Gaza live: Fresh Israeli order forces over 170,000 Palestinians to leave their homes

The father of an Israeli captive held in the Gaza Strip said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is delaying a deal with Hamas that could be made immediately, Haaretz reported on Wednesday. 

Eshel Gat, father of Carmel Gat, said the Israeli public should be aware of this "simple and brutal truth". 

"This is not speculation or journalistic interpretation, but a simple and brutal truth based on direct testimony from those who deal with the subject of negotiations on a daily basis," Gat said. 

He accused Netanyahu of taking steps in negotiations marketed as necessary security needs when in reality they were done to delay the deal.  

The Israeli army will operate "forcefully and immediately" in the northernmost town of the Gaza Strip, Beit Hanoun, the military's Arabic spokesperson said. 

In a post on social media platform X, Avichay Adraee announced new displacement orders for Palestinians in the area, instructing them to move south towards Gaza City. 

Both Beit Hanoun and Gaza City have been largely decimated after repeated Israeli ground incursions and relentless air strikes in the past 10 months. 

The United States has communicated to Iran and Israel that conflict in the Middle East must not escalate, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday, even as the Pentagon warned that it would not tolerate attacks against its forces in the region.

"We've been engaged in intense diplomacy with allies and partners, communicating that message directly to Iran. We've communicated that message directly to Israel," Blinken said.

The United States will continue to defend Israel against attacks, Blinken said. He added that everyone in the region should understand the risks of escalation and miscalculation.

"Further attacks only raise the risk of dangerous outcomes that no one can predict and no one can fully control."

Reporting by Reuters

Our live coverage from Gaza will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are some of the day's key developments:

• Israeli forces have killed at least 30 Palestinians and wounded 66 others in the past 24 hours, according to the Palestinian health ministry. This brings the death toll since 7 October to 39,653, with more than 91,535 wounded and an estimated 10,000 missing, likely dead and buried under rubble.

  Health officials report that around 70 percent of the victims are children and women.

• Hamas announces Yahya Sinwar as head of the movement

• Meta Platforms META.O apologised on Tuesday for erroneously removing Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's social media posts in which he expressed condolences to a Hamas official about the assassination of the group's leader Ismail Haniyeh

• The Gaza Strip must be transferred to the control of legitimate Palestinian authorities, and Israeli plans for temporary control of the enclave are unacceptable, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Russia's RIA news agency in remarks published on Tuesday

• An Israeli air strike in the southern Lebanese town of Maifadoun killed at least four people on Tuesday, according to the Lebanese health ministry

• Iran has yet to make any arrests linked to the suspected Israeli killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the Iranian judiciary said Tuesday

• Dozens of ultra-Orthodox Jewish demonstrators have broken into an Israeli army base in Tel Aviv to protest the conscription of members of the community

• The Government Media Office in Gaza has announced that the number of journalists killed by Israel has risen to 166 since the start of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip

Lebanon’s Hezbollah group congratulated Yahya Sinwar on being selected as Hamas’s new leader, saying it “confirms goals that the enemy (Israel) seeks from killing leaders and officials failed in achieving its outcome".

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has sent an update about the humanitarian situation in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza where a significant number of forcefully displaced Palestinians are concentrated.

“People are living in a constant state of unpredictability, not knowing what is going to come next, be it more displacements, more relocations, or a regional escalation,” Hassan Morajea, regional access advisor for the NRC, says from Gaza’s Deir el-Balah.

NRC estimates that recent relocation orders have reduced the size of Israel’s unilaterally designated “humanitarian zones” in Gaza from 20 percent to 14.5 percent, displacing more than 200,000 people from Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah between 22 and 28 July.

“The streets are uninhabitable, crowded with people using anything that will offer some semblance of a roof over their heads, even if that is in a damaged building scarred with holes, and destruction around them. It’s shocking to see people living in ruins, but that’s what’s happening here in Gaza, because there is no other option. There aren’t open fields to even set up a tent. There aren’t even tents for them to set up,” Morajea said.

The US military claims that it had "successfully destroyed" one drone and two ballistic missiles launched from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen over the Red Sea. 

Hamas on Tuesday announced that it had chosen Yahya Sinwar, who heads the movement inside the Gaza Strip, as the new leader of the group's political bureau, following the killing of Ismail Haniyeh last month in Tehran.

Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan said that Sinwar was unanimously chosen as the new leader, reflecting the movement's understanding of the current needs of the group. He added that Sinwar was always involved in the negotiations for a ceasefire with Israel.

"The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas announces the selection of Commander Yahya Sinwar as the head of the political bureau of the movement, succeeding the martyr Commander Ismail Haniyeh, may Allah have mercy on him," Hamas said in a brief statement.

Sinwar, who was close to Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and was known for founding the internal security bodies of Hamas, was previously sentenced by Israel to four life terms in the late 1980s.

Sinwar served 23 years for leading the group’s first internal security apparatus, Majd, which targeted and killed Palestinians it suspected of collaborating with Israel.

Read more: Hamas chooses Yahya Sinwar as new leader following Haniyeh killing

Canada’s embassy in Tel-Aviv will evacuate the families of diplomats from the country tomorrow, according to The Times of Israel, amid the growing anticipation of a retaliatory attack by Iran and its proxies.

A senior Hamas official told AFP that Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar’s selection as Hamas’s new political leader sends a “strong message… of resistance” to Israel.

The choice is “a strong message to the occupation (Israel) that Hamas continues its path of resistance,” the official says on condition of anonymity, as he’s not authorised to speak publicly on the issue.

At least three Palestinians were killed and more than 10 wounded in the latest Israeli attack on Deir el-Balah, a city in central Gaza.

According to reports from Gaza, two homes and a site housing tents for displaced people were targeted in the strike.

Israeli authorities are systematically abusing Palestinians in torture camps, subjecting them to severe violence and sexual assault, B'Tselem said on Monday. 

In a new 118-page report, the Israeli rights group accused the government of conducting a policy of institutionalised abuse and torture against all Palestinian detainees since 7 October. 

Torture was recorded in civilian and military detention facilities across Israel, leading to the death of at least 60 Palestinians while in Israeli custody in less than 10 months.

The systematic nature of the abuse across all facilities left “no room to doubt an organised, declared policy of the Israeli prison authorities”. 

Read more: Israel systematically abusing Palestinian detainees in 'torture camps'

Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan said that Yahya Sinwar was unanimously chosen as the new Hamas leader, reflecting the movement's understanding of the current stage's demands. He added that the negotiations for a ceasefire were overseen by the leadership, with Sinwar always involved.

The leader of the Hamas movement within the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, was known for founding the internal security bodies of Hamas. 

Israel sentenced Sinwar to four life terms in the late 1980s.

He served 23 years for leading the group’s first security apparatus, Majd, which targeted and killed Palestinians it suspected of collaborating with Israel.

During his time in prison, Sinwar learnt Hebrew and read Israeli newspapers, moves that analysts said were aimed at better understanding his enemy.

In 2011, he was freed along with 1,047 Palestinian prisoners for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was abducted by Gaza fighters in a cross-boundary raid in 2006.

Sinwar returned to his position as a prominent leader in Hamas and was appointed head of the group in the Gaza Strip in 2017.

Hamas announces Yahya Sinwar as head of the movement. 

We will have more information as it comes.