Israel-Hamas war | Top developments on January 10, 2024

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has landed in Bahrain a short while ago. He has met Bahrain King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. Earlier, Blinken met Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas in occupied West Bank. Blinken will visit Egypt and then return to Tel Aviv.

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza are being held by  Israel's head of Coordination and Liaison Administration to Gaza in a holding area at Kerem Shalom Crossing at intersection between Gaza Strip, southern Israel and Egypt.

Israeli authorities are saying that that “the reserves in the Gaza Strip are sufficient for the near term’’

United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is due to vote on a US-led resolution that condemns Houthi rebels' attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.

The resolution "condemns in the strongest terms the at least two dozen Houthi attacks on merchant and commercial vessels since November 19, 2023, when the Houthis attacked and seized the Galaxy Leader and its crew.", as reported by CNN.

Israel military has admitted that one of its vehicles drove over a dead Palestinian militant's body but stressed that this was 'unintentional'. The admission has come after the footage of the incident was posted on social media.

"The operational vehicle that is seen in the video was dispatched in order to extricate the force that was caught under heavy fire, and unintentionally ran over the terrorist's body," the Israeli military told AFP.

It added that the video "does not show the incident in its entirety".
 

Blinken leaves Tel Aviv as he heads to Bahrain for a surprise visit, the latest leg of a crisis tour of the Middle East.

After meeting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Blinken flew to Bahrain for talks with King Hamad on preventing a regional escalation of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. 

Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels claim an attack on a US ship with missiles and drones, saying it was "providing support" to Israel. Huthi rebels have carried out numerous attacks on passing container ships in the Red Sea, and the United States has set up a multinational naval task force to protect the vital sea lane. 

British defense minister Grant Shapps said on Wednesday that the Red Sea shipping lanes must not be cut off, after US and British naval forces shot down 21 drones and missiles fired by Yemen-based Houthis.

Sources told Sky News Arabia that the Ramallah meeting between Blinken and Abbas was "tense" and marked by "arguments" 

According to the report, Abbas asked Blinken to pressure Israel to release frozen PA funds. 

"If you do not have the ability to release funds, how will you have the ability to put pressure on Israel and achieve peace and a Palestinian state?" Abbas reportedly demanded.

US and British naval forces shot down 21 drones and missiles fired by Yemen-based Houthis on Tuesday (Jan 10) towards international shipping lanes in the southern Red Sea, the United States said.

Imagery from British Ministry of Defence showed military personnel on HMS Diamond overseeing the firing of Sea Viper missiles.

Britain's defence minister said it was the largest attack in the area by the militants to date as the three-month-long war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza spills over into other parts of the Middle East.

US Central Command said no injuries nor damage were reported, adding that this was the 26th Houthi attack on commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea since November 19.

Yemen's Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping must be stopped without triggering a new war, the Italian defence minister said on Wednesday, as the Iranian-backed militia steps up attacks on commercial vessels.

US and British forces shot down 21 drones and missiles fired by the Houthis on Tuesday towards international Red Sea shipping lanes, the US military's Central Command said, adding it was the 26th such Houthi attack since Nov. 19.

"It is a huge problem, it is a consequence of other (war) outbreaks. I would not like to open a third front of war at this time," Guido Crosetto told Reuters. 

Source: Reuters

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Wednesday at least 23,357 people have been killed in more than three months of war between Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel.

The toll includes 147 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, while 59,410 people have been wounded across the Palestinian territory since war erupted on October 7. 

Source: AFP

Israeli forces have arrested 26 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian media and officials. 

The total number of detainees since the beginning of the war on October 7 is now risen to "more than 5,780, targeting all groups, including former detainees, the sick, and the elderly," reported Palestinian news agency Wafa. 

Washington's top diplomat Antony Blinken told Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas that US supports "tangible steps" towards the creation of a Palestinian state.

Blinken reiterated Washington's longstanding position that a Palestinian state must stand alongside Israel, "with both living in peace and security", State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

In a recent statement, the Chinese foreign ministry called for a comprehensive and immediate ceasefire in Gaza amid the ongoing war, while also calling on Israel to stop "collective punishment" against the civilians in the war-torn Palestinian enclave. 

