“700 killed in 24 hours” as UN accuses Israel of breaking international law

The head of the United Nations has accused Israel of “clear breaches of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza”.

More than 5,700 people are reported to have been killed by the Israeli attacks in Gaza, among them around 2,300 children, according to the Palestinian authorities.

Israel has stepped up its airstrikes in Gaza and the authorities there say that 700 people have been killed in the past 24 hours. Around 1.4 million people have been displaced from their homes.

The assault on Gaza follows the attacks on Israeli communities by Hamas gunmen who murdered 1,400 people, most of them civilians, and seized more than 200 hostages.

Israel condemned the comments by Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, at a meeting of the Security Council. Israel’s ambassador to the UN called on Mr Guterres to resign.

Israel also rejected calls from many countries at the UN for a ceasefire and insisted it would fight on until it had destroyed Hamas.

Reeta Chakrabarti presents BBC News at Ten reporting by Fergal Keane, Rushdi Abualouf and Jeremy Bowen.