Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest authority in the Islamic Republic of Iran, on Wednesday, November 1, urged Muslim countries to end their commercial relations with Israel, due to its offensive in the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip. “Muslim governments must block oil and food exports to the Zionist regime and not cooperate economically with it” Israel, declared the Iranian number one during a speech in Tehran. The Islamic Republic of Iran considers Israel its sworn enemy, and support for the Palestinian cause has been a constant in its foreign policy since the 1979 revolution. Follow our live stream.
Hamas says seven hostages were killed in the bombing of the Jabaliya camp. Among them, Hamas’ military wing says three victims are “foreign passport holders”. This Israeli bombardment on this refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip caused “more than 50” dead and hundreds injured according to the Palestinian movement. No other source can confirm this assessment.
The fate of the hostages uncertain. After the bombing of the Jabaliya camp, Qatar, involved in attempts to resolve the hostage crisis, condemned “a new massacre” and warned against operations likely to “undermining mediation efforts”. The military branch of Hamas assured on Tuesday that it was ready to release “a number of foreigners in the coming days”.
First evacuations of foreigners and wounded to Egypt. Dozens of foreigners and dual nationals, as well as ambulances carrying wounded Palestinians, left the Gaza Strip for Egypt on Wednesday through the Rafah border crossing. The Egyptian authorities had announced the exceptional opening of this crossing point to allow the evacuation of around 545 dual nationals and foreigners and nearly 90 people requiring surgical care.
The toll is increasing for the Israeli army. The latter published, on Wednesday, the names of nine soldiers killed in combat the day before in Gaza, bringing to 326 the number of Israeli soldiers dead since the Hamas attack on October 7. On Tuesday, the army reported the first two deaths as part of its ground offensive in the Palestinian enclave.
Israel claims to have struck “more than 11,000 targets”. These places targeted since the start of the war “belong to terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip”according to the army of the Jewish state. On the human level, Hamas claims that more than 8,500 people died in less than a month on the Palestinian side, including some 3,500 children. For their part, the Israeli authorities assure that more than 1,400 people have died since October 7, mainly civilians killed on the day of the attack.