It’s approaching 7am in Tel Aviv and Gaza now and we’re pausing the blog here. We’ll be back soon to bring you all the latest news.
In the meantime, you can read all our coverage of the Israel-Hamas war here and our full report on Joe Biden’s defence of his refusal to call for a ceasefire here.
In the meantime, here are the latest key developments:
The United Nations security council adopted a resolution calling for humanitarian pauses in the fighting in Gaza and the establishment of aid corridors to speed relief supplies to those in need. Russia, the UK and US abstained from the vote, which passed 12-0, the first global agreement since the conflict began last month. Israel dismissed the resolution as “detached from reality”, while the the permanent observer of Palestine to the UN said the body should hold Israel accountable if it ignores it.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew from the al-Shifa hospital complex in Gaza city almost 24 hours after an overnight raid it called a “precise and targeted operation” against Hamas. The IDF said it discovered military equipment including grenades, automatic weapons, ammunition and communications technology, confirming what it said was a Hamas command operations center beneath the hospital.
Hamas denied the claim, which it said in a statement was “nothing but a continuation of the lies and cheap propaganda, through which [Israel] is trying to give justification for its crime aimed at destroying the health sector in Gaza”.
Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of the al-Shifa hospital, said that water, electricity and medical oxygen supplies were completely cut off within the facility, and that he was unable to communicate with doctors. “We cannot reach the pharmacy to treat patients as the occupation shoots everyone who moves. The smell of death wafts everywhere,” he told Al Jazeera.
Seven staff members at the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza were injured in what Jordan alleged was an Israeli airstrike on the emergency department. “Our field hospital staff rushed to the emergency section as they saw a number of Palestinians carrying wounded persons, and as our staff got to the emergency room, they got hit again,” foreign minister Ayman Safadi said, adding that “many other” Palestinians were killed or injured.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza did not update the death toll for the fifth consecutive day on Wednesday, due to the collapse in communications and in hospital services in the territory, the UN humanitarian relief agency OCHA noted. As of 10 November the death toll was 11,078, of whom 4,506 were said to be children and 3,027 women. Another 27,490 Palestinians have reportedly been injured.
Eight senior politicians from the Britain’s opposition Labour Party resigned or were fired for defying leader Keir Starmer’s demand they not support a resolution in the UK parliament calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Overall, 56 Labour MPs voted for an amendment to the king’s speech brought by the Scottish National party, a major blow to the party leader’s attempts to keep unity over the war.
The US navy warship Thomas Hudner shot down a drone that emanated from Yemen in the Red Sea early on Wednesday. It was only the second time the US had brought down projectiles near its warships since the Israel-Hamas conflict began last month.
Israel’s former deputy prime minister Gideon Sa’ar told the UK publication Jewish News that his country will agree to a temporary ceasefire in Gaza to facilitate the release of hostages held by Hamas. “It will be achieved. We will see a temporary ceasefire,” he said. His words contradict those of Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has frequently and vociferously ruled out a ceasefire.
Gaza’s two main telecommunications companies warned of a “complete telecom blackout in the coming hours” in the Gaza Strip. “Main data centres and switches are gradually shutting down due to fuel depletion,” the companies said in a joint statement.
The UN children’s agency says its top official visited children and their families in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the south of the territory. “What I saw and heard was devastating. They have endured repeated bombardment, loss and displacement,” Unicef’s executive director, Catherine Russell, said in a statement. “Inside the strip, there is nowhere safe for Gaza’s one million children to turn.”
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNWRA, has said: “Our entire operation is now on the verge of collapse,” and that “by the end of today, around 70% of the population in Gaza won’t have access to clean water”.
Thomas White, the director of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), has said that water pumps and sewage treatment in the south of the Gaza Strip have stopped due to lack of fuel.
Egypt’s state-run al-Qahera television station reported on Wednesday that the first fuel truck to enter the Gaza Strip since the war started on 7 October had crossed the Egyptian gate of the Rafah crossing. It is reported to be carrying 24,000 litres. “This is not enough for anything – not for hospitals, not even for aid deliveries,” an international source familiar with the operation told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Qatari mediators were on Wednesday seeking to negotiate a deal between Hamas and Israel that includes the release of about 50 civilian hostages from Gaza in exchange for a three-day ceasefire, an official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters. The deal would also involve Israel releasing some Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails and increase the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza. Hamas has to date released four of the estimated 240 hostages seized from inside Israel’s borders on 7 October.
The family and friends of some of the 240 hostages believed to have been seized by Hamas on 7 October from inside Israel have begun the second day of their protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The trip is expected to last five days and will finish at Netanyahu’s office. The families have been critical of Netanyahu’s government for not doing enough to secure the release of the hostages.
Pressure is growing on the Labor government in Australia to take a stronger line on the defence of Palestinian civilians, as backbenchers broke with the cabinet to call for a ceasefire.
The Australian government has called for “humanitarian pauses” and urged Israel to follow the rules of war and prevent civilian deaths, but has stopped short of demanding a ceasefire.
On Thursday Labor MP Maria Vamvakinou spoke out against the “humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in Gaza” and also took aim at Israel as she said that thousands of Palestinian civilians including children were “being killed by a highly sophisticated army”.
“We have to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza,” she said as she stood with the Greens to receive petitions from more than 120,000 Australians who are demanding an end to the fighting.
Here are some of the latest images coming to us from Gaza, where Israel is continuing its airstrikes, including on the south where people were told to flee by Israel.
Hundreds of demonstrators in Los Angeles shut down a stretch of Hollywood Boulevard on Wednesday afternoon in a protest demanding Joe Biden and US lawmakers call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
In the heart of Hollywood, along the palm tree-lined streets near Ripley’s Believe It or Not! and the Walk of Fame, protesters waved Palestinian flags and held signs – “not in our name” and “let Gaza live”.
More than 1,000 people gathered in the rain, including a group that staged a sit-in at the intersection with flowers in hand and shirts reading “Jews say ceasefire now” as tourists watched.
“We demand an end to the killing and the return of the hostages,” one speaker said. “Ceasefire now.”
The demonstration, organized by the groups Jewish Voices for Peace Los Angeles and IfNotNow LA, followed large gatherings around the US in Washington DC, New York and Seattle earlier in the month.
Protesters have advocated for a ceasefire in the conflict as well as an end to US military aid to Israel amid the growing death toll in the war.
Police in riot gear have used pepper spray and made arrests to try to disperse demonstrators who had gathered outside the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in Washington on Wednesday evening to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.
Reuters reports that the demonstration was organised by three advocacy groups and took place in an area near the US Capitol building.
US Capitol Police said its officers were “working to keep back approximately 150 people who are illegally and violently protesting”.
“Officers are making arrests,” it said on X. It advised people to stay away from the area.
Police used pepper spray against the demonstrators and fired projectiles containing chemical irritants, a Reuters journalist said.
Video of the demonstration posted on social media showed officers pushing protesters who had huddled together, chanting: “Let us live”. They wore black shirts reading “ceasefire now”.
A car has crashed into a barricade near the Israeli embassy in Tokyo and a man in his 50s has been arrested at the scene, Reuters reports, citing Fuji TV.
One police officer was injured, the broadcaster said.
Mark Regev, a senior advisor to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been on various television stations in the US and UK defending Israel’s much-criticised military operation inside al-Shifa hospital.
Israel has said it found “technological equipment” – which seemed to be a laptop – as well as automatic weapons, grenades and some flak jackets at the hospital. Asked by Sky whether this was enough to prove that Hamas had its base underneath al-Shifa, Regev said that he could prove it and that:
As our forces move forward… as we succeed I have no doubt that we’ll be inviting in journalists with cameras to look at what we have in this hospital.
Hamas has said the pictures of weapons at the hospital are “cheap propaganda” and denied that its headquarters were beneath it.
Regev pointed out that the US Pentagon had also backed Israel’s claims about al-Shifa being used by Hamas, adding: “the people of Gaza know this … they can’t say so obviously because they live in an authoritarian regime … it’s the worst kept secret in Gaza”.
He also accused Hamas of a “grave crime” by using the hospital as a shield for its “war machine”.
Asked when Israel would begin providing “proper” humanitarian aid for civilians in the north, he said, “The overwhelming majority of civilians have left” adding that they had “voted with their feet” and “left the combat zone”.
By putting its military under a hospital, Hamas turned a humanitarian site into a war zone.
— Mark Regev (@MarkRegev) November 15, 2023
Everyone of conscience should condemn this.
Watch me on @SkyNews with @markaustintv pic.twitter.com/aHEFjXLxHv
Joe Biden defends refusal to call for ceasefire
Joe Biden has presented an unapologetic defence of his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, arguing that Hamas presented a continuing threat to Israel and that Israeli forces were seeking to avoid civilian casualties. After a summit meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, Biden told reporters:
Hamas has already said publicly that they plan on attacking Israel again like they did before, cutting babies’ heads off, burning women and children alive. So the idea that they’re going to just stop and not do anything is not realistic.
Reports that Hamas beheaded babies in the 7 October attack on Israeli civilians remain unconfirmed, though the brutality of the massacre in which some 1,200 were killed is not in doubt.
Biden also argued that Israeli forces had switched from aerial bombardment, which he seemed to acknowledge had been “indiscriminate” in parts, to more targeted ground operations, after more than 11,000 Gazans are reported to have died. He said:
It is not carpet bombing. This is a different thing. They’re going through these tunnels, they’re going into the hospital. They’re also bringing in incubators or bringing in other means to help people in the hospital, and they’ve given, I’m told, the doctors and nurses and personnel the opportunity to get out of harm’s way. So this is a different story than I believe it was occurring before, the indiscriminate bombing.
He continued: “The IDF, Israeli Defence Forces, acknowledge they have an obligation to use as much caution as they can, in going after their targets. It’s not like they’re rushing to the hospital knocking on doors, you know, pulling people aside and shooting people indiscriminately.”
Biden also suggested that a possible hostage deal was imminent, saying the Israelis had agreed to a “pause” as part of the deal, but then stopped short, appearing to acknowledge the uneasiness of secretary of state Antony Blinken, finally adding: “I’m mildly hopeful.”
The forcefulness of Biden’s defence of the Israeli military, is notably out of step with recent remarks by senior US officials, who have shifted their emphasis to appeals to the IDF to observe humanitarian law and avoid civilian casualties. It seemed to confirm reports that the president is more unreservedly pro-Israel than many in his administration.
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Biden says he told Netanyahu a two-state solution is the only answer to conflict
US President Joe Biden has just spoken in the US, and said he had made it clear to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that a two-state solution was the only answer to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict and that occupying Gaza would be a mistake.
After meeting his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, Biden told reporters he was doing everything in his power to free hostages held by the Hamas militant group in Gaza, but that did not mean sending in the US military.
He also reiterated that the US believed like Israel that Hamas had its headquarters under the al-Shifa hospital, where the Israeli military carried out a controversial raid on Wednesday, and said that Hamas had committed war crimes.
Updated
Israel launched strikes on several Hezbollah-linked sites in Lebanon in response to an anti-tank missile that was fired towards northern Israel on Wednesday, the Israeli military (IDF) has said.
In a Telegram post early Thursday, the IDF said it had struck several Hezbollah “launch posts” including the one from which the anti-tank missile was fired as well as observation posts and other “terror infrastructure sites”.
A bit more from the OCHA statement, in which the UN agency says that the Ministry of Health in Gaza did not update the death toll for the fifth consecutive day on Wednesday, due to the collapse in communications and in hospital services in the territory.
As of 10 November the death toll was 11,078, of whom 4,506 were said to be children and 3,027 women. Another 27,490 Palestinians have reportedly been injured.
The statement also noted that Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza have reported dead bodies lying in the streets and that as of 10 November, about 2,700 people including 1,500 children remain missing and are presumed to be dead or trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society has reported that it has been unable to respond to hundreds of calls to assist and evacuate people wounded or trapped under the rubble.
Updated
Gaza’s last remaining flour mill, the As Salam Mill in Deir Al Balah, was reportedly hit and destroyed on Wednesday, the UN’s humanitarian affairs office (OHCA) has said in its latest update on the conflict. It said:
This was the last functioning mill in Gaza, and its destruction means that locally produced flour will not be available in Gaza in the foreseeable future.
It noted that Gaza’s telecoms companies had also announced the “gradual cessation of all communication and internet services in the Strip” on Wednesday, as they exhausted fuel supplies to power generators. It warned:
Humanitarian agencies and first responders have warned that blackouts jeopardize the provision of life-saving assistance.
