Key moments
Noiya Sharabi, a British-Israeli teenager who was missing after Hamas stormed her family home in Israel, was murdered in the October 7 attacks, her family have said.
Noiya, 16, her sister Yahel Sharabi, 13, her British-born mother Lianne, 48, and her Israeli-born father Eli, 51, were all caught up in the attack when militants invaded the kibbutz of Be’eri in the early morning. Yahel and Lianne Sharabi were pronounced dead this week. Mr Sharabi and other relatives are still missing.
It has also emerged that a British-Israeli soldier died while trying to save civilians from the massacre. Yosef Malachi Guedalia, 22, saved at least one seriously wounded civilian from Kfar Aza before repeatedly returning to the besieged kibbutz to help more of those under fire, his family told The Times. They said Hamas then tried to take his body.
• Israel-Hamas war live: latest news from the Gaza conflict
Noiya’s family said her body had been formally identified. They told the BBC: “Noiya was clever, sensitive, fun and full of life — her smile lit up the room like a beacon.”
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• What is the Gaza strip? A history of the land in maps and misery
The family added she “embraced every opportunity to help others, particularly those less fortunate than her, and was a gifted student and linguist. Most importantly, she was an amazing granddaughter, cousin and niece. We are heartbroken she is gone, but forever grateful she was here.”
• The known British victims of Hamas in Israel
Welby: Don’t assume Israel was behind hospital blast
Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has warned that blaming Israel for the attack on a Gazan hospital that killed hundreds of people may constitute “blood libel”.
The archbishop was meeting families in Jerusalem who had been bereaved by the war between Israel and Hamas that erupted earlier this month.
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He said that it was not clear who was responsible for the explosion at al-Ahli hospital: “What I have said to people, publicly, is ‘Don’t assume it’s Israel. You have no proof that it’s Israel. Many people have made a clear case it’s not. At the very best, do not start propagating another blood libel’,” he said.
Welby said the idea of evil was central to the terrorist attack on Israel. “It is evil in its most extreme form,” he said. Asked by Matt Frei of Channel 4 News whether what is happening to Palestinians is also an example of evil, the Archbishop said “the killing of civilians in war is always an evil thing”.
He added: “Wait. Think. Listen. Mourn. Cry out for peace. Look for ways in which nobody needs to go to bed at night fearing their house is broken into. And their children butchered. Their relatives taken hostage. Cry out against that. Cry out against people dying in airstrikes. Cry out against the hopelessness.”
She said she loved him, then he drove to fight Hamas
Yosef Malachi Guedalia, 22, saved at least one seriously wounded civilian from Kfar Aza before repeatedly returning to the besieged kibbutz to help, his family has told The Times. He was confirmed dead today.
The soldier’s father, David Guedalia, 54, told The Times that he dragged them out to his car. He believes that his son rescued at least three people, one of whom was badly injured. “He took them out of Kfar Aza and then he went back additional times to continue.
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Guedalia, whose mother Dina is British and grew up in Manchester, went back and forth the whole morning, the family said, according to soldiers who were with him at the time and a video which shows him dragging a wounded person to safety.
He loved frisbee and basketball and had been married for just over a year to wife Senai, 23, they said. He had been home from the army on weekend leave and the pair were at synagogue together when the sirens began.
According to his wife, Guedalia contacted his superiors and asked “should I come?” She told The Times that they then quickly returned home to their Jerusalem flat, where he got ready. “Then he said: ‘I love you, I’ll see you soon’ and he got in the car,” she said.
Guedalia arrived in Kfa Aza at about 12pm. He fought for more than two hours alongside three of his friends, also IDF soldiers. “He fought until his last breath and they killed him. We were fortunate that we could bury him and mourn him,” his father said.
Thousands join pro-Palestinian protest in Paris
Thousands of people waving flags and chanting “Gaza, Paris is with you!” protested in the French capital on Sunday — the first pro-Palestinian demonstration officially allowed by police since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel (David Harding writes).
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Around 15,000 people turned out at the Place de la Republique, a traditional venue for demonstrations in Paris, according to police figures.
“We are here to defend the freedom (of) the people of Palestine, especially with what’s happening in Gaza — it’s unacceptable,” said Noureddine Mansour, a protester in Paris told Reuters.
French police said the Paris protest was authorised, unlike others which have taken place, because a declaration by organisers condemned the Hamas attacks, which killed 1,400 people.
On Thursday, a protest was authorised at the last minute after a Paris court overturned the police decision to ban it.
In the last few days, other protests have been authorised in cities across the country, after a court ruled that pro-Palestinian protests would be banned on a case-by-case basis, not systematically as an earlier instruction by the French interior minister had suggested.
Israeli soldier killed in Gaza
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An Israeli soldier was killed by an anti-tank missile on Sunday during a raid into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, the military said.
Israeli troops have been conducting raids across the border, which the military says are meant to clear the area and gather intelligence about missing people and captives being held by Hamas, Reuters reported.
