Middle East crisis live: 30 reported killed by Israeli airstrikes on Gaza as IDF orders more Palestinians to flee their homes

Alon Nimrodi, the father of an IDF soldier Tamir Nimrodi who was seized and abducted into Gaza during the 7 October attack, has given a radio interview in Israel in which he is highly critical of the government’s handling of the hostage situation. He called some of Benjamin Netanyahu’s ministers “human garbage”.

Writing in Haaretz, Bar Peleg reports:

“I can’t describe the state’s incompetence and the failure of those involved,” Nimrodi said, adding that he “has no expectations” because “nothing practical is happening.”

When asked if he had tried to speak with coalition members who oppose the potential hostage deal, Nimrodi said, “I’ll be blunt: these people are human garbage. I tried to meet with them, but their arrogance and hubris are even worse than what you see in the media reports.”

Nimrodi also addressed the media’s handling of the hostages, saying, “It’s unacceptable that a report about the hostages is the fifth or sixth item in the main news broadcasts.”

The abducted soldier’s father was speaking on with Kan public broadcaster Reshet Bet radio, and said he personally had reached out to contacts in Qatar to find out more about the negotiations than he was getting from the government.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency has carried a read-out of a phone call between Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi and his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty.

In the report, Araqchi is credited with saying that he believed Israel’s actions were “aimed at broadening the war to the entire region and disrupting peace, stability, and security of the region.”

Tasnim also reported:

[Araqchi] also reaffirmed that Iran has a right to respond to any violation of its security and territorial integrity in line with the principle of legitimate self-defence.

Iran and Israel have exchanged several direct state-to-state attacks during the course of the year, with Iran claiming to respond to Israeli assassinations of senior figures, and Israel saying it is responding to Iran’s strikes on its territory.

As my colleague Patrick Wintour noted:

The chain of responsibility, from Iran’s perspective, started with an Israeli bombing on 1 April on the Iranian consulate in Damascus that killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps officers. Iran responded with Operation True Promise 1 on 13 April, a highly signalled attack using drones and missiles.

Israel retaliated on 19 April, with limited airstrikes on an air defence radar close to a nuclear site in Iran.

Subsequently, the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran on 31 July, and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in Beirut on 27 September along with the IRGC deputy commander of operations, Abbas Nilforoushan.

This led to Iran’s response on 1 October, labelled Operation True Promise 2, in which about 200 ballistic missiles were fired at Israel.

Israel blames Iran for backing Hezbollah, which has had northern Israel under near constant rocket fire since the 7 October Hamas attack inside southern Israel in 2023. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been forced from their homes in the north of the country. Israel attacked on Iran on 26 October, with Tehran anticipated to respond again.

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have now killed at least 30 Palestinians since Monday night, Palestinian media and medics said on Tuesday, as the IDF issued further evacuation orders for the besieged Palestinian territory.

Reuters reports that an airstrike damaged two houses in the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, and killed at least 20 people late on Monday, citing Palestinian official news agency WAFA and Hamas media.

Palestinian health officials said six people had also been killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City and Deir Al-Balah, while four other people were killed in the central Gazan town of Al-Zawayda around midnight. At least two children were among those reported dead.

Israeli planes have dropped leaflets over Beit Lahiya in the far north of the territory ordering residents who have not yet left their homes and shelters housing displaced families to leave the town.

“To all those who remained at homes and shelters, you are risking your lives. For your safety you have to head south,” said the leaflet, which was written in Arabic. UN agencies have said that almost all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once during the course of the war.

Al Jazeera, citing Gaza’s civil defence, reports that Israeli forces continue to disrupt humanitarian and medical services in northern Gaza for the 14th day in a row.

In a statement issued earlier, Israel’s military claimed that during its operations in the north of Gaza it has “eliminated dozens of terrorists during close-quarters encounters and aerial strikes and dismantled terrorist infrastructure sites.”

It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.