Seven staff members at Jordanian hospital in Gaza injured in Israeli strike, Jordan says
Seven staff members at the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza have been injured in what Jordan alleges was an Israeli airstrike on the emergency department.
In an interview with CNN, foreign minister Ayman Safadi said:
Our field hospital staff rushed to the emergency section as they saw a number of Palestinians carrying wounded persons, and as our staff got to the emergency room, they got hit again and about seven of our medical staff there were wounded. Many other Palestinians were unfortunately killed and injured.
Safadi said it was “incomprehensible that people trying to offer the medical help to wounded people get hit as well” and said Jordan would demand an investigation into the incident.
DPM & FM @AymanHsafadi in an interview with Isa Soares @IsaCNN on @cnni:
— وزارة الخارجية وشؤون المغتربين الأردنية (@ForeignMinistry) November 15, 2023
- The attack on Jordanian Field Hospital obviously was part of the overall war that we see continue to unfold in Gaza, and again it is just incomprehensible that people trying to offer medical help to… pic.twitter.com/lrzsZlxozt
Hamas-run health ministry says Israel destroyed parts of hospital entrance with bulldozers
The Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip has said that the Israeli army deployed bulldozers at the al-Shifa hospital, where Israel launched a controversial operation on Wednesday which it said targeted Hamas.
“Israeli bulldozers destroyed parts of the southern entrance” to the hospital, the ministry said in a brief statement in Arabic early on Thursday, according to Agence France-Presse.
The Israeli army told AFP that an operation was currently underway at the hospital complex.
“Tonight we conducted a targeted operation into Shifa hospital. We continue to move forward,” Major General Yaron Finkelman, head of Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip, said on the army’s Telegram channel.
More than two dozen Palestinian cancer patients, who had crossed from Gaza into Egypt, have arrived in Turkey for treatment, Turkey’s Anadolu agency is reporting.
Two planes carrying the patients, many of them children, landed at Ankara airport shortly after 00:30 am local time on Thursday (2130 GMT Friday).
Turkey has sent a ship loaded with material for field hospitals, ambulances and generators to Egypt to treat civilians who have been able to flee Israel‘s military operation against Hamas militants in the enclave.
Agence France-Presse reports further:
Turkish health minister Fahrettin Koca said 27 patients had been flown to Turkey from Egypt, along with 13 companions, without specifying whether these were doctors or family members.
He added that the cancer patients had been able to cross from Gaza into Egypt via the Rafah border crossing.
Koca had been in Egypt for discussions on the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and said the patients were able to be transferred to Turkey thanks to “coordination between Turkey, Egypt and Israel“.
He also said that Turkey was waiting for Egypt’s permission to open its first field hospital at the Rafah crossing.
“I hope that in the near future – our efforts are going in this direction – we will be able to establish a field hospital in Gaza, in the area near the Rafah gate,” he said.
Turkey, a mostly Muslim but officially secular nation, has long championed the Palestinian cause and, more recently, has stepped up its verbal attacks against Israel for the soaring civilian toll of its military operation.
Speaking before members of his Islamic-rooted ruling party, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called Israel “a terror state” that was committing “genocide”.
Canadian PM Justin Trudeau escorted from restaurant amid protest
Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was escorted from a restaurant in Vancouver on Tuesday night after about 250 protesters surrounded it, police have said.
In a statement, police said almost 100 officers were deployed to disperse the protest in Chinatown and a 27-year-old man was arrested for assaulting an officer, who was punched in the face and had her eyes gouged. A 34-year-old was also arrested for obstructing police.
CBC reported that videos of the incident showed protesters shouting “ceasefire now” and waving Palestinian flags.
Trudeau angered Israel earlier on Tuesday by saying the “killing of women, of children, of babies” in Gaza must end.
Updated
Israeli opposition leader calls on Benjamin Netanyahu to resign
Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has called on prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign, local media is reporting, saying “we can’t run an extended [military] operation with a prime minister we do not have faith in”.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, Lapid did not call for an election but said the ruling Likud party should replace Netanyahu with someone from within its ranks.
Netanyahu has long been a divisive figure in Israeli politics and has been roundly criticised for allowing the 7 October attack by Hamas to happen.
In a statement, the Likud party hit back at Lapid’s comments, saying:
It is regrettable and shameful that Lapid is engaging in politics during a time of war, proposing to oust the prime minister that leads the campaign and replace him with a government that would establish a Palestinian state and would allow the Palestinian Authority to control Gaza.
A statement by Lapid’s Yesh Atid party countered by saying that the Likud has “probably missed the point,” Haaretz newspaper reported, as “Lapid proposed a government led by the Likud, with a Likud prime minister who is not Netanyahu. That is how we will begin the national healing.”
This is Helen Livingstone taking over from my colleague Richard Luscombe.
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Summary of the day
It’s 1am on Thursday in Tel Aviv and Gaza City. Here’s what we followed on Wednesday, the 40th day of the conflict between Israel and Hamas:
The United Nations security council adopted a resolution calling for humanitarian pauses in the fighting in Gaza and the establishment of aid corridors to speed relief supplies to those in need. Russia, the UK and US abstained from the vote, which passed 12-0, the first global agreement since the conflict began last month. Israel dismissed the resolution as “detached from reality”, while the the permanent observer of Palestine to the UN said the body should hold Israel accountable if it ignores it.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew from the al-Shifa hospital complex in Gaza city almost 24 hours after an overnight raid it called a “precise and targeted operation” against Hamas. The IDF said it discovered military equipment including grenades, automatic weapons, ammunition and communications technology, confirming what it said was a Hamas command operations center beneath the hospital.
Hamas denied the claim, which it said in a statement was “nothing but a continuation of the lies and cheap propaganda, through which [Israel] is trying to give justification for its crime aimed at destroying the health sector in Gaza”.
Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of the al-Shifa hospital, said that water, electricity and medical oxygen supplies were completely cut off within the facility, and that he was unable to communicate with doctors. “We cannot reach the pharmacy to treat patients as the occupation shoots everyone who moves. The smell of death wafts everywhere,” he told Al Jazeera.
Eight senior politicians from the Britain’s opposition Labour Party resigned or were fired for defying leader Keir Starmer’s demand they not support a resolution in the UK parliament calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Overall, 56 Labour MPs voted for an amendment to the king’s speech brought by the Scottish National party, a major blow to the party leader’s attempts to keep unity over the war.
The US navy warship Thomas Hudner shot down a drone that emanated from Yemen in the Red Sea early on Wednesday. It was only the second time the US had brought down projectiles near its warships since the Israel-Hamas conflict began last month.
Israel’s former deputy prime minister Gideon Sa’ar told the UK publication Jewish News that his country will agree to a temporary ceasefire in Gaza to facilitate the release of hostages held by Hamas. “It will be achieved. We will see a temporary ceasefire,” he said. His words contradict those of Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has frequently and vociferously ruled out a ceasefire.
Gaza’s two main telecommunications companies warned of a “complete telecom blackout in the coming hours” in the Gaza Strip. “Main data centres and switches are gradually shutting down due to fuel depletion,” the companies said in a joint statement.
The UN children’s agency says its top official visited children and their families in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the south of the territory. “What I saw and heard was devastating. They have endured repeated bombardment, loss and displacement,” Unicef’s executive director, Catherine Russell, said in a statement. “Inside the strip, there is nowhere safe for Gaza’s one million children to turn.”
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNWRA, has said: “Our entire operation is now on the verge of collapse,” and that “by the end of today, around 70% of the population in Gaza won’t have access to clean water”.
Thomas White, the director of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), has said that water pumps and sewage treatment in the south of the Gaza Strip have stopped due to lack of fuel.
Egypt’s state-run al-Qahera television station reported on Wednesday that the first fuel truck to enter the Gaza Strip since the war started on 7 October had crossed the Egyptian gate of the Rafah crossing. It is reported to be carrying 24,000 litres. “This is not enough for anything – not for hospitals, not even for aid deliveries,” an international source familiar with the operation told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Qatari mediators were on Wednesday seeking to negotiate a deal between Hamas and Israel that includes the release of about 50 civilian hostages from Gaza in exchange for a three-day ceasefire, an official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters. The deal would also involve Israel releasing some Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails and increase the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza. Hamas has to date released four of the estimated 240 hostages seized from inside Israel’s borders on 7 October.
The family and friends of some of the 240 hostages believed to have been seized by Hamas on 7 October from inside Israel have begun the second day of their protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The trip is expected to last five days and will finish at Netanyahu’s office. The families have been critical of Netanyahu’s government for not doing enough to secure the release of the hostages.
Here are some more images sent to us over the news wires on Wednesday:
Updated
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, has added the word “meaningless” to his earlier dismissal of the security council resolution calling for humanitarian pauses in the Gaza conflict.
In a post to X, formerly Twitter, he expands on his reasoning , and says Hamas won’t bother to “even read the resolution at all, let alone abide by it”.
The @UN Security Council’s resolution is disconnected from reality and is meaningless. Regardless of what the Council decides, Israel will continue acting according to int’l law while the Hamas terrorists will not even read the resolution at all, let alone abide by it. It is…
— Ambassador Gilad Erdan גלעד ארדן (@giladerdan1) November 15, 2023
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Israeli forces withdraw from al-Shifa hospital
Israeli forces have now withdrawn from the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, according to a report from AFP that describes some of the scenes on the ground:
Israeli soldiers withdrew from Gaza’s main hospital Wednesday after raiding and combing through the facility. Both Israel and its top ally the US said the Palestinian militants have a command center below the complex, a charge denied by Hamas and directors at the hospital.
A journalist in contact with AFP, trapped inside al-Shifa, reported that Israeli soldiers, some wearing face masks, shot in the air and ordered young men to surrender when they burst into the hospital overnight.
About 1,000 male Palestinians, hands above their heads, were in the courtyard, some of them stripped naked by Israeli soldiers checking them for weapons or explosives, the journalist said.
By early evening Israeli troops had withdrawn from the facility, the journalist said, redeploying around the hospital.
Israel said it found ‘military and combat equipment’ inside the compound. The Hamas-run health ministry denied this. ‘We don’t allow’ weapons in any hospital, ministry director Munir al-Bursh said in a statement.
Updated
Riyad Mansour, permanent observer of Palestine to the United Nations, wants Israel held accountable by the United Nations if it does not heed the terms of the security council resolution passed Wednesday calling for humanitarian pauses in the fighting in Gaza:
The foreign ministry of the state of Israel rejected this resolution adopted a few minutes ago and said they will not implement it, and they will continue with their course of action as they wish. What are you going to do? You just adopted a resolution. They told you: ‘We are not going to implement it.’
You have been calling on Israel for 40 days to uphold the laws of war. And it has chosen to continue breaching them openly. Are you going to hold it accountable for rejecting the UN resolution you’ve adopted this afternoon?
Nothing justifies war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Nothing. And there is no honor in defending Israel when it is committing such crimes.
The United Nations security council meeting is now adjourned.
Updated
Israel: UN resolution 'detached from the reality on the ground'
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, has told the United Nations that the just-adopted resolution calling for humanitarian pauses in the fighting in Gaza, and the creation of more humanitarian aid corridors, is “detached from the reality on the ground”.
In an address to the security council effectively announcing Israel would not abide by the resolution, but was already “doing everything possible to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza”, Erdan said:
This council has just adopted a resolution that is regretfully detached from the reality on the ground.
This council … still has not succeeded in condemning Hamas’s October 7 massacre. The resolution focuses solely on the humanitarian situation in Gaza [and] makes no mention of what led up to this moment.
Israel does not need a resolution to remind us to adhere to international law. Israel always adheres to international law. Bringing our hostages home is Israel’s top priority. Israel will continue to do whatever it takes to accomplish this goal.
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Meanwhile, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, is explaining to the security council why his country joined the US and UK in abstaining from supporting the humanitarian pause resolution:
The main [reason] is a lack of a call for an immediate ceasefire. This was, and remains, the top imperative. Any humanitarian actions require an immediate end to fighting.
It is impossible to clear up collapsed buildings or evacuate people under shelling and it’s impossible to bring in much needed to fuel without which electrical energy will soon run out in Gaza hospitals.
Furthermore, without supplies of fuel and in the next few hours … the inhabitants of the enclave will be without any communication without intranet and completely isolated from the outside world.
Nebenza said the resolution was too weak:
Humanitarian pauses are not and cannot be a replacement for a ceasefire, or even a truce. As the old saying goes, the mountain has labored and brought forth a mouse.
