Protesters are arrested and led away by law enforcement at Grand Central Terminal during a rally calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas on October 27, 2023, in New York.
| Photo Credit: AP

Hundreds of protesters filled the main concourse of New York city’s famed Grand Central Terminal during the evening rush hour on October 27, chanting slogans and unfurling banners demanding a cease-fire as Israel intensified its bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Wearing black T-shirts and saying “Jews say cease-fire now” and “Not in our name,” at least 200 of the demonstrators were detained by New York Police Department (NYPD) officers and led out of the train station, their hands zip-tied behind their backs. The NYPD said the protesters were taken briefly into custody, issued summons and released, and that a more exact number of detentions would be available on October 28.

Some protesters hoisted banners as they scaled the stone ledges in front of leader boards listing departure times. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority asked commuters to use Penn Station as an alternative. After the sit-in was broken up by police, the remaining protesters spilled into the streets outside.

“Hundreds of Jews and friends are taking over Grand Central Station in a historic sit-in calling for a ceasefire,” advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace said on social media.

The scene echoed last week’s sit-in on Capitol Hill in Washington, where Jewish advocacy groups, including Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now, poured into a congressional office building. More than 300 people were arrested for illegally demonstrating.

Israel stepped up airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Friday, knocking out internet and largely cutting off communication with the 2.3 million people inside the besieged Palestinian enclave. Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry says more than 7,300 people have been killed, more than 60% of them minors and women.

The Israeli military’s announcement it was “expanding” ground operations in the territory signalled it was moving closer to an all-out invasion of Gaza, where it has vowed to crush the ruling Hamas militant group after its bloody incursion in southern Israel three weeks ago. More than 1,400 people were slain in Israel during the attack, according to the Israeli government, and at least 229 hostages were taken into Gaza.

The U.N. General Assembly approved a nonbinding resolution calling for a “humanitarian truce” in Gaza leading to a cessation of hostilities. It was the first U.N. response to Hamas’ surprise October 7 attacks and Israel’s ongoing military response.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees warned on October 25 that without immediate deliveries of fuel it will soon have to sharply cut back relief operations across the Gaza Strip, which has been blockaded and hit by devastating Israeli airstrikes since Hamas militants launched an attack on Israel more than two weeks ago.

The warning came as hospitals in Gaza struggled to treat masses of wounded with dwindling resources, and health officials in the Hamas-ruled territory said the death toll was soaring as Israeli jets continued striking the territory overnight into Wednesday.

The Israeli military said its strikes had killed militants and destroyed tunnels, command centres, weapons storehouses and other military targets, which it has accused Hamas of hiding among Gaza’s civilian population. Gaza-based militants have been launching unrelenting rocket barrages into Israel since the conflict started.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said the airstrikes killed at least 704 people between Monday and Tuesday, mostly women and children. The Associated Press could not independently verify the death tolls cited by Hamas, which says it tallies figures from hospital directors.

The death toll was unprecedented in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even greater loss of life could come when Israel launches an expected ground offensive aimed at crushing Hamas militants.

In Washington, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters the U.S. could not verify the one-day death toll. “The Ministry of Health is run by Hamas, and I think that all needs to be factored into anything that they put out publicly.”

Israel said on Tuesday it had launched 400 airstrikes over the past day, an increase from the 320 strikes the day before. The U.N. says about 1.4 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are now internally displaced, with almost 6,00,000 crowded into U.N. shelters.

Gaza’s residents have been running out of food, water and medicine since Israel sealed off the territory following the attack on southern Israel by Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction.

In recent days, Israel allowed a small number of trucks filled with aid to come over the border with Egypt but barred deliveries of fuel — needed to power hospital generators — to keep it out of Hamas’ hands.

The U.N. said it had managed to deliver some of the aid in recent days to hospitals treating the wounded. But the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, the largest provider of humanitarian services in Gaza, said it was running out of fuel.

Officials said they were forced to reduce their operations as they rationed what little fuel they had.

“Without fuel our trucks cannot go around to further places in the strip for distribution,” said Lily Esposito, a spokesperson for the agency. “We will have to make decisions on what activities we keep or not with little fuel.”

Meanwhile, more than half of Gaza’s primary healthcare facilities, and roughly a third of its hospitals, have stopped functioning, the World Health Organization said.

