Israel-Hamas war live: US strikes Iran-linked targets in Syria; EU calls for ‘humanitarian pauses’ in Gaza | Israel-Hamas war

EU calls for ‘humanitarian pauses’ in Gaza

Lisa O’Carroll

Leaders of the 27 EU member states have unanimously called for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” of the shelling in Gaza to allow food, water and medical supplies to reach Palestinians.

An official declaration will be issued after a two-day summit of leaders in Brussels.

The agreement was reached late on Thursday after further concessions to Spain, which sought mention of a “ceasefire” – considering this to be a stronger message from the EU. But the demand for a ceasefire from the Spanish president was also a strategic move designed to extract other concessions in the text.

Pedro Sánchez persuaded other EU leaders to agree to support a peace conference on a two-state solution – a call that is now in the formal declaration. The member states also agreed specific language on the killing of civilians in Gaza and Israel.

“The European Council reiterates the importance of ensuring the protection of all civilians at all times in line with international humanitarian law. It deplores all loss of civilian life,” read the additional paragraph.

US strikes Iran-linked targets in Syria

Helen Livingstone

The US military has launched airstrikes on two locations in eastern Syria linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps the Pentagon has said, amid growing fears that the war between Israel and Hamas could escalate into a regional conflict.

The strikes hit a weapons storage facility and an ammunition storage facility used by the IRGC and militia it backs, senior US officials told Reuters, saying it was unclear if Iranian nationals were killed.

The strikes took place at about 4.30am on Friday near Abu Kamal, a Syrian town on the border with Iraq, and were carried out by two F-16 fighter jets using precision munitions, one of the officials said.

In a statement, defence secretary Lloyd Austin said the “precision self-defence strikes” early on Friday were a response to a slew of drone and missile attacks by Iranian-backed militia groups against US bases and personnel in Syria and Iraq that began last week.

He said President Joe Biden had directed the narrowly tailored strikes “to make clear that the United States will not tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests”.

There have been at least 12 attacks on US bases and personnel in Iraq and four in Syria since 17 October, according to the Pentagon. More than 24 US soldiers sustained minor injuries while one contractor suffered a cardiac arrest and died while seeking shelter from a possible drone attack.

This is the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war with me, Helen Sullivan.

Our top stories this morning:

US fighter jets launched airstrikes early on Friday on two locations in eastern Syria linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Pentagon said, in retaliation for a slew of drone and missile attacks against US bases and personnel in the region that began early last week.

And EU leaders have unanimously called for humanitarian corridors and “pauses” during the Israel-Hamas war. An official declaration will be issued after a two-day summit of leaders in Brussels.

The agreement was reached late on Thursday after further concessions to Spain, which sought mention of a “ceasefire” – considering this to be a stronger message from the EU.

Here are the other key recent developments:

• Aid is ‘barely trickling’ into Gaza, says UN humanitarian chief. The UN’s humanitarian chief said aid is “barely trickling” into Gaza despite the agency’s “best efforts”. In a statement posted to social media, Martin Griffiths said bombardments on Gaza “are getting worse, even in areas supposed to be safer”.

• The Gaza health ministry has issued a 212-page document with lists of names and identification numbers for 7,028 Palestinians that the Hamas authorities, which control Gaza, say have been killed by Israel’s bombardments there since 7 October.

• Joe Biden has questioned the reliability of the ministry’s reporting of the number of people killed and wounded during the Israeli assault on Gaza – because the health ministry is run by Hamas. In the past, the US state department’s annual human rights report indirectly relied on the same ministry’s casualty figures in quoting UN statistics drawn from Palestinian data. The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on Biden to apologise for his “shocking and dehumanising” remarks. Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said he saw no evidence that the numbers were being manipulated. “We have been monitoring human rights abuses in the Gaza Strip for three decades, including several rounds of hostilities. We’ve generally found the data that comes out of the ministry of health to be reliable,” he said.

• Israeli infantry backed by tanks and armoured bulldozers have attacked Hamas targets in an hours-long overnight ground raid into the northern Gaza Strip. The military said the operation was “preparation for the next stages of combat” and that “the soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory”.

• Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, has said “almost 50” hostages held in the Gaza Strip have been killed due to Israeli strikes.

• The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it has killed the deputy head of Hamas’s intelligence directorate, Shadi Barud, in a strike in the Gaza Strip.

• Leaders of the 27 EU member states have unanimously called for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” of the shelling in Gaza to allow food, water and medical supplies to reach Palestinians. In a compromise text, agreed after hours of discussions, heads of state and government from the EU’s 27 members declared that the EU “reiterates the importance of ensuring the protection of all civilians at all times in line with international humanitarian law” and “deplores all loss of civilian life”.

• Arab nations have linked hands with the Global South to challenge Israel and its western backers to end the bombing in a Gaza at the start of a rare two-day emergency debate at the UN general assembly. In a fierce warning on Thursday the Iranian foreign minister said that if what he described as the genocide did not stop the US would “not be spared from this fire”.

• Fifty-four Thai nationals are among the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, according to new figures released by the Israeli government.

• A joint statement signed by the foreign ministers of nine Arab countries has condemned what it described as the targeting of civilians and violations of international law in Gaza.

• Hamas delegation travels to Moscow for talks on foreign hostages in Gaza. A senior Hamas delegation has travelled to Moscow to meet Russian foreign ministry officials in the organisation’s first high-profile international visit since it launched a raid in southern Israel on 7 October. The delegation was led by Mousa Abu Marzook, a founder and political leader of Hamas, who met the Russian deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov.

• An Israeli diplomat in Miami on Thursday pushed back against an assertion by the administration of Ron DeSantis that they had coordinated to facilitate the shipment of ammunition and weapons to Israel. Earlier on Thursday, a spokesperson for the Florida governor said the governor’s office had contracted cargo planes to send drones, body armor and helmets to Israel and worked to “get weapons and ammunition to Israel through private parties”.

• The confirmed number of people held hostage in the Gaza Strip since the 7 October cross-border raids by Hamas has risen by two to 224, according to the Israeli military. So far, four hostages have been released.

• Rishi Sunak has said that UK border force teams are “pre-positioned” in Egypt to assist British citizens trying to leave Gaza.

• The EU is set to call for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” of the shelling in Gaza to allow food, water and medical supplies to reach Palestinians, according to its latest draft text.

• The UN relief and works agency for Palestinian people has said that it expects its fuel supply to run out today. The agency has been sharing its supplies in order to allow trucks to distribute aid, bakeries to feed people in shelters, water to be desalinated, and so that hospitals can keep incubators, life support machines and other vital equipment running.