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The International Rescue Committee is among the first aid organizations to respond to the passing of the UN resolution calling for humanitarian pauses and aid corridors in Gaza. In a statement, the group said:
This is long overdue. This resolution also highlights the responsibilities of all parties under international humanitarian law. This is welcome.
The resolution should be an important first step. It is now incumbent upon all parties to the conflict, and all UN member states to do everything in their power to help turn these words into action.
The suffering in Gaza is a massive humanitarian emergency which the world must address. The entire civilian population requires urgent, life-saving support and the response capacity has been decimated.
UN security council resolution at a glance
Here’s a reminder of what’s in the resolution about the Israel-Gaza conflict that the UN security council has just passed:
It calls for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable … the full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access”.
It demands compliance with international law, specifically the protection of civilians, especially children, and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups.
It does not condemn the actions of Hamas, a point of contention for the US and UK, key allies of Israel. But because those two countries voted to abstain, rather than veto the proposal, the resolution became the first to pass of the five presented to the UN since the conflict began last month.
#Breaking 🚨 New Malta-proposed Resolution on #IsraelHamasWar up for vote at 3pm even though #Russia "broke silence" saying the measure is "unbalanced" but P5 diplomat are predicting passage since US, UK likely to abstain, France to vote for the measure - if @ChinaAmbUN schedules… pic.twitter.com/pfvN19MLBa
— Pamela Falk CBS News Correspondent United Nations (@PamelaFalk) November 15, 2023
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Barbara Woodward, the UK ambassador to the UN, also abstained from the security council vote. But she said the resolution was “absolutely necessary”, and that it was “vital and overdue for the council to speak on this crisis”.
“The UK regrets that the first resolution passed by this council on this matter could not clearly condemn the mass terrorist attacks of the 7th of October … [but] I commend Malta’s astounding work in bringing this resolution that could pass.
“We will continue to work with council members to resolve this crisis and to create a new political horizon so that we can deliver on the promise of peace for Israelis and Palestinians, and make the two-state solution a reality.”
Woodward said it was “unconscionable” that Hamas continued to hold hostages in Gaza.
Updated
US welcomes UN resolution on humanitarian pause and aid corridors
The adoption by the United Nations security council of a resolution calling for a humanitarian pause in hostilities in Gaza is the first global agreement on the conflict, yet is not binding on Israel.
The vote carried 12-0, with three abstentions.
One of the abstentions was the US, with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the nation’s ambassador to the UN, telling the council: “[We] could not vote yes on a text that did not condemn Hamas or reaffirm the right of all member states to protect their citizens from terrorist attacks”.
But, she said, she welcomed the adoption of the resolution:
Although the US is deeply disappointed by what is not in this text, we support many of the important provisions this council has adopted. For starters, while this text does not include a condemnation of Hamas, this is the first time we’ve ever adopted a resolution that even mentions the word Hamas.
I’m horrified that a few members of this council still cannot bring themselves to condemn the barbaric terrorist attack that Hamas carried out against Israel on October 7.
What are they afraid of? What is stopping them from unequivocally condemning the actions of a terrorist organization that is determined to kill Jews? And that gunned down civilians, burned families alive, and executed children? A group that killed and took hostages, including children from over a dozen countries, including the US.
There’s no excuse for failing to condemn these acts of terror.
She added that Israel was also required to protect human life:
We’ve been clear as to our expectation that parties to the conflict will comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law. And for Israel, this is an added responsibility.
We’ve been clear at the highest levels, Hamas’s actions do not lessen Israel’s responsibility to protect innocent people in Gaza.
The resolution, she said, would not save lives on its own. “We all need to support the heroic efforts of the UN and other humanitarian workers in Gaza. And we all need to work with partners in the region to secure the release of all hostages,” she said.
Updated
UN adopts resolution calling for humanitarian pause in Gaza
The United Nations security council has voted to adopt a draft resolution from Malta calling for a humanitarian pause in fighting in Gaza, and greater efforts to allow humanitarian aid into the war-ravaged territory.
Twelve nations voted for the resolution, with three abstentions, including the US and UK. With no votes against, security council president Zhang Jun announced the resolution had passed.
The resolution calls for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable… the full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access”.
It demands compliance with international law, specifically the protection of civilians, especially children, and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups.
Four previous similar resolutions presented to UN had failed.
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Malta tells UN: Gaza is a 'graveyard for children'
The UN security council is now discussing Malta’s resolution as filed. Vanessa Frazier, the country’s ambassador to the UN, says: “Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children.”
Her country’s proposal for a humanitarian pause in fighting “would facilitate the continuous sufficient and unhindered provision of essential goods and services important to the well being of civilians, especially children”, she says.
“Children are suffering disproportionately in this conflict. We cannot close a blind eye to their suffering … I urge all council members to support this draft resolution.”
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Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, has proposed to the security council’s meeting an amendment to Malta’s resolution calling for “an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities”.
He is attacking the US, condemning it for blocking other recent proposals for a pause in the conflict:
I would like to ask our American colleagues, during work on the Maltese draft you struck out anything that could in any way indicate the need for a cessation of hostilities. Does this mean that you are in favor of the war in the Middle East continuing indefinitely?
Security council president Zhang Jun called a vote on adopting Russia’s amendment. US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield voted against; there were nine abstentions and the proposed amendment failed to reach the required number of votes.
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UN security council discussing 'humanitarian pause' proposal
Members of the United Nations security council have just begun their meeting in New York to discuss and vote on a draft resolution from Malta calling for humanitarian pauses to the fighting in Gaza, and a stepping up of efforts to allow aid into the war-torn territory.
Moments before the meeting was called to order, Riyad Mansour, permanent observer of Palestine to the UN, issued a scathing two-page letter accusing Israel of “a grave breach of international humanitarian law” by raiding the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
🚨Israeli soldiers attacked #AlShifa,terrorizing thousands of civilians who sheltered alongside patients & medical staff.Israeli soldiers raided hospital premises,ransacking rooms & destroying equipment,beating medical staff & forcing them to leave their patients. Read👇@UN #Gaza pic.twitter.com/o8Vc1oRVcJ
— State of Palestine (@Palestine_UN) November 15, 2023
In his letter, addressed to security council president Zhang Jun of China, Mansour wrote:
We witnessed today a horrific attack by Israeli occupying forces … Violating all norms, Israeli soldiers violently attacked al-Shifa, terrorizing the thousands of civilians who had sheltered there, alongside patients and medical staff.
Israeli soldiers raided the hospital premises, ransacking rooms and destroying equipment, beating medical staff and forcing them to leave their patients and duty stations to be interrogated at gunpoint, and chasing patients staff and displaced civilians out of the hospital, expelling them outside to the dangers of Israeli snipers, bombs, and drones firing nonstop at them.
We remind that health workers, humanitarians, patients and civilians who may be sheltering at hospitals are protected persons under international law.
Nowhere is safe in Gaza. Israeli soldiers are now harassing, seizing and detaining Palestinian civilians fleeing south. There are reports of Israeli soldiers beating and stripping civilians and perpetrating other acts of violence and dehumanization against them.
Mansour asked that the letter be distributed to all security council nations before this afternoon’s vote.
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Jess Phillips has become the most high-profile UK Labour MP to quit the frontbench over party leader Keir Starmer’s stance on Gaza.
Starmer has seen a big rebellion of eight shadow ministers from a total of 56 Labour MPs, who voted with the SNP on an amendment to the king’s speech which called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
— Jess Phillips MP (@jessphillips) November 15, 2023
Three Labour frontbenchers resigned in the minutes before the vote, after Starmer made clear that those voting for the ceasefire amendment would be sacked.
For more updates from the UK, follow our UK politics live blog here:
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Israel faced an unprecedented wave of international condemnation after its troops entered the Shifa hospital complex in Gaza, while the UN and aid agencies expressed concern about the impact of the raid on staff and patients.
The scale and virulence of the global condemnation from Arab and western governments raised questions about how much longer Israel can continue with its offensive in the face of waning international support.
The US also distanced itself from the military takeover of the hospital, saying it had not authorised the Israeli decision to raid the hospital.
The UN spoke of carnage in Gaza and as the pressure rose during the day, Israel relented by announcing it would allow an unlimited number of aid convoys through the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border. Aid convoys have been limited to as little as 30 trucks a day when the UN said it needed hundreds to relieve starvation.
The sense of crisis engendered by the hospital takeover also led to a breakthrough at the UN in New York, with the US lifting its threat to veto a new resolution prepared by Malta calling for extensive and urgent humanitarian pauses and corridors for a sufficient number of days to allow humanitarian aid to get to civilians in Gaza.
Up against what one Palestinian diplomat described as one million citizen journalists in Gaza, Israel is under pressure internationally to produce convincing evidence that the basement of the hospital was being used as a Hamas headquarters, as it has claimed.
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Here’s more on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announcement that it found “weapons and technological equipment” belonging to Hamas during Wednesday’s raid on the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
Chief Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said troops found weapons, combat gear and technological equipment at Shifa, and were continuing their search of the complex.
The military also released a video that they said showed some of the material recovered from an undisclosed building in the hospital, including automatic weapons, grenades, ammunition and flak jackets.
The Times of Israel reported the IDF saying:
During searches inside one of the hospital’s wards, the troops located a room containing unique technological means, combat equipment, and military equipment used by the Hamas terrorist organization.
Hamas has denied the claim, which it said was “nothing but a continuation of the lies and cheap propaganda, through which [Israel] is trying to give justification for its crime aimed at destroying the health sector in Gaza”.
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As we reported earlier, there will be a vote in the UK parliament today that will include the opportunity for MPs to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Three Labour frontbenchers have publicly defied the party leadership and called for a ceasefire in Gaza, hours before Keir Starmer faces one of his biggest rebellions as leader over the issue.
Naz Shah (Bradford West), Afzal Khan (Manchester Gorton) and Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) told fellow MPs in the Commons of their intention to vote for an immediate ceasefire, knowing that doing so would result in the loss of their shadow ministerial roles.
The MPs, who the Guardian understands had spoken to each other before making their statements on Wednesday afternoon, are expected to be among several frontbenchers to back a Scottish National party amendment to the king’s speech, in a show of defiance against the Labour leadership’s refusal to call for an outright ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Sources have told the Guardian that as many as a dozen Labour frontbenchers are prepared to vote in support of the SNP amendment.
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US security spokesman says US didn't sign off on al-Shifa hospital raid
The US did not sign off on Israel’s raid on al-Shifa hospital on Wednesday, the White House has said.
The US national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, answering questions from reporters in San Francisco today, said:
We did not give an OK to their military operations around the hospital. We don’t expect the Israelis to inform us.
On Tuesday, Kirby said the US has its own intelligence that supported Israel’s conclusions that Hamas used al-Shifa as a command centre and used tunnels beneath the complex to conceal military operations and possibly hold some of the more than 240 hostages seized during last month’s attack into Israel.
He suggested the timing of his announcement was a coincidence, adding that his delivery of some “downgraded” intelligence information “had nothing to do with operational timing”.
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Summary of the day so far ...
It’s 9pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s what we’ve been following today in the Israel-Hamas conflict:
Military equipment including grenades, automatic weapons, ammunition and communications technology was reportedly found during a raid by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Wednesday on the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. The IDF said it conducted a “precise and targeted operation” against Hamas in “a specified area” of the medical complex, and that the findings confirmed Hamas had operated a command operations center beneath the hospital.
Hamas denied the claim, which it said in a statement was “nothing but a continuation of the lies and cheap propaganda, through which [Israel] is trying to give justification for its crime aimed at destroying the health sector in Gaza”.
Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of the al-Shifa hospital, said that water, electricity and medical oxygen supplies were completely cut off within the facility, and that he was unable to communicate with doctors. “We cannot reach the pharmacy to treat patients as the occupation shoots everyone who moves. The smell of death wafts everywhere,” he told Al Jazeera.
The US navy warship Thomas Hudner shot down a drone that emanated from Yemen in the Red Sea early on Wednesday. It was only the second time the US had brought down projectiles near its warships since the Israel-Hamas conflict began last month.
Israel’s former deputy prime minister Gideon Sa’ar told the UK publication Jewish News that his country will agree to a temporary ceasefire in Gaza to facilitate the release of hostages held by Hamas. “It will be achieved. We will see a temporary ceasefire,” he said. His words contradict those of Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has frequently and vociferously ruled out a ceasefire.
The United Nations security council will vote Wednesday on a draft resolution proposed by Malta calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable aid access”. Some diplomats told Reuters they expected the 15-member council to adopt the resolution, though some countries were likely to abstain.