Overwhelmed hospital staff struggled to triage cases as constant waves of wounded were brought in. The Health Ministry said many wounded are laid on the ground without even simple medical aid and others wait for days for surgeries because there are so many critical cases.

The Health Ministry says more than 5,700 Palestinians have been killed in the war, including some 2,300 minors. The figure includes the disputed toll from an explosion at a hospital last week.

The fighting has killed more than 1,400 people in Israel — mostly civilians slain during the initial Hamas attack, according to the Israeli government. Hamas is also holding some 222 people that it captured and brought back to Gaza.

The conflict threatened to spread across the region, as Israeli airstrikes hit Syrian military sites in the south on Wednesday, killing eight soldiers and wounding seven, according to Syria’s state-run SANA news agency.

The Israeli military said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, its jets had struck Syrian military infrastructure and mortar systems in response to rocket launches from Syria.

Israel has launched several strikes on Syria in recent days, including strikes that put the Damascus and Aleppo airports out of service, in an apparent attempt to prevent arms shipments from Iran to militant groups, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Israel has been fighting the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah across the Lebanese border in recent weeks.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah met on Wednesday with top Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad officials in their first reported meeting since the war started. Such a meeting could signal coordination between the groups, as Hezbollah officials warned Israel against launching a ground offensive in Gaza.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Iran was helping Hamas, with intelligence and by “whipping up incitement against Israel across the world.” He said Iranian proxies were also operating against Israel from Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. Fighting also erupted in the West Bank, which has seen a major spike in violence.

Islamic Jihad militants said they fought with Israeli forces in Jenin overnight. The Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank said Israel killed four Palestinians in Jenin, including a 15-year-old, and two others in other towns. That brought the total number of those killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7 to 102.

Across central and south Gaza, where Israel told civilians to take shelter, there were multiple scenes of rescuers pulling the dead and wounded out of large piles of rubble from collapsed buildings. Graphic photos and video shot by the AP showed rescuers unearthing bodies of children from multiple ruins.

A father knelt on the floor of the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah next to the bodies of three lifeless children cocooned in bloodied sheets. Later, at the nearby morgue, workers prayed over 24 dead wrapped in body bags, several of them the size of small children.

“Buildings that collapsed on residents killed dozens at a time in several cases, witnesses said. Two families lost 47 members in a levelled home in Rafah,” the Health Ministry said.

In Gaza City, at least 19 people were killed when an airstrike hit the house of the Bahloul family, according to survivors, who said dozens more remained buried. The legs of a dead woman and another person, both still half buried, dangled out of the wreckage where workers dug through the dirt, concrete and rebar.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that the proportionate response to the October 7 attack is “a total destruction” of the militants. “It is not only Israel’s right to destroy Hamas. It’s our duty,” he said.

On Wednesday, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Gilad Erdan, said his country will stop issuing visas to U.N. personnel after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that Hamas’ attack “did not happen in a vacuum.” It was unclear what the action, if followed through with, would mean for U.N. aid personnel working in Gaza and the West Bank.

“It’s time to teach them a lesson,” Erdan told Army Radio, accusing the U.N. chief of justifying a slaughter.

The U.N. chief told the Security Council on Tuesday that “the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.” Mr. Guterres also said “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

U.S. President Joe Biden.
| Photo Credit: AP

Dozens of Hollywood actors and artists, including comedian Jon Stewart and Oscar-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix, wrote on Friday to U.S. President Joe Biden, urging him to press for a ceasefire in Israel and Gaza.

Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,400 people and taking about 200 hostages. Since then, Israel has bombed Gaza and killed over 4,100 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

“We urge your administration, and all world leaders, to honor 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 celebrities wrote to Mr. Biden.

Follow Israel-Hamas war, Day 14 LIVE updates here

“We refuse to tell future generations the story of our silence, that we stood by and did nothing. As (UN) Emergency Relief Chief Martin Griffiths told UN News, “History is watching””, they said in the letter, citing Mr. Griffiths’ comment on Monday.

The nearly 60 signatories included Susan Sarandon, Kristen Stewart, Quinta Brunson, Ramy Youssef, Riz Ahmed and Mahershala Ali, among others.

“Humanitarian aid must be allowed to reach them (Gazans),” the letter said.