“An IDF (Israel Defence Forces) soldier was killed, one was moderately injured, and two were lightly injured as a result of an anti-tank missile launched toward an IDF tank and an engineering vehicle,” the military said.
Blinken: Israel has no desire to run Gaza
Israel has “no desire” to govern Gaza, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Sunday, but added that the situation cannot “go back to the status quo” (David Harding writes).
Speaking to NBC, Blinken said a solution needed to found so that Hamas could never again attack Israel as it did on October 7.
“I think we know two things, we can’t go back to the status quo,” he told the broadcaster. “They can’t go back to the status quo with Hamas being in a position in terms of its governance of Gaza to repeat what it did.
“At the same time, what I’ve heard from the Israelis is absolutely no intent, no desire to be running Gaza themselves. They moved out of Gaza unilaterally, unconditionally, a couple of decades ago, but they can’t be in a position where they’re constantly at the threat of the most horrific terrorist attacks coming from Gaza.”
He added: “So, something needs to be found that ensures that Hamas can’t do this again. But that also doesn’t revert to Israeli governance of Gaza, which they do not want and do not intend to do.”
Father of murdered teenage hostages still missing
Eli Sharabi, 51, the father of Noiya and Yahel, is still missing, feared to have been abducted by Hamas gunmen and taken back to Gaza (Ben Ellery writes).
At 6.30am on Saturday, October 7, Hamas launched their attack on the Israeli kibbutz where the Sharabi family was living.
As sirens went off, alerting them to an onslaught of rockets, Lianne told her family WhatsApp group chat she could hear gunfire and shouting in Arabic.
The last communication from the family in kibbutz Be’eri was received at around 12:30pm.
Hamas had broken into their home, laughing loudly, the teenagers’ aunt Nira said after the ordeal.
She added the terrorists fought to open the door of the safe room, where the family were hiding, before taking them hostage and setting fire to their home.
Photos of the Sharabi family home show it covered in blood, with furniture smashed up and their pet dog killed and left in the living room.
Police arrest man for ‘antisemitic abuse’ at London Jewish protest
The Metropolitan Police has said an arrest has been made during the vigil for hostages seized by Hamas currently being held in Trafalgar Square (Tom Witherow writes).
“Officers have made an arrest for a racially aggravated Public Order offence after a man drove past shouting antisemitic abuse,” the Met posted on Twitter/X.
IDF confirms accidentally hitting Egyptian position
The Israel defence forces (IDF) have said that one of its tanks accidentally hit an Egyptian position near the border with the Gaza Strip today.
“The incident is being investigated and the details are under review. The IDF expresses sorrow regarding the incident,” it said in a statement, giving no further details.
A spokesperson for the Egyptian army said that several of its border guards had sustained minor injuries after being accidentally hit by fragments of a shell from the Israeli tank.
Israel and Egypt have been at peace since Menachem Begin, Israel’s prime minister at the time, and President el-Sadat of Egypt signed the Camp David Accords in 1979, together with President Carter of the United States.
Germans must support Jews, president says
It is the civic duty of all German citizens to protect Jewish life in the country, the federal president said amid a surge in antisemitism in the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict (Bruno Waterfield and David Crossland write).
President Steinmeier acknowledged the duty of the state to protect people but insisted that all Germans must do their bit to support Jewish people facing attacks.
“I really ask everyone in our country to accept this civic duty,” he said at a rally at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The event was attended by some 3,000 people, far less than the numbers of pro-Palestinian marches across Germany this weekend.
Jewish homes in Berlin have been spray painted with the Star of David and attackers hurled two petrol bombs at a synagogue in the capital.
Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, called on the public not to turn a blind eye when Jews are not safe from attacks or verbal abuse. “There must be zero tolerance for antisemitism in Germany,” he said, opening a synagogue in the eastern city of Dessau.
Explosion heard near Rafah crossing
An explosion and the sound of ambulances were heard near the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on Sunday afternoon, shortly after a second aid convoy had entered the crossing from the Egyptian side, witnesses said.
The cause and the exact location of the blast were not immediately clear.
Earlier there was a delivery of fuel, according to an official at the Rafah crossing.
An AFP journalist saw six trucks enter and a Palestinian official at the crossing confirmed that the trucks were carrying fuel.
The transfer follows a United Nations warning that hospitals and other vital services in the Palestinian territory risked shutting down without fuel deliveries.
Despite the initial delivery, hospitals are still facing dwindling supplies with which to keep power running through generators.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza called on “the owners of gas stations and people who have any quantity of fuel to go to the hospitals immediately and donate it to save the lives of the wounded and sick”.
We feel so alone, British Jews say
At the rally in London, Karen Gerrard was carrying a placard calling for the release of Kfir, a nine-month-old boy who was taken from his village by Hamas (Tom Witherow writes).
“It’s pitiable. He’s a baby kidnapped because he’s Jewish alongside so many others.
“I’ve got two children in Israel. It was our safe place but it has been taken away from us in a single day.
“We’re all very proud to be counted as British Jews, but we’re absolutely petrified and scared. We feel that we are so alone. But we don’t have more people to support us. Bring our children and families home. It feels like most of the country is against us.”