A senior official with Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry called for the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross to secure a safe corridor for patients, medical staff and displaced families trapped in the facility to leave.
The UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said “Hamas must not, should not, use a place like a hospital as a shield for their presence”, but said the agencies’ chief concern was “protecting the people of Gaza from what’s being visited upon them”.
Gaza’s two main telecommunications companies warned of a “complete telecom blackout in the coming hours” in the Gaza Strip. “Main data centres and switches are gradually shutting down due to fuel depletion,” the companies said in a joint statement.
The UN children’s agency says its top official visited children and their families in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the south of the territory. “What I saw and heard was devastating. They have endured repeated bombardment, loss and displacement,” Unicef’s executive director, Catherine Russell, said in a statement. “Inside the strip, there is nowhere safe for Gaza’s one million children to turn.”
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNWRA, has said: “Our entire operation is now on the verge of collapse,” and that “by the end of today, around 70% of the population in Gaza won’t have access to clean water”.
Thomas White, the director of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), has said that water pumps and sewage treatment in the south of the Gaza Strip have stopped due to lack of fuel.
Egypt’s state-run al-Qahera television station reported on Wednesday that the first fuel truck to enter the Gaza Strip since the war started on 7 October had crossed the Egyptian gate of the Rafah crossing. It is reported to be carrying 24,000 litres. “This is not enough for anything – not for hospitals, not even for aid deliveries,” an international source familiar with the operation told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Qatari mediators were on Wednesday seeking to negotiate a deal between Hamas and Israel that includes the release of about 50 civilian hostages from Gaza in exchange for a three-day ceasefire, an official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters. The deal would also involve Israel releasing some Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails and increase the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza. Hamas has to date released four of the estimated 240 hostages seized from inside Israel’s borders on 7 October.
The family and friends of some of the 240 hostages believed to have been seized by Hamas on 7 October from inside Israel have begun the second day of their protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The trip is expected to last five days and will finish at Netanyahu’s office. The families have been critical of Netanyahu’s government for not doing enough to secure the release of the hostages.
Israel’s military has said that it is again firing across the UN-drawn blue line that marks the boundary between Israel and Lebanon after “a number of launches toward Israeli territory”. It claims to have struck “a Hezbollah observation post in Lebanon”. Earlier, the Israeli minister Benny Gantz threatened anti-Israeli forces in Lebanon, saying: “What we are doing effectively in the south, can work even better in the north.”
The IDF has also claimed that during its operations in Gaza it has “secured an outpost of the Hamas terrorist organisation” in the north of the territory.
Israel’s Knesset has passed a law granting honorary citizenship to people killed by Hamas on 7 October who were not Israeli citizens at the time of their deaths.
Protesters have been removed from the House of Commons public gallery in the UK parliament in London after holding up “ceasefire now” signs.
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IDF: Weapons and military equipment found at al-Shifa hospital
The Jerusalem Post is reporting that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) found “weapons and technological equipment” belonging to Hamas during Wednesday’s raid on the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
The newspaper published a photograph credited to the IDF showing grenades, ammunition, communications equipment and other items purportedly at the hospital.
Israeli military spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari said the IDF was continuing to search the complex, and had also recovered automatic weapons and flak jackets.
The @IDF says it found weapons and technological equipment belonging to the #Hamas terrorist group in the Shifa hospital today. https://t.co/B8GMD4hbL6
— The Jerusalem Post (@Jerusalem_Post) November 15, 2023
Israel claims Hamas has been operating a command center from beneath the hospital, and promised earlier Wednesday to produce evidence of what it found during what it described as a “precise and targeted operation”.
Further details are expected shortly.
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The Guardian’s Ruth Michaelson has this report about how the Israeli raid on the al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest, unfolded. Troops entered at about 3am Wednesday, and remained there well into the afternoon.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have promised to produce evidence that Hamas was running a command operations center beneath the hospital, where thousands of Gaza residents have joined hundreds of patients and medical staff seeking shelter from the fighting.
Read the full report here:
A US navy warship in the Red Sea shot down a drone that emanated from Yemen, two officials told Reuters on Wednesday. The agency said it was only the second time the US had brought down projectiles near its warships since the Israel-Hamas conflict began last month.
The officials said the USS Thomas Hudner, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, took down the drone early Wednesday morning. They did not say if the drone was armed or how close it came to the ship.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, will visit Egypt and Jordan on 18 November.
She will meet the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in Cairo and travel to the Sinai to welcome the arrival of EU humanitarian aid before meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah in Amman, a EU spokesperson said, reported by Reuters.
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We’re used to hearing from Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the US president, Joe Biden, about the conflict in Gaza.
Here’s some correspondence between their wives, a letter written by Sara Netanyahu to Jill Biden, released on Wednesday by the Israeli prime minister’s office, and urging the first lady to “work toward the immediate release of the Israeli hostages being held – as a crime against humanity – by Hamas in Gaza”.
Mrs. Sara Netanyahu sent a letter to @FLOTUS Jill Biden in which she asked her to work toward the immediate release of the Israeli hostages being held – as a crime against humanity – by Hamas in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/mYkzF0IjwP
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) November 15, 2023
“I am writing to you not only as Bibi’s wife but first and foremost as a mother to you as first lady and a mother,” Mrs Netanyahu writes.
Citing the 32 children among the Hamas hostages, she adds: “We must speak out on behalf of these children. We must call for the immediate release of them and all those being held. We must demand the Red Cross visit them immediately.
“This nightmare that began over a month ago must end. These children need our help.”
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Tom Yazdgerdi, president of the American Foreign Service Association, the diplomats’ trade union, has weighed in on the issue of dissent in the state department over the Biden administration’s policy on the Gaza war, which has been mostly supportive of Israel.
Yazdgerdi, a former special envoy for Holocaust issues in the European and Eurasian bureau, praised the administration for its readiness to listen to internal criticism, in marked contrast to its predecessor under former president Donald Trump.
He said in an interview:
I think there was some concern, particularly by members of Arab American and Muslim American employee organizations at the state department and elsewhere that took issue with the policy, and the fact that this administration does put a premium on dissent and that these groups actually met the Secretary himself, along with other leaders at the department - that was good.
We were happy to see that because those views need to be heard. They probably have had some effect.
Reuters has more details on the draft resolution that the United Nations security council will vote on later Wednesday in pursuit of a humanitarian pause to the fighting in Gaza.
It will, the agency says, be the fifth attempt by the security council to take action since Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 240 people hostage on 7 October.
Four similar previous efforts were unsuccessful during a two-week period last month, twice when Russia failed to get the minimum votes needed, once when the US vetoed a Brazilian-drafted resolution, and again when Russia and China vetoed a resolution introduced by the US.
#Breaking 🚨 New Malta-proposed Resolution on #IsraelHamasWar up for vote at 3pm even though #Russia "broke silence" saying the measure is "unbalanced" but P5 diplomat are predicting passage since US, UK likely to abstain, France to vote for the measure - if @ChinaAmbUN schedules… pic.twitter.com/pfvN19MLBa
— Pamela Falk CBS News Correspondent United Nations (@PamelaFalk) November 15, 2023
The stalemate, Reuters says, is largely centred on whether to call for a less formal and shorter humanitarian pause, or a formal ceasefire agreed by the warring parties.
Wednesday’s proposed resolution, drafted by Malta, “calls for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable… the full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access”.
It demands compliance with international law, specifically the protection of civilians, especially children, and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups.
It does not condemn the actions of Hamas, a point of contention for the US, an Israel ally. Still, some diplomats cited by Reuters said they expected the resolution to pass, albeit with a number of abstentions.
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Israeli minister Sa'ar: temporary ceasefire 'will happen'
Israel’s former deputy prime minister Gideon Sa’ar has reportedly told the UK publication Jewish News that his country will agree to a temporary ceasefire in Gaza to facilitate the release of hostages held by Hamas.
Sa’ar, who was also Israel’s justice minister until 2022 and a former political opponent of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, did not say when he expected it to happen, and ruled out a lengthy ceasefire.
Exclusive: Israeli minister says ‘temporary ceasefire’ in return for hostages will happenhttps://t.co/2GsHoyfEYS
— Jewish News (@JewishNewsUK) November 15, 2023
But Sa’ar, currently a minister without portfolio and member of the Israeli security cabinet, said talks had progressed for a shorter-term agreement:
[It will be] a temporary short ceasefire in order to get our hostages out. There are ongoing negotiations to achieve that. And it will be achieved. We will see a temporary ceasefire.
Sa’ar’s position would appear to contradict that of Netanyahu, who has frequently and vociferously ruled out a ceasefire. Early in the conflict with Hamas he ruled out a five-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages, and has pursued a hard line since.
Sa’ar, in the interview, added that Israel’s military “continue to execute their mission, killing terrorists and dismantling Hamas infrastructure in Gaza,” and he hailed “significant achievements” by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
Regarding the ongoing “targeted operation” by the IDF at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, he told Jewish News they had “acted in the right moment.
“They waited for long days outside the hospital to avoid casualties,” he said.
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Jewish graves in a German first world war military cemetery in France have been vandalised, authorities have said, reflecting a rise in antisemitic crimes across the country.
About 10 headstones at the cemetery in the Oise region, north of Paris, were broken or defaced, the local prefecture said, according to AFP. Prosecutors said they were investigating a racist or religious motive.
More than 1,500 antisemitic acts and comments had been recorded in France since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last month, the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said.
The prefect of the Oise region, Catherine Seguin, called the defacing of the headstones “despicable”.
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More than 20 Irish citizens left Gaza through the Rafah crossing into Egypt on Wednesday, and more are expected to be able to leave in the next few days, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told the Dáil, Ireland’s parliament.
He said arrangements were in place for staff from the country’s embassy in Cairo to provide consular assistance to them, including travel back to Ireland, according to a Press Association report.
“We expect additional Irish citizens and dependents in Gaza to be on the list in the coming days and we’re working tirelessly to ensure that all of those who wish to do so will be allowed to leave as soon as possible,” he said.
Twenty-three Irish citizens had crossed the border by mid-afternoon on Wednesday, of the 35-40 understood to be in Gaza.
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France expresses 'serious concern' over Israel's al-Shifa operation
France said on Wednesday it had “very serious concern” about Israel’s “targeted operation” inside the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, and that it was worried about the impact on the civilian Palestinian population.
“The Palestinian population should not be made to pay for Hamas’s crimes, even less so the vulnerable, injured or sick and the humanitarian workers who courageously continue their work in extremely dangerous conditions,” the French foreign ministry said in a statement, reported by AFP.
France “expresses its very serious concern about Israeli military operations in [the] al-Shifa hospital,” the ministry added.
It said the country recognised “the absolute necessity for Israel to comply with international humanitarian law, which particularly provides for the protection of hospital infrastructure”.
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UN security council to vote on 'humanitarian pause' resolution
The UN security council is due to vote later on Wednesday on a draft resolution calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable aid access”, Reuters is reporting, citing diplomats.
Some of the diplomats said they expected the 15-member council to adopt the resolution, though some countries were likely to abstain.
A resolution needs at least nine votes in favour and no veto by any of the permanent security council members, which are the US, the UK, Russia, China and France.
Separately, Martin Griffiths, the UN’s humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, is calling on Israel to open the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza for humanitarian aid.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva, he said the crossing had been used to carry more than 60% of the truckloads going into Gaza before the conflict erupted last month. “Kerem Shalom, please Israel, give us that for our crossing point,” he said.
Currently, the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border is the only one open for the transport of aid into Gaza.
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Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Meirav Eilon Shahar, has tweeted the country’s “indignation” that UN officials are meeting with Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, in Geneva and discussing the future of Gaza.
According to the Times of Israel, the “previously undisclosed” meeting was hosted by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, which it said played a role in the dissolution of the Basque separatist group ETA five years ago.
Israel expresses its indignation that the foreign minister of Iran is in Geneva and meeting with UN officials and NGOs to talk about the “humanitarian situation in Gaza”.
— Meirav Eilon Shahar 🇮🇱 (@MeiravEShahar) November 15, 2023
Iran has no place in the future of Gaza. It is part of the problem, not the solution.
❌ It thrives on…
Eilon Shahar, in her post, said: “Israel expresses its indignation that the foreign minister of Iran is in Geneva and meeting with UN officials and NGOs to talk about the ‘humanitarian situation in Gaza’.
“Iran has no place in the future of Gaza. It is part of the problem, not the solution.”
In a statement to the Associated Press, the centre defended its involvement, saying it “routinely convenes closed-door consultations to support conflict mediation and resolution in various parts of the world”.
