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Hamas’s attack on Israel has given rise to the largest-scale hostage crisis in the country’s 75-year history. About 200 people have been captured and taken into Gaza, according to the Israeli military. Over the course of the Arab-Israeli conflict, armed Palestinian groups have taken dozens of Israelis captive. The vast majority have been Israeli Defence

Two people have been shot dead in central Brussels, according to Belgian media reports. It is being reported that both victims were wearing Swedish football shirts, ahead of the country’s Euro qualifier match against Belgium this evening in the capital. This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please

President Joe Biden has said the Hamas militant group should be eliminated, but warned it would be a mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza, calling instead for a “two-state solution”. Speaking a week to the day since Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, Mr Biden said Israel has “to go after Hamas” but said

We’ve been travelling to the many different scenes where Hamas fighters carried out their terror attack on Israel this week, and it is becoming clear that their tactics and levels of brutality changed from location to location. Warning – this story contains descriptions and pictures of a graphic nature In the attack on the Nova

Israel is preparing to launch a “coordinated offensive” on the Gaza Strip, after the deadline given to Palestinians to move south to escape passed. Up to 1.1 million people on the sliver of land were offered safe passage south of the Gaza Wadi river by Israel’s Defence Forces until 4pm local time on Saturday (2pm

Holding out his phone, a soldier walked towards me in the shattered ruins of a kibbutz in southern Israel. “This is my friend,” he said, showing a photograph on the screen of a beautiful young woman and her fiancé. Their names were Nieve Raviv, 27, and Nirel Zini, also in his 20s. The soldier described

Israel’s military says infantry backed by tanks have carried out “localised raids” in the Gaza Strip. It comes ahead of an expected ground operation, with Israel warning more than a million people in the north of Gaza to evacuate to the south. The small raids were carried out to attack Hamas rocket crews and seek

Israeli infantry and tanks have carried out “localised raids” in Gaza – the first hint at a shift to ground assaults. The small raids were carried out to attack Hamas rocket crews and seek information on the location of hostages taken by Palestinian gunmen last Saturday, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said. It is the first

Britons are “highly likely” to be among those held by Hamas in Gaza, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has told Sky News. The cabinet minister revealed the UK had also sent additional intelligence personnel to the region as part of efforts to release those captured or assist citizens trapped in the besieged enclave. His comments came

I walked up the hill to the main stage area of the Nova Festival site knowing we were entering a murderous scene the world has heard so much about but has yet to fully understand. As I passed bullet-ridden cars where people trying to escape were gunned down; burnt-out cars where some young people had

An Irish-Israeli woman who went missing after Hamas attacked a music festival at the weekend has been confirmed dead. Kim Damti, 22, was at the event in Re’im in southern Israel when she was last seen, the Irish government confirmed. The festival was attended by several hundred people when Hamas gunmen opened fire. This breaking

Shortly before 9pm on Tuesday evening, a Hamas fighter tried to kill an Israeli soldier with a knife. The attack took place at Kibbutz Re’im in southern Israel, about four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the border with Gaza. The man was shot dead by another soldier. What is remarkable is that the would-be assassin had

The US has sent a team of technical experts to Israel to assist in hostage recovery , according to official sources. The team are there to advise and work the Israelis on how to free people who are being held hostage, the official said. Hamas is believed to have taken more than 100 hostages during

From destroyed homes I watched stretcher bearers bringing out the body of a small child.    Without saying a word, the men carried the body and loaded it onto a truck alongside the bodies of other members of the community murdered as they hid or tried to defend themselves. We were taken to the Kfar

Hamas’s armed wing has warned people living in the Israeli city of Ashkelon that they have until 5pm local time to leave. The al Qassam Brigades, as the group is known, posted on social media that its warning to leave by 3pm UK time was in response to the “crime of the enemy”. The statement

The mastermind of Hamas’s attack on Israel on Saturday is a shadowy figure.  Mohammed Deif, the commander of the militant group‘s military wing, is known as “The Guest”, or sometimes “the cat with nine lives”. The second nickname is a reference to his knack for evading Israeli assassination attempts. The first is taken from his

Families seized and separated. Men, women and children hauled off to captivity, some of them shot on the way, girls raped, their belongings ransacked and looted. It is a catalogue of atrocities that recalls some of the darkest moments in Jewish history and yet it has happened in the 21st century in a country that

At least 260 bodies were found after Hamas targeted a music festival in Israel as part of its incursion, rescuers have said. Those killed at the Supernova festival near Re’im in southern Israel are among 700 dead across the country so far. The number dead at the music event in the desert region of Negev

Israel’s prime minister has warned people living in Gaza to leave the area as he vowed to reduce parts of the territory “into rubble” in revenge for a “black day”. Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier said Israel was at war with Palestinian militants from Hamas, which governs Gaza, after their fighters launched a surprise attack on

The Hamas operation started just before 7am in Israel and came without any warning.  Israel is coming to the end of the Jewish festival of Sukkot and today is the Shabbat day of rest, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened an emergency meeting of his security cabinet to work out how to respond to this