Israel-Hamas War Live Updates: Hamas Frees Two Israeli Women, US Cautions On Gaza Invasion

The Israeli army said Wednesday that it had struck military infrastructure inside Syria in response to earlier launches towards Israel.

"IDF fighter jets struck military infrastructure and mortar launchers belonging to the Syrian Army in response to the launches toward Israel yesterday (Tuesday)," the IDF said in a statement. An IDF spokesperson told AFP the strikes were inside Syria. 

Briefing reporters at the country's southern border, IDF Chief-of-Staff, Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi said, "I want to be clear, we are ready to invade."

He added that the IDF was in the process of deciding on the 'exact timing' of the ground invasion of Gaza in coordination with the country's political echelons.

The United Nations said 20 trucks that had been due to deliver aid to the besieged Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing from Egypt on Tuesday had not entered the enclave.

"We hope the materials can enter Gaza tomorrow," U.N. aid spokesperson Eri Kaneko said.

Senior UN aid official Lynn Hastings earlier told the U.N. Security Council that 20 trucks were due to cross on Tuesday. Since Saturday, 54 trucks have crossed into Gaza carrying food, medicine and water, which U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described as "a drop of aid in an ocean of need."

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati reaffirmed on Tuesday Beirut's commitment to a UN resolution that ended a 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, amid border tensions as Israel fights Palestinian militants in Gaza.

Hamas fighters stormed into Israel from the blockaded Gaza Strip on October 7, killing at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities, and taking more than 200 others hostage.

Israel's retaliatory bombing campaign has killed more than 5,700 in Gaza, mainly Palestinian civilians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

After 16 days of mobilising and massing near the Gaza Strip, an eerie calm lingers among Israeli troops as they await the highly anticipated invasion of the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

The parched desert floor is now filled with hundreds of armoured vehicles along with columns of tanks primed for the expected onslaught.

The mechanised steel is adorned with the blue and white Israeli flags, while soldiers labour away with the everyday maintenance of their vehicles.

This entire first line is protected by an immense trench, about two kilometres (more than a mile) long, that was dug by engineering units outfitted with heavy machinery.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas told France's Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday that the international community must halt Israel's "aggression" as it battles Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

"We urge you, President Macron, to stop this aggression," Abbas said after the two leaders held talks in Ramallah dominated by the war that has left thousands of civilians dead in Gaza and Israel.

The Palestinian leader strongly condemned Israeli air strikes which he said "kill innocent civilians in a barbaric way".

When night falls, Sarina Blumenfeld gets flashbacks from what she endured during the Holocaust and struggles to process the carnage that took place when Hamas Islamists entered Israel from Gaza and killed 1,400 people.

Blumenfeld, 89, is one of tens of thousands of elderly survivors of the Nazi Holocaust who live in Israel and are once again facing up to the reality of war, with more than 220 Israelis taken hostage in Gaza.

"This all reminds me of what we went through during the Holocaust and how much we suffered," Blumenfeld told Reuters from her home in the coastal city of Ashdod, which is 40 km (25 miles) from Gaza and frequently a target of Hamas rocket fire.