Simon Hattenstone

“We’re here as mothers, not as politicians,” the three women say. They are not just any mothers – all three had children kidnapped from their kibbutz a month ago and taken hostage in Gaza. They look drained. Renana Jacob, Hadas Kalderon and B’atSheva Yahalomi are briefly in Britain, fighting for their children’s lives – and the lives of all children caught up in the Israel-Hamas war. They are meeting diplomats (they have just met Qatar’s ambassador to the UK, who is trying to negotiate their release) and telling their story to whomever will listen. It doesn’t get any easier with each retelling. If anything, it seems to get tougher.

The three women live on the Nir Oz kibbutz in the south of Israel. Jacob and Kalderon grew up there together. Like many kibbutzniks from earlier generations, they were idealists. They believed in collective living and shared values. Perhaps most importantly, they believed in the possibility of peace with their Palestinian neighbours in Gaza.

All three left the kibbutz as young adults and later returned to settle down. “We came back to raise our children there because we thought it was heaven on Earth,” Jacob says. “We were raised together and we wanted to raise our children together.” Sure enough, their children grew up to be friends and enjoy the communal life. They show me photographs and videos of the kids – at birthday parties, on holiday, dancing, joking and grinning. The most poignant photograph shows Jacob’s son Yagel smiling and making the peace sign with his fingers.

Their lives were ruptured on 7 October, the day of the Hamas massacre. “We’re three mothers from the same little village – a communal community that lived a peaceful life and believed in good neighbouring. Out of nowhere, we got this horror terror attack and our little village has gone. There is nothing left. And all we want is our children to be home. And this is why we’re here.”

The mothers’ mission is simple – they want their children brought home and Palestinian children to be provided with a safe place away from the carnage of Gaza. They say that no child should be a bargaining chip in a war.

Peter Beaumont

On the main street of the Palestinian West Bank town of Huwara, where Road 60 heads north towards Nablus, the shops are all shuttered. Petrol stations, bakeries, banks, the business selling cut stone from the local quarries, the sweetshops and mobile phone boutiques are closed at the order of the Israeli military. At the main crossing points between the west and east of the now divided town, wary Israeli soldiers with machine guns guard a closed yellow metal gate.

On the road itself, the only cars that are moving belong to residents of the nearby hardline Jewish settlements that dot the surrounding hills, whose ultra-orthodox nationalist residents have a reputation for promoting and carrying out violence against Palestinians.

The denial of Road 60 to Huwara’s Palestinian residents is being enforced despite the fact that a new bypass for the use of the settlers is now passable by car: but many choose to drive through the centre of Huwara, to emphasise their hold on the land.

The splitting of the flashpoint town, east from west, began on 7 October – the day the Islamist militant group Hamas massacred 1,400 people in the southern Israeli communities close to the Gaza border – and represents one of the most extreme responses by the Israel Defence Forces in the occupied West Bank. It has come, however, as far-right figures – including Israel’s hardline nationalist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich – have used the crisis to demand the imposition of new “security zones” to be set up around Jewish settlements to create new areas closed to Palestinians:

The US launched an airstrike on a facility in eastern Syria linked to Iranian-backed militias, in retaliation for what has been a growing number of attacks on bases housing US troops in the region for the past several weeks, the Pentagon said.

The strike by two US F-15 fighter jets was on a weapons storage facility linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

This is the second time in less than two weeks that the US has bombed facilities used by the militant groups, many operating under the umbrella of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which US officials say have carried out at least 40 such attacks since 17 October.

Late on Wednesday Syrian media reported separate strikes in southern Syria, which it said were carried out by Israel. Citing a military source, state-controlled Sana news agency reported:

At approximately 22:50 pm today, the Israeli enemy carried out an air attack from the direction of Baalbek in Lebanon, targeting some military points in the southern region, causing some material losses.

The Gaza Strip faces an increased risk of disease spreading due to Israeli air bombardments that have disrupted the health system, access to clean water and caused people to crowd in shelters, the World Health Organization warned on Wednesday.

“As deaths and injuries in Gaza continue to rise due to intensified hostilities, intense overcrowding and disrupted health, water, and sanitation systems pose an added danger: the rapid spread of infectious diseases,” WHO said.

“Some worrying trends are already emerging.”

It said that the lack of fuel in the densely populated enclave had caused desalination plants to shut down, which increased the risk of bacterial infections like diarrhoea spreading.

WHO said that more than 33,551 cases of diarrhoea had been reported since mid-October, the bulk of which among children under five.

It said the number of children affected marked a significant increase compared to an average of 2,000 cases monthly in that age group throughout 2021 and 2022.

The lack of fuel has also disrupted the collection of solid waste, which WHO said created an “environment conducive to the rapid and widespread proliferation of insects, rodents that can carry and transit diseases.”

It said that it was “almost impossible” for health facilities to maintain basic infection prevention measures, increasing the risk of infection caused by trauma, surgery and childbirth.

“Disrupted routine vaccination activities, as well as lack of medicines for treating communicable diseases, further increase the risk of accelerated disease spread,” it warned.

This is the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war with me, Helen Sullivan.

The top developments today: Palestinians in Gaza face an increased risk of disease spreading due to Israeli air bombardments that have disrupted the health system, access to clean water and caused people to crowd in shelters, the World Health Organization warned on Wednesday.

“As deaths and injuries in Gaza continue to rise due to intensified hostilities, intense overcrowding and disrupted health, water, and sanitation systems pose an added danger: the rapid spread of infectious diseases,” WHO said.

“Some worrying trends are already emerging.”