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Summary of the day so far …
It is 5pm in Gaza City and in Tel Aviv. Here are the latest headlines from the Israel-Hamas war …
Israeli troops entered al-Shifa hospital early on Wednesday, conducting what it called a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area” of the medical complex. A senior Israeli military official said on Wednesday that “weapons and other terror infrastructure” had been found during the ongoing operation “in one specific area” of the hospital.
Hamas denied the claim, which it said in a statement was “nothing but a continuation of the lies and cheap propaganda, through which [Israel] is trying to give justification for its crime aimed at destroying the health sector in Gaza”.
Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of the al-Shifa hospital, said that water, electricity and medical oxygen supplies were completely cut off within the facility, and that he was unable to communicate with doctors. “We cannot reach the pharmacy to treat patients as the occupation shoots everyone who moves. The smell of death wafts everywhere,” he told Al Jazeera.
A senior official with Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry called for the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross to secure a safe corridor for patients, medical staff and displaced families trapped in the facility to leave.
The UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said “Hamas must not, should not, use a place like a hospital as a shield for their presence”, but said the agencies’ chief concern was “protecting the people of Gaza from what’s being visited upon them”.
Gaza’s two main telecommunications companies warned of a “complete telecom blackout in the coming hours” in the Gaza Strip. “Main data centres and switches are gradually shutting down due to fuel depletion,” the companies said in a joint statement.
The UN children’s agency says its top official visited children and their families in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the south of the territory. “What I saw and heard was devastating. They have endured repeated bombardment, loss and displacement,” Unicef’s executive director, Catherine Russell, said in a statement. “Inside the strip, there is nowhere safe for Gaza’s 1 million children to turn.”
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNWRA, has said: “Our entire operation is now on the verge of collapse,” and that “by the end of today, around 70% of the population in Gaza won’t have access to clean water”.
Thomas White, the director of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), has said that water pumps and sewage treatment in the south of the Gaza Strip have stopped due to lack of fuel.
Egypt’s state-run al-Qahera television station reported on Wednesday that the first fuel truck to enter the Gaza Strip since the war started on 7 October had crossed the Egyptian gate of the Rafah crossing. It is reported to be carrying 24,000 litres. “This is not enough for anything – not for hospitals, not even for aid deliveries,” an international source familiar with the operation told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Qatari mediators were on Wednesday seeking to negotiate a deal between Hamas and Israel that includes the release of about 50 civilian hostages from Gaza in exchange for a three-day ceasefire, an official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters. The deal would also involve Israel releasing some Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails and increase the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza. Hamas has to date released four of the estimated 240 hostages seized from inside Israel’s borders on 7 October. The officials told Reuters the deal has been coordinated with the US, and Hamas has agreed to the general outline, but Israel has not.
The family and friends of some of the 240 hostages believed to have been seized by Hamas on 7 October from inside Israel have begun the second day of their protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The trip is expected to last five days and will finish at Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. The families have been critical of Netanyahu’s government for not doing enough to secure the release of the hostages.
Israel’s military has said that it is again firing across the UN-drawn blue line that marks the boundary between Israel and Lebanon after “a number of launches toward Israeli territory”. It claims to have struck “a Hezbollah observation post in Lebanon”. Earlier, the Israeli minister Benny Gantz threatened anti-Israeli forces in Lebanon, saying “what we are doing effectively in the south, can work even better in the north”.
The IDF has also claimed that during its operations in Gaza it has “secured an outpost of the Hamas terrorist organisation” in the north of the territory.
Israel’s Knesset has passed a law granting honorary citizenship to people killed by Hamas on 7 October who were not Israeli citizens at the time of their deaths.
Protesters have been removed from the House of Commons public gallery in the UK parliament in London after holding up “ceasefire now” signs.
Updated
The initial delivery of 24,000 litres of fuel that has arrived in Gaza today was intended to be split over two days, with 12,000 litres allocated for each day, an international source with knowledge of the operation has told Reuters.
“This is not enough for anything – not for hospitals, not even for aid deliveries,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It’s meant to be enough only to bring some of the aid that has been outside – and got rained on for example – indoors to the warehouses.”
On Tuesday, 91 trucks carrying food, medicine, bottled water, blankets and tents entered Gaza from Egypt, but the UN says deliveries since 21 October – 1,187 trucks in total – can meet only a fraction of needs. Distribution of the aid had largely come to a halt because of lack of fuel, it said.
After the first truck carrying fuel entered Egypt’s Rafah crossing headed for Gaza on Wednesday, witnesses said two other trucks were lined up on the Egyptian side, but it was unclear when they would enter.
Updated
Jason Burke and Emine Sinmaz are in Jerusalem for the Guardian. Here is their latest report:
Israeli troops entered al-Shifa hospital early on Wednesday, conducting what it called a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area” of the medical complex.
A senior Israeli military official said on Wednesday that “weapons and other terror infrastructure” had been found during the ongoing operation “in one specific area” of the hospital.
The official told reporters that four militants had died in a clash outside, but that there had been no fighting inside the hospital complex, and no friction with medical staff or patients, who he said were in a different section of the site.
“IDF soldiers have already found weapons and other terror infrastructure. In the last hour, we saw concrete evidence that Hamas terrorists used the Shifa hospital as a terror headquarter,” the official said, declining to be named. He did not specify what had been found, but said the evidence would be presented later.
Hamas denied the claim, which it said in a statement was “nothing but a continuation of the lies and cheap propaganda, through which [Israel] is trying to give justification for its crime aimed at destroying the health sector in Gaza.”
Fighting has raged around the hospital compound for many days, trapping around 1,200 patients and staff. Al-Shifa, Gaza’s biggest hospital, has become a strategic objective for Israel.
The Israeli military said it had provided evacuation routes for civilians. It said it had delivered humanitarian equipment to the hospital, publishing photos of a soldier standing beside cardboard boxes marked “baby food” and “medical supplies” in English.
Read more of Jason Burke and Emine Sinmaz’s report here: IDF says it has entered Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital in ‘targeted operation’ against Hamas
Updated
Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of the al-Shifa hospital has told Al Jazeera that water, electricity and medical oxygen supplies are completely cut off within the facility, and that he is unable to communicate with doctors.
He told the news network:
The occupation army is in the dialysis building without bothering to bring fuel to help patients. We cannot reach the pharmacy to treat patients as the occupation shoots everyone who moves. The patients’ wounds began to rot significantly after all services in the hospital stopped. The smell of death wafts everywhere.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the accounts coming out of the al-Shifa hospital.
Updated
Protesters has been removed from the House of Commons public gallery in the UK parliament in London after holding up “ceasefire now” signs, PA Media reports.
Updated
Israel’s military has said that it is again firing across the UN-drawn blue line that marks the boundary between Israel and Lebanon after “a number of launches toward Israeli territory”.
It claims to have struck “a Hezbollah observation post in Lebanon”.
In response to a number of launches toward Israeli territory, IDF artillery is currently striking the sources of the fire in Lebanon.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 15, 2023
Additionally, IDF tanks struck a Hezbollah observation post in Lebanon.
Earlier, Israeli minister Benny Gantz threatened anti-Israeli forces in Lebanon, saying “what we are doing effectively in the south, can work even better in the north”.
Here are some more of the latest images being sent to us over the news wires from inside Gaza and Israel.
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Israel’s military has claimed that during its operations in Gaza it has “secured an outpost of the Hamas terrorist organisation” in the north of the territory.
In a statement on the Telegram messaging app, the IDF said:
The outpost was used by the Hamas terrorist organisation as a training base where the terrorists prepared to attack Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers. Although it was disguised as a training facility, terrorist activities originated from the outpost. In addition, the IDF soldiers uncovered terror tunnels, explosives and mines intended to harm IDF soldiers.
During the brigade’s activity, dozens of terrorists were eliminated and dozens of anti-tank and mortar launch posts, observation posts and significant control infrastructure were destroyed.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
Knesset passes law to grant honorary Israeli citizenship to non-citizens killed by Hamas
Haaretz reports that Israel’s Knesset has passed a law granting honorary citizenship to people killed by Hamas on 7 October who were not Israeli citizens at the time of their deaths.
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Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNWRA, has said: “Our entire operation is now on the verge of collapse,” AFP reports, and that “by the end of today, around 70% of the population in Gaza won’t have access to clean water.”
Updated
In the last hour or so, the IDF has said warning sirens have sounded within Israel: at Ashkelon, at locations near the Gaza Strip, and in Misgav Am and Mattat in northern Israel. There are no reports of any casualties.
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A senior official with Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry says Israeli forces are still operating inside al-Shifa hospital, the territory’s largest, hours after entering it early on Wednesday.
Speaking by phone from the hospital, Munir al-Boursh told AP that Israeli soldiers had ransacked the basement and other buildings, including those housing the emergency and surgery departments.
“They are still here … patients, women and children are terrified,” he said. He added that doctors had vowed to stay with their patients “till the end.”
Al-Boursh called for the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross to secure a safe corridor for patients, medical staff and displaced families trapped in the facility to leave.
Al-Boursh said an Israeli official had spoken with him by phone early on Wednesday and asked him to join the forces searching the facility, but he had refused.
Israel claims its military has delivered medical supplies to the hospital, and alleges that Hamas operates a command centre from the basement of the complex, a charge which Hamas has denied.
Updated
Italy has made a statement about their side of the call between prime minister Giorgia Meloni and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Italy said Turkey had a crucial role in efforts to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spreading to the rest of the region, and Meloni called for a rapid de-escalation.
Reuters reports that a statement from Meloni’s office said: “The prime minister called for a rapid de-escalation of the conflict, which must not spread to the rest of the region, and emphasised the crucial role Turkey plays in this context.”
Earlier the Turkish side said that it was expecting Rome to support a ceasefire.
Updated
The artist Ai Weiwei has defended the importance of free speech after a London gallery put his show on hold over a tweet about the Israel-Hamas war.
The exhibition of new works by the Chinese dissident, which was due to open at the Lisson gallery this week, was indefinitely put on hold after a tweet posted in response to a follower’s question on X which has since been deleted.
It read: “The sense of guilt around the persecution of the Jewish people has been, at times, transferred to offset the Arab world.”
It is not clear whether Ai’s show will be rescheduled. The artist told the Art Newspaper that his show has “effectively [been] cancelled” – but noted that the decision was taken “to avoid further disputes and for my own wellbeing”.
A spokesperson for the Lisson gallery said there had been extensive conversations with Ai following the comment he posted online.
A statement from the gallery, which represents the artist, said: “We together agreed that now is not the right time to present his new body of work.”
Read more here: London gallery delays Ai Weiwei show over Israel-Hamas tweet
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Ahmed Muhanna, director at al-Awda hospital in Jabalia, has spoken to Al Jazeera about the situation in that part of Gaza. It reports he told them:
All the time they are bombing around the hospital and close to the hospital. Today, we have found shrapnel inside the hospital, and the ambulance and cars were damaged. We are working with injured and pregnant women from the northern areas and Gaza City because all the hospitals in Gaza City and the northern area also are out of service.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Gaza and Israel.
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The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, told Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni in a phone call on Wednesday that Ankara expects Rome’s support for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Turkish presidency has told Reuters.
Earlier today, Erdoğan attracted fierce criticism after he called Israel a “terrorist state” and said Hamas was a political party elected by Palestinians and “resistance fighters” trying to protect their lands and people.
The Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said: “We won’t take lessons in morality from President Erdoğan, a man with an appalling human rights record. Israel is defending itself against brutal terrorists from Hamas-Isis, some of whom have been allowed to operate under Erdoğan’s roof.”
In parliament, Erdoğan had said: “Israel is implementing a strategy of total destruction of a city and its people. I say openly that Israel is a terrorist state.”
Updated
Qatari mediators were on Wednesday seeking to negotiate a deal between Hamas and Israel that includes the release of about 50 civilian hostages from Gaza in exchange for a three-day ceasefire, an official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters.
The deal would also involve Israel releasing some Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails and increase the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza.
Hamas has to date released four of the estimated 240 hostages seized during its murderous rampage inside Israel’s borders on 7 October.
The officials told Reuters the deal has been coordinated with the US, and Hamas has agreed to the general outline, but Israel has not.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said on multiple occasions that there can be no ceasefire until all the hostages are released. Family and friends of the hostages are taking part in a five-day march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. They say Israel’s government has not done enough to secure the release of their loved ones.
Qatar’s foreign ministry has previously said that efforts to secure the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza required a “period of calm” and leaks from the negotiations were “harmful”, and made it more difficult for mediators to do their jobs.
