Israel-Palestine live: Week three ends with over 7,000 Palestinians killed
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The Israeli military has killed nearly 4,500 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank since the conflict started on 7 October, according to the latest tally.
More than 70 percent of those killed are children, women and elderly people.
The following numbers are accurate as of 2pm local time (11am GMT) on 21 October and are sourced from the Palestinian health ministry.
Gaza
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Killed: More than 4,385 (1,756 children, 1,000+ women)
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Wounded: 13,561
West Bank and East Jerusalem
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Killed: 84 (30 children, one woman)
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Wounded: 1,400+
A senior Israeli security official said there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, according to Israeli media.
In a statement on Saturday, the official claimed that there was "no shortage of water in Gaza" and that there was enough food.
Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said this week there is an acute shortage of water in Gaza, which is pushing people to drink brackish water and increasing the threat of waterborne illnesses.
Israel has cut all water, food, fuel and electricity supplies to Gaza for nearly two weeks.
The Israeli official on Saturday added that there is also no shortage of medicine in hospitals, despite several hospitals in Gaza shutting down since 7 October because they ran out of fuel and medical supplies.
Meanwhile, as a small supply of medical equipment and canned food items entered Gaza from Egypt, Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, reiterated that "fuel will not enter Gaza”.
A mass burial was held in Gaza on Saturday for 43 people authorities and citizens have not been able to identify, according to the local government media office.
Among them were women who were killed while holding their children, mixing their remains together and making it difficult to identify them.
Other victims included unborn foetuses whose mothers' bodies were torn apart from Israeli shelling, the media office said. There were also dismembered corpses among those buried on Saturday.
Salam Marouf, the head of the government media office, said sets of family members were put together in one shroud ahead of the mass burial.
It is the second time authorities have been forced to conduct mass burials of unidentified people since 7 October, due to the corpses being placed in morgues for too long without anyone being able to identify them.
"We took the step to honour the martyrs by burying them," Marouf said in a statement. "Their features began to change in [the morgue]," he added.
Authorities previously said pictures and forensic analyses of unidentified people are taken before their burial, and their graves are marked, so their families can identify them at a later time.
Translation: For the second time during the aggression, approximately 43 victims of the assault against Gaza were buried anonymously in the emergency cemetery
Thousands of doctors in Britain's National Health Service signed an open letter calling for the UK government to denounce Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.
The letter condemned the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) after it posted a tweet stating: “We are flying the flag of Israel at the Department of Health and Social Care in London. We stand in solidarity with the people of Israel.”
The statement noted: “This move by the DHSC comes despite UN Experts stating that Israel’s actions against Palestinians in Gaza violate international humanitarian law, which constitute war crimes. Accordingly, the decision to raise the flag of the State of Israel demonstrates a flagrant disregard of international law violations and healthcare crises Palestinians in Gaza are suffering from.”
Key demands put forward by the letter include demanding that DHSC retract its statement, condemn the Israeli bombing of Gaza and call to support Palestinian healthcare workers through the sharing of resources and knowledge.
As the war unfolded in Gaza and Israel on 7 October, Wala, a British-Palestinian pharmacist born and raised in Wales and whose extended family live in Gaza City, watched the news with horror from afar.
The Israeli military has been conducting an unrelenting bombing campaign on Gaza since 7 October, when Palestinian fighters launched a massive attack in southern Israel, killing 1,400 people and taking 200 hostage.
At least 4,200 Palestinians have been killed, and among them, Wala has come to know, 15 members of her family.
Early on 15 October, she received a call from a cousin with news the family had been dreading.
"'Your uncle's house has even bombed and they've all died,' he told me. Fifteen of them had been killed," Wala said, speaking to MEE using only her first name for fear of backlash.
"My uncle and his wife, three of their adult children, my cousin and her two babies, and the rest of them children."
Read more: As Israel bombs Gaza, British Palestinians mourn their loved ones from afar
US President Joe Biden and his aides advised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to launch pre-emptive strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, a move that could risk widening the current unrest to another front, the New York Times reported on Friday.
US and Israeli sources told the newspaper the Biden administration issued this warning after learning that hawkish members of Netanyahu's cabinet, including the defence minister and senior military officials, had approved the idea of bombing Hezbollah.
US officials said Israel would struggle if it chose to fight a war on two fronts - Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north - and that fighting Hezbollah could mean drawing Iran into the conflict.
Despite Netanyahu becoming hesitant about bombing Hezbollah since the talks with the US, the NYT reported that "anxieties still persist" that a second front in the north remains possible.
The trigger could be caused by "harsh Israeli tactics" used in the expected ground offensive in Gaza or an Israeli overreaction to Hezbollah attacks.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said Israel's bombardment of Gaza has killed at least 17 staff members since 7 October.
In a statement on Saturday, the agency said that despite it providing coordinates to all relevant parties, at least 35 Unrwa facilities were directly bombed.
The number of Unrwa staff killed is likely to be higher, according to Phillipe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of Unrwa.