It said that the lack of fuel in the densely populated enclave had caused desalination plants to shut down, which increased the risk of bacterial infections like diarrhoea spreading.

The WHO said that more than 33,551 cases of diarrhoea had been reported since mid-October, the bulk of which among children under five.

It said the number of children affected marked a significant increase compared to an average of 2,000 cases monthly in that age group throughout 2021 and 2022.

And the US launched an airstrike on a facility in eastern Syria linked to Iranian-backed militias, in retaliation for what has been a growing number of attacks on bases housing US troops in the region for the past several weeks, the Pentagon said. The strike by two US F-15 fighter jets was on a weapons storage facility linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

Elsewhere:

• An Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson has said Hamas has “lost control” of northern Gaza as thousands of Palestinian civilians fled south. “We saw 50,000 Gazans move from the northern Gaza Strip to the south. They are moving because they understand that Hamas has lost control in the north,” Daniel Hagari said in a Wednesday evening briefing.

• Palestinians should govern Gaza once Israel ends its war against Hamas, the United States said on Wednesday, pushing back against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s idea that Israel would be responsible for security indefinitely. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday outlined in the most comprehensive comments on on Washington’s red lines and expectations for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. “No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza,” Blinken said at a press conference in Tokyo.

• Late on Wednesday Syrian media reported strikes in southern Syria, which it said were carried out by Israel. Citing a military source, state-controlled Sana news agency reported an air attack from the direction of Baalbek in Lebanon, targeting some military points in the southern region, causing some “material losses”.

• The Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip has said the number of people killed in Gaza by Israeli military actions since the start of the war on 7 October has risen to 10,569. It says 4,324 of these were children, and that a further 26,457 Palestinians have been injured.

• British foreign minister James Cleverly has left Japan to travel to Saudi Arabia after the G7 Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Tokyo, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said in a statement on Thursday. Cleverly will meet with foreign ministers from the Middle East, who are gathering in Saudi Arabia ahead of a League of Arab States emergency meeting about Gaza on Saturday.

• Under white flags and carrying a few possessions, thousands of Palestinian civilians attempted to make the perilous journey to the south of Gaza under the watch of Israeli tanks as the sounds of war rang out in the near distance. On Wednesday the scale of the movement prompted the IDF to extend the period of the “safe corridor” by an extra hour “in reaction to [Palestinians] sizeable response” to Israel’s call for them to use the corridor to flee.

• Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has again rejected the prospect of a ceasefire in Gaza, amid reports of negotiations for a temporary truce with Hamas in exchange for 10-15 hostages. A source close to Hamas told AFP that talks were ongoing for the release of a dozen hostages, including six Americans, in return for a three-day ceasefire in Gaza. Netanyahu on Wednesday said he wanted to “put to the side all sorts of idle rumours that we are hearing from all sorts of directions, and repeat one clear thing: there will be no ceasefire without the release of our hostages.”

• Israeli airstrikes in Gaza have killed dozens of Hamas commanders as troops advance deeper into the battered territory, with some fighting in “the heart of Gaza City”, IDF officials and analysts have said. However, there were doubts over the importance of the dead commanders within Hamas, and analysts said there was no obvious sign that the organisation had yet been significantly weakened.

• Israel has claimed to have destroyed 130 Hamas tunnels in the Gaza Strip since it began its ground operations. IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Wednesday: “As part of the ground forces’ activity in the Gaza Strip, an effort is under way to uncover and destroy the tunnels of the terrorist organization Hamas, and since the beginning of the fighting, 130 tunnels have been destroyed.”

• The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that a WHO-UNRWA medical supply convoy reached al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Wednesday. UNRWA said it was only the second delivery of lifesaving supplies to the hospital since the total siege of Gaza began. Meanwhile, the Palestine Red Crescent Society has said all roads heading to al-Quds hospital were closed on Wednesday and that “medical teams are unable to leave the hospital to reach the injured persons”.

• The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, has said both Israel and Hamas have committed war crimes. Speaking during a visit to the Rafah crossing and El Arish hospital in Egypt on Wednesday, Türk described the border crossing into Gaza as an “unjustly, outrageously thin” lifeline and as “the gates to a living nightmare” where Palestinian civilians are “suffocating”.

• The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said there is something “clearly wrong” with Israel’s military operations because of the number of civilians killed in the Gaza Strip. Guterres, speaking on Wednesday, said it is “absolutely essential” to have a flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza to meet the “dramatic” needs of the population in the Palestinian territory.

• The UN’s humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, has described the situation in the occupied West Bank as “increasingly dire”. Griffiths, posting to social media, said 158 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since 7 October – including 45 children. “Enough is enough,” he wrote on Wednesday.

• The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt was closed on Wednesday and no wounded Palestinians or dual nationals were able to be evacuated from Gaza, according to a Palestinian official. A Hamas official told AFP that the crossing point remained closed due to Israel’s refusal to approve the list of wounded who were to be evacuated. A US state department spokesperson said the crossing was closed due to an unspecified “security circumstance”.

• The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken also said that Israel must not reoccupy Gaza, but added, however, that Israel might control the territory for a transition period. His comments echoed White House remarks on Tuesday suggesting opposition to a long-term occupation of Gaza.

• Foreign ministers from the G7 have called for a “humanitarian pause” to allow essential supplies to be delivered to desperate civilians in Gaza. In a joint statement on Wednesday, the G7 urged Israel to comply with humanitarian law, but did not say whether Israel was currently doing so.

• Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has called for a significant humanitarian pause in Gaza to allow for the release of all hostages and the delivery of aid to the Palestinian territory. Canada had previously called for a series of halts in the fighting but had steered clear of advocating a longer pause.