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The Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has addressed Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, on social media, saying Israel would support Trudeau’s nation if it was under attack, and Israel expects the same in return.
Trudeau said on Tuesday that the “killing of women, of children, of babies” in Gaza must end.
In his message, Lapid said:
Prime minister Trudeau, Israel is defending itself in difficult conditions against a brutal terrorist organization while trying to rescue babies, children, women and men who are being held hostage by Hamas-ISIS Responsibility for this terrible situation rests with Hamas-ISIS.
Hamas launched this war, Hamas hides in civilian buildings and Hamas abuses Gazans as human shields. If Canada ever found itself under a sustained and brutal attack like the one we face now, you would find Israel by your side. We expect the same support.
Trudeau had said: “I urge the government of Israel to exercise maximum restraint. The world is watching, on TV, on social media – we’re hearing the testimonies of doctors, family members, survivors, kids who have lost their parents. The world is witnessing this killing of women, of children, of babies. This has to stop.”
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had already issued a rebuke for Trudeau’s comments overnight, saying: “It is not Israel that is deliberately targeting civilians but Hamas that beheaded, burned and massacred civilians in the worst horrors perpetrated on Jews since the Holocaust. While Israel is doing everything to keep civilians out of harm’s way, Hamas is doing everything to keep them in harm’s way.”
More than 11,000 Palestinians are reported to have been killed in the Israeli campaign in the Gaza Strip.
Updated
Egypt’s state-run al-Qahera television station reported Wednesday that the first fuel truck to enter the Gaza Strip since the war started on 7 October has crossed the Egyptian gate of the Rafah crossing.
The truck reportedly headed to Kerem Shalom crossing for screening, AP reports. Israel barred fuel shipments after Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October, saying the militant group would divert the supplies for military use.
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In Ireland, Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy has condemned the international community’s response to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
“I am ashamed of the international community’s response to what we have seen in Gaza and particularly ashamed by the response of the EU,” he said.
“I think EU leaders have ensured that the European Union no longer has any credibility to be a voice for peace, international law and for the basic rules of humanity for so long as they refuse to take a stand.”
PA Media reports Carthy told minister of state James Browne that the world was “turning a blind eye” and “the EU, worse still, is providing cover”.
He criticised the Irish government’s failure to back the call for economic and diplomatic sanctions against Israel.
“Every single possible action that might help pressure Israel to stop the slaughter of innocent Palestinians is met with pathetic excuses,” he said.
“It’s not good enough, minister. It is well past time that Ireland shows leadership, not to follow the lead of a European Union that clearly isn’t willing or capable of providing the leadership that’s much needed in this instance.”
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
It has just gone 1.30pm in Gaza City and in Tel Aviv. Here are the latest headlines from the Israel-Hamas war …
Israeli troops entered al-Shifa hospital early on Wednesday, conducting what it called a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area” of the medical complex. Youssef Abu Rish, an official from the health ministry inside the hospital, said he could see tanks inside the complex and “dozens of soldiers and commandos inside the emergency and reception buildings”.
Fighting has raged around the Shifa compound for many days, trapping about 1,200 patients and staff. The hospital, Gaza’s biggest, has become a strategic objective for Israel, which says there is an Hamas command centre in bunkers underneath. Hamas denies this. The Israeli military said it had provided evacuation routes for civilians and delivered medical supplies to the hospital entrance.
The Times of Israel reported that “at least five Hamas gunmen were killed by troops during a gun battle outside the hospital”, and quoted the IDF claiming that “there has been no ‘friction’ between troops and patients and medical staff” and “there is no indication of hostages currently being held” at the location. The IDF said it had sent “medical teams and Arabic speaking soldiers” into the hospital.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that the body has lost touch with health personnel at al-Shifa hospital.
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths aid “Hamas must not, should not, use a place like a hospital as a shield for their presence”, but said the agencies’ chief concern was “protecting the people of Gaza from what’s being visited upon them.”
Thomas White, the director of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), has said that water pumps and sewage treatment in the south of the Gaza Strip have stopped due to lack of fuel.
Gaza’s two main telecommunications companies warned of a “complete telecom blackout in the coming hours” in the Gaza Strip. “Main data centres and switches are gradually shutting down due to fuel depletion,” the companies said in a joint statement.
The UN’s children’s agency says its top official visited children and their families in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the south of the territory. “What I saw and heard was devastating. They have endured repeated bombardment, loss and displacement,” Unicef executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement. “Inside the Strip, there is nowhere safe for Gaza’s 1 million children to turn.”
Israeli minister Benny Gantz has said that Israel will track down and kill Hamas leaders wherever they are in the world, and threatened anti-Israeli forces in Lebanon, saying “what we are doing effectively in the south, can work even better in the north”.
The family and friends of some of the 240 hostages believed to have been seized by Hamas on 7 October from inside Israel have begun the second day of their protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The trip is expected to last five days and will finish at Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. The families have been critical of Netanyahu’s government for not doing enough to secure the release of the hostages.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, told parliament Israel was a “terror state” committing war crimes and violating international law, while repeating his assertion that the Palestinian militant group Hamas was not a terrorist organisation. He said Hamas was a political party that had been elected by Palestinians.
Norway said 51 of its citizens have been allowed to leave Gaza on Wednesday, with the foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, saying that those remaining “are in a very demanding situation”.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Micheál Martin, has expressed confidence that a significant number of Irish citizens will be able to leave Gaza on Wednesday via the Rafah crossing.
Updated
The UN humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, has issued a further statement about hospitals in Gaza, after Israel launched what it called a “targeted operation” against al-Shifa hospital, the largest in Gaza.
In a video statement, AFP reports Griffiths said:
Hamas must not, should not, use a place like a hospital as a shield for their presence That is as strong a statement under humanitarian law, as is the statement that the hospitals should not become a war zone.
I understand the Israelis’ concern for trying to find the leadership of Hamas. That’s not our problem. Our problem is protecting the people of Gaza from what’s being visited upon them.
Griffiths added that his agency’s main concern was “for the welfare of the patients of that hospital, which is, of course, in great peril at the moment”.
“We have no fuel to run it. The babies have no incubators, newly born. Some are dead already. We can’t move them out. It’s too dangerous,” he said.
“Our concern is for the patients of a hospital that doesn’t function.”
Updated
The Israeli minister Benny Gantz has said that Israel will track down and kill Hamas leaders wherever they are in the world, and threatened anti-Israeli forces in Lebanon, saying “what we are doing effectively in the south, can work even better in the north”.
The Times of Israel quotes Gantz, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s national unity war cabinet, saying:
There will be no sanctuary cities, no sanctuary houses. We will go wherever we need to in order to eradicate child murderers – above and below ground. In Gaza and around the world. We will reach the heads of government just as we reached the centres of government.
Addressing today’s military action, Gantz said: “IDF soldiers continue to operate deep inside Gaza City against those who have turned hospitals into command centres, from which war crimes are committed.”
Israel has repeatedly claimed that Hamas uses hospitals as bases, a charge that Hamas has denied.
Updated
UNRWA: Water pumps and sewage facilities stopped in south Gaza due to lack of fuel
Thomas White, the director of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), has said that water pumps and sewage treatment in the south of the Gaza Strip have stopped due to lack of fuel.
About an hour ago White posted to social media:
In Rafah all (10) water wells have stopped pumping – the only source of water in the city – why? – no fuel. The Khan Younis desalination plant has stopped working – supplies drinking water for 100,000s of people – why? – no fuel. No sewage pumping in Rafah all (3) sewage pumps have stopped working – simply because they ran out of fuel.
In the last few minutes he posted an additional statement, saying:
Just received 23,027 litres of fuel from Egypt (half a tanker) – but its use has been restricted by Israeli authorities – only for transporting aid from Rafah. No fuel for water or hospitals. This is only 9% of what we need daily to sustain lifesaving activities.
Just received 23,027 LT of fuel from Egypt (half a tanker) – but its use has been restricted by Israeli authorities - only for transporting aid from Rafah.
— Thomas White (@TomWhiteGaza) November 15, 2023
No fuel for water or hospitals
This is only 9% of what we need daily to sustain lifesaving activities@UNRWA #Gaza
Gaza’s two main telecommunications companies Paltel and Jawwal warned on Wednesday of a “complete telecom blackout in the coming hours” in the Gaza Strip.
“Main data centers and switches in the Gaza Strip are gradually shutting down due to fuel depletion,” Reuters reports the companies said in a joint statement.
Erdoğan: Israel is a terror state and Turkey will work to ensure Israeli settlers are recognised as 'terrorists'
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said on Wednesday Israel was a “terror state” committing war crimes and violating international law in Gaza, while repeating his assertion that the Palestinian militant group Hamas was not a terrorist organisation.
He said Hamas was a political party that had been elected by Palestinians.
Speaking to lawmakers in parliament, Reuters reports Erdoğan also called on Benjamin Netanyahu to announce whether Israel had nuclear bombs or not, adding that the Israeli leader was finished in his post.
Erdoğan went on to say that Turkey would work on the international stage to ensure that Israeli settlers are recognised as terrorists.
Turkey has withdrawn diplomats from Israel in the wake of Israel’s response to the 7 October Hamas attack.
Israel has never disclosed in public whether it possesses nuclear weapons, although earlier in the war against Hamas a junior minister in Netanyahu’s government stated that dropping a nuclear weapon on the Gaza Strip was an option.
The Turkish health minister, Fahrettin Koca, is in Cairo on Wednesday, meeting his Egyptian counterpart, Khalid Abdel Ghaffar, to discuss aid supply to Gaza, and the transfer of some patients to Turkey.
Updated
The IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari has issued an update on what Israel has called its “targeted operation” at al-Shifa hospital.
He said:
IDF forces continue to operate in a targeted manner in a part of the Shifa hospital area where they are scanning for infrastructure and terrorist means of the terrorist organization Hamas.
Hagari’s post claimed that “the forces delivered humanitarian equipment and placed it at the entrance to the hospital”, accompanied by an image of an Israeli soldier next to some boxes labelled “medical supplies” in English.
Earlier a doctor inside the hospital told Al Jazeera it had been six days since water and food had been able to get into the hospital, and the World Health Organization said it had lost contact with health professionals within the hospital complex.
Updated
Israel’s minister of foreign affairs, Eli Cohen, has issued a stinging rebuke of the president of the parliament of Belgium, Eliane Tillieux, accusing her of “turning a blind eye to the war crimes” of Hamas by refusing to screen an Israeli video of the 7 October attacks.
In the message posted to social media, Cohen says:
In your decision not to screen in parliament the video depicting the atrocities, the president of the parliament of Belgium Eliane Tillieux is turning a blind eye to the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Hamas.
This is not a propaganda video, rather it is a film created from footage shot by the terrorists themselves, that shows their indiscriminate slaughter of Israeli civilians.
Turning a blind eye to Hamas’ crimes is tantamount to disregarding Israel’s right to defend itself against a terrorist organization that is worse than ISIS.
As part of Israel’s diplomatic efforts surrounding the war with Hamas, it has been requesting screenings of the film produced by Israeli authorities depicting the violence carried out by Hamas during its attack inside Israel on 7 October.
Yesterday, Israel’s ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, Idit Rosenzweig-Abu, posted on social media to say that she had asked a week ago about screening the film for the Belgian parliament with no reply, to which Tillieux replied:
As I have already informed you, I have submitted your request to the conference of presidents of the chamber, made up of all the presidents of the political groups. Meeting today, the conference of presidents did not reach a consensus regarding the screening of the film.
Public service broadcaster RTBF reports that Tillieux said: “This is a joint decision of the conference of presidents. There will therefore be no additional communication on this subject.”
The film has been screened in other European parliaments.
Updated
Al Jazeera reports it has been in contact again with Ahmed Mokhallalati, a doctor inside al-Shifa hospital who has frequently spoken to the media in the past few days.
In his latest update it reports he said:
Since yesterday evening, there have been really continuous, aggressive gunshots, bombardments and attacks. It’s a totally scary time; it’s a horrible time for the families, the civilians sheltering in the hospital with their kids. It’s terrible for the staff who are taking care of their patients and the patients themselves.
Imagine being in a hospital where the water is not there, the basic hygiene of the people going to the toilet is a challenge. Food and drinking water haven’t come to the hospital for the sixth day now with no way of getting anything in the hospital.
What we feel is really shocking and bad is that the whole world has been witnessing this crime and seeing everything that is happening in front of everybody, and no one has stopped, and no one has said loudly this is not allowed. Where is the international community?
