshiri said on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Earlier we reported on some of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the weekend.

“We spoke about ‘several demonstrations across Britain during which people voiced their backing for Hamas’.

“We accept this was poorly phrased and was a misleading description of the demonstrations.”

Demonstrators around the globe have taken to the streets in support of Palestine and to demand an end to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Thousands participated in rallies across the UK over the weekend.

Earlier we reported on some of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the weekend.We spoke about “several demonstrations across Britain during which people voiced their backing for Hamas”.
We accept this was poorly phrased and was a misleading description of the demonstrations.

— Maryam Moshiri (@BBCMaryam) October 16, 2023