Beijing also urged the "parties to the conflict" in Gaza to implement the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

US top diplomat Antony Blinken will make a surprise visit to Bahrain Wednesday, a State Department official said, the latest leg of a crisis tour of the Middle East. 

After meeting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Blinken will fly to Bahrain, home base of the US Fifth Fleet, for talks with King Hamad on preventing a regional escalation of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Source: AFP

After meeting Israeli leaders in Tel Aviv, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in West Bank's Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The meeting comes after Blinken said that the Palestinian Authority "has a responsibility to reform itself, to improve its governance," adding that he would raise this issue with the Abbas.  

Washington's top diplomat also said that the US wants to see a "revamped and revitalized" Palestinian Authority to eventually take over the Gaza Strip.

However, Dalal Salameh, a member of the central committee of the Palestinian party Fatah, which leads the Palestinian Authority has criticised Washington's proposal for the PA to lead Gaza after the war.

"All proposals being made in this context are attempts to escape from the primary prerogative, which is ending the aggression," Salameh told Al Jazeera. 

He added, The details discussed about the day after and the shape of the authority in Gaza are a way to escape another prerogative, which is ending the occupation."

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Wednesday (Jan 10) said the forces struck over 150 "terror targets" across Gaza in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, the forces also reportedly said that “dozens of terrorist operatives” were killed in the southern city of Khan Younis.
 

At least five Palestinians were injured and one detained in an Israeli security raid on Nablus in the West Bank region, media reports said citing Palestinian news agency Wafa. 

Quoting the Palestine Red Crescent Society it said that a child and an elderly woman sustained injuries. 

Israeli media reported that PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet will meet at 7pm (5pm GMT) on Wednesday (Jan 10) to discuss Israeli plans for Gaza post-war with Hamas militant group. 
 

UK and US naval forces have "repelled the largest attack by the Iranian-backed Houthis in the Red Sea to date", British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said on Wednesday (Jan 10).

A British warship destroyed "multiple attack drones with her guns and sea viper missiles", Shapps added, hours after Washington said the two countries' forces had shot down 18 drones and three missiles on Tuesday (Jan 9), reported AFP. 
 

On piracy attacks on ships, Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral R Hari Kumar said, "... We have not yet been able to identify from where all these attacks are coming... We have collected debris of drones collected from three ships and are analysing them."

As per a report published in the Lebanese Al-Akhbar,the Israeli special forces and intelligence have been operating in the Sinai, Libya and Sudan amid fears the hostages will be smuggled out of Gaza by Hamas.

Al-Akhbar, which is a pro-Hezbollah newspaper, said that Israel is mostly concerned that Hamas will try taking the hostages to Lebanon and Iran.

A policeman was killed in an attack, which was claimed by an extremist group, in restive southeastern Iran, as reported by state media.

“In an exchange of fire this morning between forces from a police station in Rask and members of an armed group, one of the policemen was killed,” said Iran’s official IRNA news agency reports.

The news agency added the firefight continued for around three hours before the police reinforcements' arrived and prompted the assailants to withdraw.

The IDF said that the troops having been battling Hamas in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza and Maghazi in the centre of Gaza Strip and air strikes have been carried out on more than 150 targets, which belonged to the terror group in the past few days.

The IDF in Maghazi said that the troops of the Golani Brigade directed airstrikes on various Hamas operatives and uncovered 15 tunnel shafts.

In the raid on Hamas site in the area, the IDF said that the Golani soldiers discovered rockets, rocket launchers, drones, and explosives. The IDF said that in Khan Younis the 98th Division directed airstrikes on more than 10 Hamas operatives located in their area of operations.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) will be voting on a US-proposed resolution which would condemn attacks being launched Yemen’s Houthi rebels on commercial and merchant vessels in the Red Sea area and demanded an immediate pause.

As reported by The Associated Press, the draft resolution said that at least two dozen Houthi attacks have been impeding global commerce “and undermine navigational rights and freedoms as well as regional peace and security.”

The resolution would demand the immediate release of the first ship the Houthis attacked, the Galaxy Leader, a Japanese-operated cargo ship with links to an Israeli company that was seized on November 19 along with its crew.