We are all within the building now; we can’t even check through the window what’s outside, we can’t get anything to eat or drink, we can’t get anything to our patients, and we can’t move between the buildings at all.
It has not been possible at the current time for journalists to independently verify the accounts that are coming out of the al-Shifa hospital.
Updated
WHO: contact lost with health personnel at al-Shifa hospital
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that the organisation has lost touch with health personnel at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza after Israeli forces began what they described as a “targeted operation” inside the facility.
“Reports of military incursion into al-Shifa hospital are deeply concerning,” the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, wrote on social media, Reuters reports.
“We’ve lost touch again with health personnel at the hospital. We’re extremely worried for their and their patients’ safety.”
Reports of military incursion into Al-Shifa hospital are deeply concerning.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) November 15, 2023
We’ve lost touch again with health personnel at the hospital.
We’re extremely worried for their and their patients’ safety.
Updated
Norway said 51 of its citizens have been allowed to leave Gaza on Wednesday, with the foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, saying that those remaining “are in a very demanding situation”.
“The Norwegian authorities continue to work to ensure that Norwegian citizens will be allowed to leave Gaza as soon as possible,” AP reports Barth Eide said. “We will continue the work to halt the hostilities and ensure humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.”
Norwegian news agency NTB said that there are about 270 people with ties to Norway in Gaza with approximately half of them being children.
Updated
Associated Press has some more detail on fuel being delivered to Gaza. It reports that Israel will allow approximately 24,000 litres (6,340 gallons) of fuel in for humanitarian efforts.
Cogat, the Israeli body responsible for Palestinian affairs, said it would allow UN trucks to refill at the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border later Wednesday. It said the decision was made in response to a request from the US.
Previously, Israel repeatedly rejected allowing fuel into Gaza, saying Hamas would divert it for military use.
Updated
In the UK there is will be a vote in parliament today that will include the opportunity for MPs to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, which has not been the UK government’s position.
It is causing political discomfort for the Labour opposition leader, Keir Starmer. Labour has so far backed the government in saying that now is not the right time for a ceasefire, which it argues would leave Hamas intact while it was still holding an estimated 240 Israeli hostages in Gaza.
However, the Scottish National party, the third-largest party in the House of Commons, has tabled a motion directly calling for a ceasefire that may attract votes from Labour MPs in defiance of their leadership.
On the radio in the UK this morning, the Labour MP Pat McFadden said there was “no need” for any Labour MP to support the SNP’s amendment.
PA Media reports he told LBC that his party’s position had been set out “comprehensively” in its own amendment.
“It deals with the three critical aspects of this, which are: how this began on 7 October with the greatest slaughter of Jews since the end of the second world war; it deals with the current humanitarian situation unfolding in Gaza, calling for pauses in the fighting for more aid for more electricity, water, medicine to get into help the people there; and, critically, it also deals with the future.”
Updated
The United Nations children’s agency says its top official visited the Gaza Strip early on Wednesday and met children and their families in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the south of the territory.
“What I saw and heard was devastating. They have endured repeated bombardment, loss and displacement,” Unicef executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement. “Inside the Strip, there is nowhere safe for Gaza’s 1 million children to turn.”
The AP reports that Russell is among the few international officials to have visited the Gaza Strip since the latest escalation in violence began.
In the statement she called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” and for aid to be allowed unrestricted, saying that “in the hospital’s neonatal ward, tiny babies were clinging to life in incubators, as doctors worried how they could keep the machines running without fuel.”
Russell also met Unicef staff and their families. More than 100 UN staff have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Israel launched its war aimed at destroying Hamas in response to the group’s surprise 7 October attack inside Israel that killed about 1,200 Israelis and an estimated 240 people taken hostage.
Updated
Martin Griffiths, the head of UN humanitarian operations, has criticised Israel’s actions within the al-Shifa hospital compound, saying he is “appalled”.
In a post to social media, he said:
I’m appalled by reports of military raids in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. The protection of newborns, patients, medical staff and all civilians must override all other concerns. Hospitals are not battlegrounds.
Reuters has a quick snap that a truck carrying fuel has entered Gaza via the Rafah border crossing, according to local media reports and a source.
The UN’s agency for assisting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, had warned that its desalination and sewage clearance operations were in grave danger of ceasing without deliveries of more fuel into the territory.
The Rafah border crossing with Egypt is the only entrance or exit from Gaza that is not controlled by Israel.
More details soon …
The family and friends of some of the 240 hostages believed to have been seized by Hamas on 7 October from inside Israel have begun the second day of their protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The trip is expected to last five days and will finish at Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. The families have been critical of Netanyahu’s government for not doing enough to secure the release of the hostages.
Jordan’s foreign ministry has issued a statement condemning Israel for its military action within the al-Shifa hospital compound, which Jordan described as “a violation of international humanitarian law, especially the 1949 Geneva conventions relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war, holding Israel responsible for the safety of civilians and the medical staff working in the hospital”.
دانت #وزارة_الخارجية_وشؤون_المغتربين إقدام قوات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي على اقتحام #مستشفى_الشفاء الطبي في #غزة المحتلة باعتباره انتهاكاً للقانون الدولي الإنساني وخصوصاً اتفاقية جنيف بشأن حماية الأشخاص المدنيين في وقت الحرب لعام 1949، محملة إسرائيل مسؤولية سلامة المدنيين والطواقم… pic.twitter.com/yVFHPcWJJU
— وزارة الخارجية وشؤون المغتربين الأردنية (@ForeignMinistry) November 15, 2023
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The BBC is carrying a report from Rushdi Abualouf in Gaza, who says he has spoken again to someone inside the al-Shifa hospital complex.
He writes:
Khader, a journalist who is at the hospital, says Israeli forces are going room to room, floor by floor questioning everyone – both staff and patients – and are accompanied by medics and Arabic speakers.
Displaced people who’ve been sheltering in the compound have been made to gather in the courtyard and some are undergoing security checks.
He adds that the Israeli military is in “complete control” and there is no shooting taking place.
Separately, a doctor at the hospital has told Reuters that gunfire outside the compound has forced staff to stay away from windows for their safety.
Al Jazeera reports it has spoken to a person inside the medical complex. It quotes them saying:
Israeli forces have tried to kill anyone moving inside … No one has done anything. We don’t have any kind of resistance inside the hospital. Some American reports say there is a network of tunnels inside the hospital. This is not true at all.
Israel’s military has claimed that “terrorists were killed” prior to its entry into the hospital, saying that it encountered “explosive devices and terrorist cells”.
It is not possible for journalists to independently verify the accounts of what is taking place in the al-Shifa hospital, where Israel’s military says its is carrying out a “targeted operation”. The hospital, Gaza’s biggest, has become a strategic objective for Israel, which says there is an Hamas command centre in bunkers underneath. Hamas denies this.
Updated
The Arabic-language spokesperson of the Israeli military has issued another call for Palestinian residents in the north of the Gaza Strip to flee to the south, saying it is “for your safety”.
The IDF said the corridor would be open until 4pm (2pm GMT) today. It also announced “a temporary tactical suspension of military activities during the day today” in a limited area of Gaza between 10am (8am GMT) and 2pm (noon GMT), which it said was for “humanitarian purposes” and which would take place “in the al-Salam and al-Nour neighbourhoods in the Jabaliya region”
#عاجل يا سكان غزة، وخاصة سكان شمال القطاع أودّ إخطاركم بالرسائل التالية:
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) November 15, 2023
🔴 الى سكان أحياء تل الهوا والصبرة والزيتون الغربي ودرج التفاح والشجاعية وجباليا نحثكم على ضرورة اخلاء مناطق سكنكم بشكل فوري حفاظًا على سلامتكم وذلك عبر طريق صلاح الدين حتى الساعة الرابعة (16:00) مساء… pic.twitter.com/S2zFhDRzBK
Israel has repeatedly bombarded the south of Gaza, including the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, which are in the area it has instructed Palestinians to evacuate to.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Gaza.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Micheál Martin, has expressed confidence that a significant number of Irish citizens will be able to leave Gaza on Wednesday via the Rafah crossing into Egypt.
About 35-40 Irish passport holders remain in the territory, and Martin is in Egypt before planned trips to Israel and the occupied West Bank.
“I’m very pleased that the number of our Irish citizens are on the list today, Wednesday, to come through the crossing at Rafah,” PA Media reports he told RTE.
“This is very welcome news. Obviously, it is still a very fluid situation. We’re very hopeful that a number of our citizens can make it through.”
Martin’s visit also has a focus on trying to secure the release of the Israeli-Irish girl Emily Hand, eight, who is feared to be held hostage by Hamas in Gaza after she was abducted from Israel during the 7 October attack.
Updated
Mai Alkaila, the health minister for the Palestinian Authority, which is based in the occupied West Bank and which does not control the hospitals in the Gaza Strip, has issued a statement about the “targeted operation” that Israel says its military is carrying out at al-Shifa.
Reuters quotes Alkaila saying Israel was “committing a new crime against humanity, medical staff and patients by besieging” Gaza’s largest hospital.
“We hold the occupation forces fully responsible for the lives of the medical staff, patients and displaced people in al-Shifa,” Alkaila said.
Updated
The Associated Press reports it has spoken to Mohammed Zaqout, the director of hospitals in Gaza, by phone.
He told them Israeli tanks had entered the medical compound at al-Shifa, and that soldiers had moved into buildings including the emergency and surgery departments, which house intensive care units.
“The occupation forces stormed the buildings,” he said angrily over the phone, it reports. He said the patients, including children, are terrified. “They are screaming. It’s a very terrifying situation … we can do nothing for the patients but pray.”
Updated
Our First Edition newsletter today has some useful background information on the al-Shifa hospital from my colleague Archie Bland. Here is an excerpt:
The attack at al-Shifa is militarily significant – but it is also taking place in the arena of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe that has drawn huge global attention, with conditions rapidly deteriorating on the site since the IDF surrounded it last week.
And so whether Israel is able to carry out the pinpoint attack it has promised is likely to be a critical test of the international community’s view of its conduct of the war.
The Dar al-Shifa (House of Healing) hospital is the most advanced in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. There are about 600 patients and somewhere between 200 and 700 medics and administrators on site; figures have varied widely on the number of displaced people there, from 1,500 to 15,000, with an estimate from a doctor on Wednesday morning that 2-3,000 were sheltering at the facility.
Israel claims that since it pulled out of Gaza in 2005, Hamas has expanded existing basements under the complex of buildings into a sprawling command centre as part of a broader strategy of using civilians to shield its forces from Israeli attack. Hamas denies this.
Dr Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Gaza health ministry, told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces had descended on the western side of the site. There were also reports of tanks inside the complex. A Gaza health ministry spokesperson said that the IDF had reached the basement and was “shooting and carrying out bombings”, while an eyewitness told the BBC that they had seen soldiers entering a specialised surgical department. None of these claims have been independently verified by the Guardian.
The Geneva conventions provide special protection for civilian hospitals, saying that they should “in no circumstances be the object of attack”. But they add that such protection can be rescinded if a hospital is used for “acts harmful to the enemy”, such as concealing fighters or weapons. If so, there is still a requirement for due warning and a “reasonable time limit” for the acts to stop.
Cordula Droege, chief legal officer of the ICRC, said that the law also prohibits any action that prevents hospitals from treating the sick. There was no “free licence to attack”, she said. “Every attack is subject to the principles of proportionality and precaution. This means that the party to the conflict has to do everything feasible to avoid or at least minimise harm to patients and medical staff.”
Read more here: Wednesday briefing – Why Israeli forces are raiding Gaza’s biggest hospital
Updated
The IDF has issued an additional statement on what it is describing as its “targeted operation” inside al-Shifa hospital, which is Gaza’s largest and which has been sheltering people for weeks from Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
In a message posted to Telegram, the IDF said: “Prior to their entry, the IDF troops encountered explosive devices and terrorist cells, and an engagement began in which terrorists were killed.”
The Times of Israel reports that “at least five Hamas gunmen were killed by troops during a gun battle outside the hospital”, and quotes the IDF claiming that “there has been no ‘friction’ between troops and patients and medical staff” and “there is no indication of hostages currently being held” at the location.
The IDF said that it had sent “medical teams and Arabic speaking soldiers” into the hospital.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
The Israeli military’s Arabic language spokesperson has posted to social media images which the IDF claims are medical supplies, labelled in English, that it has delivered to al-Shifa hospital as part of its “targeted operation”.
