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And that’s where we will wrap up our live coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict for today.
Recapping events:
I have just been in contact with Kawa Hassan, a nonresident fellow at the Stimson Centre’s Middle East & North Africa program.
He has painted a very bleak outlook for how the Israel-Hamas conflict may unfold.
“One of the hard lessons of October 7 was the sense of sham stability in Middle East, and the failure of imagination and how the lack of a solution to the Palestinian cause could bring the region to the brink of an abyss,” Hassan said.
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog has complained about the BBC’s coverage of the Hamas terrorist attack at a meeting with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Herzog said the BBC, which broadcasts around the world and is funded by taxpayers, but is not government-controlled, was not describing Hamas as a terrorist organisation in its coverage.
“We feel that the way the BBC characterises Hamas is a distortion of the facts,” he said.
But he said he understood that in modern democracies, political leaders, could not directly intervene in media coverage.
“But because the BBC has a certain linkage and it is known as Britain as such all over the world,
Cabinet ministers Ed Husic and Anne Aly have won the support of union boss Sally McManus who has called for the “collective punishment” of Palestinians to stop.
In a further sign of divisions within the Labor movement over the Israel-Hamas conflict, the ACTU boss posted a media statement on X a short time ago, calling for a ceasefire and for the Australian government to use its influence to get Israel to stop its assault on Gaza.
Israel is seeking to destroy the leadership of the terrorist organisation Hamas which sparked the current conflict with its deadly attacks and massacres of Israeli civilians, including babies and children on October 7.
As we have previously reported, the UK’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has landed in Tel Aviv on a solidarity visit.
Now Britain has announced that Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who was the first figure from a foreign government to visit Israel immediately after the October 7 attack, will return to the region for talks with the leaders of Egypt, Turkey and Qatar.
The UK said the meetings were aimed at preventing spillover violence which would devastate the wider region.
Two federal government ministers say civilians in Gaza are being subjected to collective punishment by Israel, exposing tensions within the Albanese government over its position on the unfolding war, as a federal Labor senator called for landmarks to be lit in the colours of the Palestinian flag.
Industry Minister Ed Husic and Early Childhood Education Minister Anne Aly, who are the only Muslims in federal cabinet, on Thursday called for Australia to step up support for Palestinians facing a humanitarian crisis.
They said Palestinian-Australians felt their lives mattered less in the unfolding political reaction to the Israel-Hamas war.
The Israel Defence Forces says Hamas is holding 203 people as hostages in Gaza.
This figure has been increasing over the last few days from initial estimates of around 150.
Hamas is refusing the pleas of Israel and world leaders to release the civilians immediately.
Hello Latika Bourke here logging on from London to take you through this evening’s developments.
One of the lesser-noticed topics discussed in the Israel-Hamas conflict has been what economic impact the new war might have on the global economy which is already reeling from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Israel’s currency, the Shekel, is bearing the immediate brunt, dropping this week to four against the US dollar for the first time since 2015.
Today the ASX plunged lower than 7000 amid investor fears that the Israel-Hamas violence might turn into a wider regional conflict.
The benchmark index on Thursday closed down 96 points, or 1.36 per cent, to a 10-day low of 6981.6, while the broader All Ordinaries dropped 93 points, or 1.28 per cent, to 7172.7.
Thank you for joining me on the blog this afternoon. I am Caitlin Fitzsimmons and I am now handing over to Latika Bourke for the rest of the evening.
For those just catching up, here are the main headlines:
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has landed in Israel, beginning a visit in which he will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog before travelling on to other regional capitals.
His office said Sunak would share his condolences for the loss of life in Israel and Gaza as a result of the October 7 attack on Israel by Gaza-based Palestinian Hamas gunmen, and warn against further escalation of conflict in the region.
“Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamas’ horrific act of terror,” Sunak said in a statement ahead of his visit.
He said the Gaza hospital blast earlier this week should be “a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict”, pledging Britain would be at “the forefront of this effort”.