The resolution also “urges caution and restraint to avoid further escalation of the situation in the Red Sea and the broader region.” And it further “encourages enhanced diplomatic efforts by all parties to that end, including continued support for dialogue and Yemen’s peace process under the UN auspices.”

Israel on Tuesday marked the first birthday of Kfir Bibas, an infant who is among the more than 100 hostages still in Hamas detention.

During a special session of the UN General Assembly on the Israel-Hamas war, Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan marked Kfir's birthday with a cake.

"Kfir – little baby Kfir – has become a symbol of the vilest cruelty known to man – the cruelty of Hamas…Kfir, this birthday cake is for you. You are the reason Israel is fighting day and night. I only wish for you, for your first birthday, that next year God willing, you will celebrate your birthday surrounded by the love of your family," he said.

In his remarks, Ambassador Erdan mentioned that Kfir Bibas will turn one in the coming days.

"Many of you here are parents or grandparents. Each milestone in your children’s lives is a celebration. Their first step. Their first word. That first smile and laugh. Babies are a source of light and hope – a symbol of life. Yet Kfir – little baby Kfir – has become a symbol of the vilest cruelty known to man – the cruelty of Hamas. And tragically, Kfir is about to spend his first birthday as a hostage of Hamas," he said.

Addressing the President of the General Assembly, he said: "Mr President, I ask that Kfir's cake remain here as a painful reminder so that every speaker today remembers Kfir and our duty to bring him home."

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday will hold talks with the head of the Palestinian Authority, which Washington hopes could govern Gaza after Israel's war with Hamas ends.

On Tuesday, the US official said that "Israel must stop taking steps that undercut Palestinians' ability to govern themselves effectively."

Emphasising the importance of progress towards a two-state solution, he said that "the Palestinian Authority also has a responsibility to reform itself, to improve its governance."

Diaa al-Kahlout, a Palestinian journalist recently released from Israeli custody was allegedly tortured during more than a month in detention.

London-based media outlet The New Arab on Tuesday announced al-Kahlout's release, and said that the journalist had faced "indescribably tough and difficult" conditions following his arrest.

As per an report on The New Arab website, Kahlout told the publication that he had been beaten and tortured.

"The moment I was detained, Israeli soldiers crowded round me... before they gagged me with tape so I couldn't speak."

India on Wednesday condemned the loss of civilian lives in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, saying that the alarming humanitarian crisis was 'clearly unacceptable'.

Addressing a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on the prevailing situation in West Asia, India's permanent representative to the United Nations, Ruchira Kamboj said: "The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas has led to a large-scale loss of civilian lives, especially women and children, and has resulted in an alarming humanitarian crisis. This is clearly unacceptable and we have strongly condemned the deaths of civilians."

"At the same time, we are aware that the immediate trigger were the terror attacks in Israel on October 7, which were shocking and deserve our unequivocal condemnation. India has a zero-tolerance approach to terrorism."

The US Navy has shot down 24 missiles and drones launched by Houthi rebels from Yemen. The attack, as per reports, was one of the largest Houthi attacks to take place in the Red Sea in recent months.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s long one-on-one meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was “tense,” Times of Israel reported quoting Channel 12. 
 

At the UNGA, Permanent Representative of India to the UN, Ruchira Kamboj said, "The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas has led to a large scale loss of civilian lives, especially women and children, and has resulted in an alarming humanitarian crisis...the leadership of India is in constant touch with the leaders of the region, including those of Israel and Palestine...India has so far provided 70 tons of humanitarian aid...to the people of Palestine...The message that India has conveyed since the start of this conflict is clear and consistent. It is important to prevent escalation, to ensure continued delivery of humanitarian aid, and to work towards an early restoration of peace and stability. A peaceful resolution of the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy is the only way forward..." 

Iranian-backed Houthi militants executed what appears to be their most extensive assault on commercial shipping since the series of attacks initiated on November 19, as per information from two US defence officials, media reports said.

Reports said that the Houthi forces launched multiple missiles and one-way drones toward the shipping route in the southern Red Sea. However, all the projectiles were successfully intercepted by US Navy ships in the region, including the USS Laboon.