Live updates: Follow the latest news on Israel-Gaza
Several thousand Israeli troops will withdraw from Gaza in the coming weeks for “rest and training”, the army confirmed on Monday, in the first drawdown since the war began almost four months ago.
Five brigades on the ground in Gaza will be returned to Israel, the army said in a statement following the initial announcement at the weekend. The decision was cited as “smart management” of the war by officials.
“The objectives of the war require prolonged fighting and we are preparing accordingly,” military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters on Sunday.
The Israeli military “must plan ahead, understanding that we will be required for additional tasks and warfare throughout this year”, he added.
It comes as top officials including Israeli President Isaac Herzog warned the war is likely to continue for several more months.
Almost 22,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began on October 7, when militant group Hamas killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel and took 240 people hostage.
The staggering death toll is the highest loss of Palestinian lives since the Nakba in 1948, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said at the weekend.
Israeli reservists from at least two brigades are expected to leave this week, according to reports.
Residents in northern Gaza have reported tanks withdrawing from the Sheikh Radwan, Al Mina and Tel Hawa districts of Gaza city, according to Reuters.
"This appears to be the start of the gradual shift to lower intensity operations in the north that we have been encouraging," a US official told Reuters.
The official said the withdrawal reflected the Israeli military's success in dismantling Hamas military capabilities in the north of the coastal strip but cautioned that "there is still fighting in the north and this does not reflect any changes in the south".
The army has said the pullback will allow troops to return to civilian life and free up brigades in the event of escalation on the northern border, where conflict with Lebanon's Hezbollah group has resulted in daily clashes.
Troops returning to their families and jobs in Israel “will significantly ease the burden on the economy and allow them to gather strength for the upcoming activities in the next year, as the fighting will continue and they will still be required”, Admiral Hagari said.
Israel has rebuffed widespread calls for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, vowing to completely eradicate Hamas.
Its strategy has been criticised by relatives of hostages still held in the enclave, as well as the UN and human rights groups, who have warned of famine and widespread disease among Gaza's displaced.
More than 170 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ground operation began on October 28.
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Dust and sand storms compared
Sand storm
- Particle size: Larger, heavier sand grains
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- Duration: Short-lived, typically localised
- Travel distance: Limited
- Source: Open desert areas with strong winds
Dust storm
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