Mr. Biden on Friday said he believed that trucks carrying aid will get through to Gaza in the next 24 to 48 hours. Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, a 45-km-long (25-mile) enclave, has created dire conditions for the 2.3 million people living there under a blockade by Israel and Egypt since Hamas took control in 2007.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will travel to Israel on Thursday before heading to other countries in the region in an effort to deescalate the Israel-Gaza conflict, his office has said.

“The attack on Al Ahli Hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict,” Mr. Sunak said in a statement.

“I will ensure the U.K. is at the forefront of this effort.”

Follow Israel-Hamas war, Day 12 LIVE updates here

Mr. Sunak will stress the international community must “not let Hamas’ barbaric terrorism and disregard for human life become a catalyst for further escalation of conflict in the region”, the statement said.

Expected in Israel early on Thursday morning, Mr. Sunak is due to meet his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

He is also expected to insist that humanitarian aid, which London recently announced would be increased for the Palestinians, be allowed to arrive at a time when Israel has authorised the entry of aid into Gaza from Egypt, and that Britons stranded in Gaza be allowed to leave.

Alongside the British prime minister’s trip, his Foreign Secretary James Cleverly is due to visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar “in the coming days”, according to Downing Street.

London has pledged its support for Israel following the bloody attacks by Hamas, which killed more than 1,400 people, and has announced that the U.K.’s humanitarian aid to the Palestinians will be increased by a third — an extra £10 million pounds ($12 million).

Israel is relentlessly bombing the small, crowded territory of Gaza, where more than 3,400 people have been killed, most of them Palestinian civilians, according to the local authorities.

Retired US General David Petraeus, who commanded America’s wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, condemned Hamas’ attack on Israel, calling it ”far worse than 9/11.” ”This is the equivalent of the US having experienced over 40,000 losses, rather than the 3,000 terrible losses that we sustained in the attacks of 9/11,” Mr Petraeus told CBS News.

Mr Petraeus, who also once served as director of the CIA, warned Israel to think carefully about its upcoming actions as it plans to invade Gaza. 

”This is going to be a very, very tough fight. I almost can’t imagine a more challenging contextual set of circumstances here than what they face. There are tunnels; there will be rooms that will have improvised explosive devices. You have to clear every building, every floor, every room, every basement, every tunnel. Civilian losses are inevitable, and tough Israeli losses lie ahead as well,” he added. 

He further expressed shock at how both Israeli and American intelligence were not aware of what was being planned. 

”This is a very substantial operation, and the planning of it alone would have been very considerable; then, the training and equipping and positioning of forces, then the actual conduct of it. That all of that could take place and not spark much increased military readiness is really quite stunning,” he said. 

When asked what the outcome of the war would be, Mr. Petraeus said, ”If the mission to the Israeli military is to destroy Hamas, if you have to destroy every headquarters, if you have to capture or kill the bulk of the leaders, if you have to do the same with the bulk of these terrorist fighters, the question is then, what do you do with Gaza once you retake it. You can’t walk away from Gaza.”

Previously, the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations also called it an “unprecedented” escalation and compared it with the 9/11 terror attack. The diplomat explained that because Israel’s population is smaller than the United States, the amount of casualties is proportional to the lives lost on 9/11.

”This is our 9/11. We are committed to changing the equation, to shatter the old paradigm. These animals will pay a heavy price and they will learn that these atrocities cannot be committed again against our civilians,” he added. 

Notably, the 9/11 attacks in 2001 on one of the then-iconic sites in New York, the World Trade Center,  were the deadliest attacks on US soil since the Pearl Harbour bombing. On September 11, 2001, planes crashed into New York City’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and a field in Pennsylvania. The terror attacks claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people and injured countless others. 

Israel has launched an air strike against Syria’s Aleppo Airport late on Saturday that put it out of service, the Syrian defence ministry said.

“The Israeli enemy carried out an air attack from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea, west of Latakia, targeting Aleppo International Airport, which led to material damage to the airport and it being out of service,” the ministry added.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The airport just got to service on Saturday after simultaneous missile attacks by Israeli forces on the airports in Syria’s capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo had damaged the runways and put both hubs out of service on Thursday.

The Damascus airport is still out of service.

Sources have said strikes on the airports are intended to disrupt Iranian supply lines to Syria, where Tehran’s influence has grown since it began supporting President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war that started in 2011.