She was attending the rally with her friends Daniel and Louise Coleman.
Daniel Coleman said: “If Glastonbury festival was attacked by gunmen, hundreds killed and children taken hostage, then what would people in Britain say?”
Protesters call for release of hostages
Hundreds of members of London’s Jewish community are attending a rally in Trafalgar Square, in central London, to campaign for the release of 210 hostages taken by Hamas (Tom Witherow writes).
The crowd chanted as a voice-over read out the names of the hostages, which range from babies to grandparents in their eighties.
The event has a heavy police presence and gates have been placed around the square where officers are checking bags of those attending, following the large pro-Palestinian march in London on Saturday.
The conflict in pictures
Hamas chief bought London council house
A Hamas chief who ran “terrorist operations in the West Bank” lives in a London council property he bought in 2021 with a £112,000 discount.
Muhammad Qassem Sawalha used a relative’s passport and fled to the UK in the 1990s. He later obtained British citizenship.
Sawalha, 62, continued to work for Hamas after arriving in the UK, including laundering money to support activities in Gaza and the West Bank, according to a 2004 US indictment. The father of four served on Hamas’s politburo between 2013 and 2017, and was pictured with Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, in 2010 and 2012.
Sawalha is officially designated by Israel’s defence ministry as a member of Hamas and will be arrested if he returns to the country.
Read the full story: Revealed: the Hamas chief who lives in a London council house
Israel rejected hostages, Hamas claims
Hamas’s offer to release two more hostages was rejected by Israel, the militants have claimed — an allegation that Binyamin Netanyahu’s government has denied and called “propaganda”.
Judith Tai Raanan and her daughter Natalie, US citizens from Chicago who were kidnapped when visiting family at the Nahal Oz kibbutz, were returned to Israel on Friday. Their release had sparked hopes that other hostages could be released soon.
Hamas claimed it would have released Nurit Yitzhak, 80, and Yokheved Lifshitz, 85, from Kibbutz Nir Oz, “due to compelling humanitarian reasons”. In a statement, it added: “The Israeli occupation government refused to receive them both.”
Netanyahu’s office denied the allegations and said: “We will continue to do everything necessary to bring all the captives and missing back home.”
At least 212 hostages, mostly civilians of more than 40 nationalities, were taken by Hamas on October 7, according to the Israeli government.
Read the full story: Hamas hostage release: two women rejected by Israel, militants claim
‘Jihad’ chants incite terrorist violence, Jenrick says
Chanting “Jihad” during protests in London risks “inciting terrorist violence”, a minister has said.
A video of a Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain protest showed a man chanting “Jihad” but the Metropolitan Police said no offences were identified.
Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, said on Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “Chanting ‘Jihad’ on the streets of London is completely reprehensible and I never want to see scenes like that. It is inciting terrorist violence and it needs to be tackled with the full force of the law.”
Read the full story: Pro-Palestinian protesters chanting ‘Jihad’ should face full force of law
Second aid convoy enters Rafah crossing
A second convoy of 17 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies has entered the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing towards Gaza, security and humanitarian sources say, providing hope for the more than two million residents of the region (Delara Shakib writes).
According to the United Nations, at least 100 trucks a day are required in Gaza to cover urgent needs and conditions they call “catastrophic.”
The convoy, the second to enter Gaza since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, is being inspected at the crossing.
The first 20 aid trucks entered Gaza on Saturday, containing medicine and food but no fuel. The UN said the supplies, received by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, were a fraction of the quantity needed.
Rafah is the main route in and out of the Gaza Strip that is not controlled by Israel.
Israel said it would not allow aid to enter from its territory until Hamas releases the hostages it took during its attack. This sentiment was echoed at an event in Tel Aviv on Friday night, where one woman, standing with a hostage’s father, said: “No humanitarian aid without getting our people back.”
She added: “It’s time for the world to stand up and say that no humanitarian aid goes into the Gaza Strip without Israel getting assurance that all the hostages are coming home safe.”
Iran threatens multi-front offensive
Iran has warned that Israel’s war with Hamas and other militant groups is “spiralling out of control”, threatening to open a multi-front offensive if it does not relent.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the Iranian foreign minister, also warned the United States it would be held responsible as Israel strikes back against Gaza in retaliation for the October 7 attacks.
Israel has issued more evacuation orders from the north of the country as it bombards positions of Hezbollah, the Shia militia based in southern Lebanon that is an ally of Iran, in return for rocket attacks on its bases.
It also hit Damascus and Aleppo airports in Syria over night. Both are used by Iran to transfer weapons to militia allies in Syria and Lebanon.
“I warn the US and its proxy [Israel] that if they do not immediately stop the crime against humanity and genocide in Gaza, anything is possible at any moment and the region will go out of control,” Amir-Abdollahian said in Tehran.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, warned that if Hezbollah opened a full “second front” it would be making “the mistake of its life”.
“We will strike it with a force it cannot even imagine, and the significance for it and the state of Lebanon will be devastating,” he said.