"Some of our staff were killed with their families while sleeping in their beds at home," Lazzarini said.
"Let me be clear: protecting civilians in times of conflict is not an aspiration or an ideal; it is an obligation and a commitment to our shared humanity," he added.
The 20 aid trucks that entered Gaza on Saturday morning carrying a limited supply of medicine and food are not enough, the executive director of the World Food Programme has said.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Cindy McCain said she hopes more aid will enter Gaza soon as an estimated 800,000 people need humanitarian relief.
It was not immediately clear for how much longer the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza would remain open.
Israel has bombarded Gaza and imposed a full siege on its civilian population for two weeks, cutting off water, food, electricity, fuel and aid from entering.
The Israeli campaign, which human rights groups say amounts to collective punishment, has killed more than 4,100 people and displaced one million more.
A total of 20 trucks are entering Gaza with a limited supply of medicines, medical supplies and a small amount of food (canned goods), the Palestinian government media office has said.
The Gaza-based office warned earlier that the aid convoy - the first to be allowed entry into Gaza in two weeks - was not enough to "change the humanitarian catastrophe that the Gaza Strip is experiencing".
Israel has cut off food, water, electricity and fuel to Gaza since the Hamas-led attack on 7 October, with human rights organisations accusing Israel of collective punishment.
Palestinian officials in Gaza have said the "first limited convoy of basic needs" that has entered the besieged strip through Egypt was not enough and stressed that a humanitarian corridor must remain open permanently to allow the entry of more supplies and the exit of wounded people needing treatment abroad.
Salama Marouf, the head of the Gaza-based government media office, said in a statement the aid trucks about to enter on Saturday morning would not be able to "change the humanitarian catastrophe that the Gaza Strip is experiencing".
Earlier on Saturday, the US Embassy in Jerusalem on the social media platform X said it received information that the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt would open at 10am local time (7am GMT).
"If the border is opened, we do not know how long it will remain open for foreign citizens to depart," the embassy said.
At around 10:13am, Al Jazeera reported aid trucks began to enter through the border crossing for the first time in two weeks.
Marouf added in his statement that Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees that is set to receive the aid, should distribute it across the Gaza Strip. His call came amid some reports that the entry of aid was conditioned on it being distributed only in southern Gaza.
The father, and ex-husband, of the released hostages said early on Saturday that they were doing "very good" after they were held captive by Hamas in Gaza for two weeks.
Uri Raanan said he spoke to his daughter, Natalie Raanan, and that she "sounds very good and looks very good".
"She was very happy. And she's waiting to come home. Her mother [Judith Raanan] has a little scratch on the hand, but she told me it's nothing," he said.
He added that he spoke with US President Joe Biden on the phone and thanked him for releasing them. He said he hopes to see his daughter next week for her birthday, Reuters reported.
"I've been glued to the TV for two weeks, hoping for any good news. Finally, it came."
On Friday, the Metropolitan Police in London announced that they won't arrest individuals using a common chant used by Palestinian activists at protests.
The slogan in question, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", is commonly heard at solidarity marches and refers to the area of historic Palestine between the River Tiberias and the Mediterranean Sea.
Groups supporting Israel argue the chant is antisemitic as they see it as an indirect call to dismantle Israel, a viewpoint Palestinian activists dispute.
This guidance from the police is issued in anticipation of pro-Palestinian demonstrations scheduled for Saturday.
US President Joe Biden said on Friday that Hamas's attack in Israel was intended to hinder the improving relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
"One of the reasons why they acted like they did... why Hamas moved on Israel... [was] because they knew I was about to sit down with the Saudis," Biden told guests at a campaign fundraiser.
"The Saudis wanted to recognise Israel... unite the Middle East," he said.
Former US Congressman Justin Amash revealed that multiple family members of his were killed during an Israeli air strike that targeted the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius in Gaza.
“The Palestinian Christian community has endured so much. Our family is hurting badly. May God watch over all Christians in Gaza- and all Israelis and Palestinians who are suffering, whatever their religion or creed,” he said on X.
Amash, who is Palestinian-American, served Michigan in Congress as a Republican from 2011 to 2021.
He became a prominent critic of former Republican President Donald Trump and departed the Republican Party in 2019 to align with the Libertarian Party.
On Thursday night, an air raid in Gaza resulted in the deaths of at least 18 individuals.
Dozens of celebrities signed a letter sent to US President Biden urging him to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Palestine war.
Celebrities include Channing Tatum, Ramy Youssef, Dua Lipa, Jon Stewart, Riz Ahmed, Mo Amer, Mark Ruffalo, Mahershala Ali and Hasan Minhaj.
"We urge your administration, and all world leaders, to honour all of the lives in the Holy Land and call for and facilitate a ceasefire without delay, an end to the bombing of Gaza, and the safe release of hostages," the letter said.
"We stand for freedom, justice, dignity and peace for all people - and a deep desire to stop more bloodshed.
"We refuse to tell future generations the story of our silence, that we stood by and did nothing."
