Note to reader: We wanted to give you a trigger warning on what you may read below. We have chosen, as with every night of these briefings, to not share horrific images, however we want to alert you as sensitively as we can to the reports coming out of Israel and Gaza.
Foreign Secretary, Conservative Party Chair meet families of hostages massacre victims
Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron today held meetings with the families of hostages and the victims of the Hamas massacres of the 7th October. “I offered my sincere condolences for the appalling acts of terror and violence of October 7th and we discussed what more we can do to help”.
“We will support them through their ordeal and continue to work tirelessly to get all hostages home”, he said on X, formally Twitter.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Leo Docherty MP said today during an Urgent Questions that “we are forthright in our absolute condemnation of the terrorist atrocity perpetrated by Hamas”. He stated, “one of the major obstacles to the two state solution is Hamas itself” and added that “the terrible conflict” has resulted from the “Hamas terrorist atrocity on the 7th of October”. Docherty called the “evolution” of better leadership in Gaza “a necessary prerequisite” for the two-state solution, reiterating that Israel’s “objective is to defend itself”.
CFI Parliamentary Vice Chair Andrew Percy MP said that “the reason there is not a two state solution is because Hamas seek the total genocide and ethnic cleaning of the State of Israel. They seek to murder every single Jew, they used the most awful sexual violence against women on October 7th, some of those reports we read in shocking detail in The Times this weekend.” He called on the Government to “continue to stand strong” and “support Israel”.
CFI Parliamentary Officer, Bob Blackman CBE MP, stated that “the majority, 137 hostages, are still held by the terrorists in Gaza. Of those, two are children, ten are over seventy five, twenty are female and there’s eleven foreign nationals”. He asked what actions were being taken by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to make sure that “the hostages are freed and returned to their families”.
Former Attorney General Rt. Hon. Sir Michael Ellis KC MP raised The Times’ “chilling testimony” about sexual violence used by Hamas. He described the barbarism of the Hamas massacre on October 7th. “Gang rape, women found with bloodied underwear, bones from rape, beheading, women found with gunshots to their private parts”. Ellis said that “it doesn’t bare thinking about what Israeli women held in Hamas captivity have endured and may still be enduring now – those hostages”. “Hamas terrorists have spoken in custody quite openly of their orders to rape and defile women”, he added.
“The more details we learn of the barbaric attacks of the 7th October and the treatment of the victims – especially the women – the more horrific it becomes” said Steve Double MP. He spoke of the “sheer anguish of the families of the victims” and asked what “humanitarian support is being provided to the families of the victims of Hamas”.
“When they come to the ballot box, the Palestinians have not voted for Fatah, they’ve voted for others”, said Mark Pritchard MP. He noted the “high level diplomatic visits to the senior leadership of Fatah” and urged the Government to “look more widely at who might form the governments of Gaza in the future” so that the UK does not “repeat the mistakes of the past”. Pritchard warned against Fatah’s “return to office only to be thrown out years later and perhaps replaced with a new Hamas”.
Conservative Party Chair meets families of victims of October 7th Massacres
Conservative Party Chair Richard Holden MP visited with the families of victims of the October 7th massacre at the Federation of Jewish Services in Prestwich on Thursday.
“It was also an honour and very moving to be able to speak to some of the families of those who were killed and kidnapped by Hamas”, Holden said.
Bury South Conservative candidate, Rabbi Cllr Arnold Saunders, and Bury Conservative group leader, Russell Bernstein, accompanied the Party Chair as they met with residents living at the Federation, and the mum and toddler group, to outline Government plans to help Jewish communities across the country after an exponential rise in antisemitic hate crime since October 7th.
“I’m glad to see the extra government funding for community safety for the Jewish community after the recent surge in antisemitism”, Holden added.
The Federation centre offers care and support to the Jewish community of Greater Manchester.
Further information about Hamas atrocities against women and children emerge
The Times published testimonies recounting extreme Hamas atrocities on October 7th, including “eight or ten fighters beating and raping” a girl before she was shot and killed. “When they finished they were laughing”, the source added.
Dead bodies of girls were found with “bloodied” underwear, some with faces shot repeatedly “as if to mutilate them”, another revealed. According to the reports, Hamas terrorists “caught a young woman near a car and she was fighting back, not allowing them to strip her. They threw her to the ground and one of the terrorists took a shovel and beheaded her and her head rolled along the ground”.
Hamas terrorists filmed themselves committing atrocities, and the testimonies reveal only instances of the inhumane torture comitted on a October 7th. Others include families burned alive, babies slaughtered in front of their parents, and other horrors.
A pediatrician caring for freed hostages at the Schneider Children’s Medical Center, Dr. Yael Mozer-Glassberg, said that children exhibited malnutrition, skin rashes and lice bites on their bodies as a result of their treatment in Hamas captivity. Survivor and former Hamas hostage Yaffa Adar called the conditions that she went through “hell”.
Demonstrators protest U.N. ahead of special Israeli-led session
Protestors have marched outside the U.N. Headquarters ahead of a special session led by the Israeli mission, focusing on allegations of sexual violence committed against Israelis by Hamas.
U.N. Women, the official U.N. organisation dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, took eight weeks to utter any condemnation of Hamas’ atrocities, drawing widespread criticism.
“Shame on UN”, demonstrators chanted whilst holding signs saying “Rape is rape”. Smeared with synthetic blood, some of the outfits worn featured only underwear. Protestors formed a line to bring attention to the U.N.’s perceived double standards against Israeli and Jewish women.
Over 800 tunnel shafts located across Gaza
The IDF has said that over 800 terror tunnel shafts have been discovered across Gaza since the beginning of Israel’s ground offensive. 500 have either been sealed off or destroyed by the IDF – blocking Hamas’ accessibility to “strategic assets”.
Today, the IDF released a statement that its Negev Brigade had destroyed Hamas terrorist “infrastructure” within a school in Beit Hanoun, a town in northern Gaza. Two tunnel entrances; one booby-trapped and one harbouring weapons – were reportedly found within the school complex. Many of the entrances of tunnels destroyed were discovered “near or inside educational institutions, kindergartens, mosques, and playgrounds”, according to the IDF.
Overnight, military infrastructure such as Hamas command centres, munitions warehouses, Hamas-associated vessels and other outposts were destroyed by Israel.
Northern Gaza
The IDF have killed Hamas’ Shejaiya battalion leader, Wissam Farhat, in an air strike yesterday.
Farhat was responsible for the death of seven IDF troops, including a soldier whose remains are still held by Hamas, during Israel’s 2014 operation, the ‘APC disaster’. He also “planned and sent terrorists on October 7 to the Nahal Oz kibbutz and army post, in the cruel massacre that was carried out”, said IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari. Dozens were killed and taken hostage at the kibbutz.
“You have two options: Surrender and lay down your weapons, or face a fate similar to that faced by Wissam Farhat,” the IDF’s Arabic-language Spokesman, Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, warned the rest of the battalion.
Southern Gaza
The IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said that operations in the south of Gaza had “started” on Saturday morning.
“The Hamas commanders will meet the IDF everywhere”, stated Halevi, whilst adding that the IDF would continue to “deepen achievements” in the north.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari confirmed to a press conference later on Sunday that the IDF was expanding the ground offensive to “all areas of the Gaza Strip”.
Lt. Col. Adraee, has said that the north-south road, the Salah a-Din road, has become a “battle zone”. Israeli tanks were reported there between the Deir al Balah and Khan Younis areas, whilst the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups have reported fighting with IDF troops northeast of Khan Younis on Sunday.
Palestinians in several zones in Khan Younis should move to specified safe areas, he added.
Before large scale ground operations in the area, a different evacuation map was dropped across southern Gaza to replace the IDF’s previous evacuation orders. The new map was dropped en-mass by the IDF, as was done in the north of Gaza at the beginning of the offensive, to urge non-combatants to avoid conflict areas.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) confirmed that “prior to the bombings, Israeli forces dropped leaflets ordering the evacuation of these areas”.
Fighter jets reportedly struck over 50 targets in the Khan Younis area in an “extensive” operation on Saturday.
Rocket attacks
Rockets, fired by Hamas, continued to target southern towns and cities on Sunday and today – including the southern city of Sderot, where a rocket landed and caused damage. Most of the rockets were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defence system.
Several rockets were fired from Lebanon at Israel’s northern Mount Dov region, and a singular projectile targeted the Misgav Am area. The IDF reported that a drone heading toward Israeli air space had been shot down by Israeli fighter jets and that troops had shelled the sources of the fire”.