#عاجل تعمل قوات جيش الدفاع في هذه الساعة بشكل مركز في مستشفى الشفاء. تاتي هذه الاعمال داخل مجمع محدد توجد حوله معلومات استخبارية تؤشر الى وجود أعمال ارهابية لحماس وبناء على ضرورة عملياتية.
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) November 15, 2023
قبل الدخول الى المستشفى واجهت قواتنا عبوات ناسفة وخلايا تخريبية واندلعت اشتباكات قتل… pic.twitter.com/7HjzhAKEll
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
Updated
IDF spokesperson: 'IDF forces are operating at this time ... at al-Shifa hospital'
Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari has just released an update on the “targeted operation” inside al-Shifa.
“IDF forces are operating at this time in a targeted manner at Shifa hospital,” he says. “The activity takes place in a defined complex for which there is intelligence information indicating terrorist activity by the terrorist organisation Hamas and in accordance with an operational need.”
Hamas and officials of the health authorities in Gaza have denied the claims that the group is operating from the hospital.
Updated
If you’re just joining us, Israeli troops entered al-Shifa hospital early on Wednesday, conducting what it called a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area” of the medical complex.
The decision to send troops into the hospital marks an escalation of Israel’s offensive in Gaza but and will fuel calls for a ceasefire that Israel has so far resisted.
Youssef Abu Rish, an official from the Hamas-run health ministry inside the hospital, said he could see tanks inside the complex and “dozens of soldiers and commandos inside the emergency and reception buildings”.
Dr Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Gaza health ministry, told Al Jazeera television that Israeli forces had entered the western side of the sprawling site. “There are big explosions and dust entered the areas where we are. We believe an explosion occurred inside the hospital,” Bursh said.
Fighting has raged around the Shifa hospital compound for many days, trapping around 1,200 patients and staff. The hospital, Gaza’s biggest, has become a strategic objective for Israel, which says there is an Hamas command centre in bunkers underneath.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images from Gaza:
Updated
In the UK, as the Labour leader Keir Starmer seeks to contain a rebellion of his MPs on Wednesday night by urging them to back humanitarian pauses as opposed to a ceasefire, the biggest pro-Israeli group inside the party has mapped out a diplomatic strategy for a two-state solution without Hamas.
Labour is divided over whether to call for an immediate ceasefire that may leave Hamas in power or instead call for “longer humanitarian pauses” to protect civilian lives, leading to a ceasefire.
Those in the party backing the removal of Hamas from power in Gaza, including Starmer, have been weakened by appearing implicitly to endorse the war aims and methods of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. Starmer, his critics say, has not mapped out a clear route to a two state solution.
But a new Labour Friends of Israel pamphlet written by Michael Rubin argues that there is a realistic diplomatic route to marginalising “the enemies of peace”, including the now unpopular Netanyahu.
It says, “the status quo has collapsed, and something new can be born as it was after the 1973 war”.
The steps required to be implemented in parallel are:
A gradual expansion of Palestinian Authority territory in the West Bank; freezing settlement construction in isolated settlements; and upgrading international recognition of Palestinian sovereignty in coordination with Israel, all on condition of anti-corruption reforms inside the Palestinian Authority.
An extension of the Arab-Israeli normalisation deals to include Saudi Arabia.
Inside Gaza, a Palestinian Authority-backed, but initially autonomous, technocratic leadership funded by Gulf state investment. Hamas would be removed from power.
Within Israel, a massive investment in a culture of peace, as achieved in Northern Ireland.
The pamphlet says, “Polling shows that support for Netanyahu and his far-right coalition members has plunged further since the outbreak of the war. Were an election to be held now, the National Unity party of pragmatic centrist Benny Gantz would emerge as by far the largest party”.
What is al-Shifa hospital?
The Dar al-Shifa (House of Healing) hospital is a sprawling complex of medical facilities in Gaza City, in the north of Gaza. Located about 500 metres from the coast and a major north-south road, it comprises a group of six-storey buildings that dominate the skyline.
With between 600 and 900 beds and thousands of staff, it was the mainstay of healthcare provision locally, with a range of services that few of the other hospitals in Gaza could offer. Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, it has become a shelter for those displaced by the fighting and continuing Israeli bombardment.
Thousands of people have fled al-Shifa but health officials say remaining patients were dying due to energy shortages amid intense fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas militants. Life-saving equipment such as incubators cannot run without fuel to run generators. At least 32 patients, including three premature babies, had died over the past three days, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said.
There are between 600 and 650 inpatients at al-Shifa, as well as 200 to 500 health workers, and about 1,500 displaced people seeking shelter there, according to information shared with the World Health Organization, which was posted on Sunday on X.
The Israeli military said it was providing safe corridors for people to escape intense fighting in the north and move south, but Palestinian officials inside al-Shifa said the compound was surrounded by constant heavy gunfire and that Israeli snipers are all around.
Summary
It is just before 8am in Gaza City. Here is where things stand:
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said early on Wednesday it was “carrying out a precise and targeted operation” against Hamas in al-Shifa hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza.
Gaza’s health ministry was quoted by Palestinian news agency Shebab as saying that “dozens of soldiers” have entered the al-Shifa emergency department building, and that tanks have entered the complex.
A witness inside al-Shifa told the BBC they saw six tanks and more than 100 soldiers inside the hospital complex, in the area around the emergency department. The Guardian has not been able to verify the claims.
Ahmed Mokhallalati, a surgeon at al-Shifa, has told Al Jazeera that Israeli tanks and bulldozers had entered the complex. ‘The firing is still heavy, and we are hearing explosions everywhere,’ he said.
Figures vary widely on how many civilians are at the site. On Sunday, the World Health Organization (WHO) put the figure at about 1,500 displaced people, up to 650 inpatients and 200 to 500 health workers.
A White House official, speaking after the operation was announced, said it does not want to see a firefight in a hospital. A spokesperson for the National Security Council, who did not wish to be named, said: “We do not support striking a hospital from the air and we don’t want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, sick people trying to get medical care they deserve are caught in the crossfire.
Israeli defence officials say they have agreed to allow fuel shipments into the Gaza Strip for humanitarian operations, the Associated Press reports. It is the first time that Israel has allowed fuel into the territory since the Hamas militant group’s bloody cross-border invasion on 7 October. The UN said the fuel will be “used exclusively to run trucks for the distribution of incoming humanitarian aid” and that “this represents a fraction of the fuel needs for humanitarian operations.”
The death toll in Gaza was not updated in Tuesday for the fourth day in a row, the UNOCHA says, “following the collapse of services and communications at hospitals in the north, the Ministry of Health”.
The UN Security Council is negotiating a new resolution that demands “immediate extended humanitarian pauses” throughout the Gaza Strip but makes no mention of a cease-fire, the Associated Press reported. The resolution, drafted by Malta, does demand that “all parties” comply with their obligations under international law. The Security Council has rejected four resolutions on the war, and many of its 15 members have said they don’t want a vote on a new resolution unless it’s going to be approved.
Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu spoke “at length” about ongoing efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas, including many children and a number of Americans, the White House said.
The IDF announcement of its operation came within an hour of Palestinian health officials in Gaza saying the IDF had told them it would raid the hospital “within minutes”. The Gaza health ministry spokesperson, Ashraf al-Qidra, told Al Jazeera that Israel “informed us that it will raid al-Shifa hospital complex in the coming minutes”.
On its Hebrew X account, the IDF appeared to signal that once inside the hospital, it would continue to have a presence there, saying, “in the continuation of the operation, incubators, medical equipment and baby food are expected to be transferred to the hospital”.
The White House has said it has intelligence supporting Israel’s claims that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad use some hospitals in the Gaza Strip – including al-Shifa hospital – to conceal or support their military operations and to hold hostages. “That is a war crime,” national security spokesperson John Kirby said, adding that those actions by Hamas did not lessen Israel’s responsibility to protect civilians in the course of its military operations.
Hamas said it strongly condemned and rejected the claims, adding that these statements “give a green light to the Israeli occupation to commit further brutal massacres targeting hospitals”.
The WHO has insisted that moving the most vulnerable patients from al-Shifa hospital has become an “impossible task”. WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris, speaking to reporters in Geneva, said the “heroic” health workers have been “doing whatever they can to keep going” while the facility has been without power since Saturday and there was not enough food and clean water.
Another 200,000 people have fled northern Gaza in the past 10 days, the UN has said. The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (Ocha) said on Tuesday that only one hospital in the northern half of the blockaded Gaza Strip, al-Awda, still had electricity and was able to receive patients, with other medical facilities in sprawling Gaza City now mostly functioning as shelters for those fleeing the violence.
Israeli authorities have said they have now identified the remains of 859 civilians killed during the 7 October Hamas attack inside southern Israel. The work to identify bodies is ongoing, they said. On 10 November, Israel revised down the number of Israeli deaths on 7 October from the previously given figure of 1,400 to 1,200.
The families of Israelis being held hostage by Hamas have started a five-day march on Tuesday from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to demand the government does more to secure their release. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is coming under fierce criticism from some relatives for not doing more to secure their release, even as Israeli troops push further into the Gaza Strip and the region is bombarded by the Israeli air force.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators have gathered in Washington on Tuesday to support Israel, condemn antisemitism and demand the release of the hostages. US Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke at the “March for Israel” event on the National Mall, as well as family members of the hostages.
Updated
Gaza death toll has not been updated since Friday
The death toll in Gaza was not updated in Tuesday for the fourth day in a row, the UNOCHA says, “following the collapse of services and communications at hospitals in the north, the Ministry of Health”.
The UN agency says:
The reported fatality toll of Palestinians in Gaza as of 10 November at 14:00 (latest update provided) stood at 11,078, of whom 4,506 were said to be children and 3,027 women. About 2,700 others, including some 1,500 children, have been reported missing and may be trapped or dead under the rubble, awaiting rescue or recovery. Another 27,490 Palestinians have reportedly been injured.
182 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since 7 October, the UN says, 46 of whom were children. Eight people were killed in the 24 hours to Tuesday.
Fuel Israel will allow into Gaza 'represents fraction' of humanitarian fuel needs, says UN
That UNOCHA update also says that while Israel has agreed to today allow fuel into Gaza for the first time since 7 October, the fuel will be “used exclusively to run trucks for the distribution of incoming humanitarian aid”.
The UN agency said, “This represents a fraction of the fuel needs for humanitarian operations.”
Here is the full paragraph from the UN update on Tuesday evening:
Although 91 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered from Egypt on 14 November, the distribution of supplies to shelters, clinics and other beneficiaries has largely come to a halt due to lack of fuel. The Israeli authorities have indicated that, on 15 November, they would allow the entry of a limited amount of fuel into Gaza, to be used exclusively to run trucks for the distribution of incoming humanitarian aid. This represents a fraction of the fuel needs for humanitarian operations. Meanwhile, the entry of fuel for any other use, including the operation of generators at hospitals, and at water and sanitation facilities, remains banned. This will be the first time since 7 October that fuel is allowed into Gaza.
Only one northern Gaza hospital still operational
In case you missed this earlier, the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that just a since hospital in northern Gaza is still operational.
In its latest update, published on Tuesday evening in New York, it said:
Only one of the hospitals in Gaza city and northern Gaza (hereafter: the north) is reportedly still operational at a minimum level for those inside the hospital, as of 14 November; all others have ceased operations due to the lack of power, medical consumables, oxygen, food and water, compounded by bombardments and fighting in their vicinities. Al Ahli Hospital, in Gaza city, currently accommodates over 500 patients and is reportedly the sole medical facility able to admit patients in the north. However, it too faces increasing shortages and challenges.
What the IDF has said about entering al-Shifa hospital
Here is the Israeli announcement from early on Wednesday morning announcing that it was carrying out an operation inside al-Shifa hospital.
The IDF said on its english-language account on X:
The full post says:
Operational Update: IDF forces are carrying out a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the Shifa Hospital, based on intelligence information and an operational necessity. The IDF is conducting a ground operation in Gaza to defeat Hamas and rescue our hostages. Israel is at war with Hamas, not with the civilians in Gaza.
The IDF forces include medical teams and Arabic speakers, who have undergone specified training to prepare for this complex and sensitive environment, with the intent that no harm is caused to the civilians being used by Hamas as human shields.
In recent weeks, the IDF has publicly warned time and again that Hamas’ continued military use of the Shifa hospital jeopardizes its protected status under international law, and enabled ample time to stop this unlawful abuse of the hospital.
Yesterday, the IDF conveyed to the relevant authorities in Gaza once again that all military activities within the hospital must cease within 12 hours. Unfortunately, they did not.
The IDF has also facilitated wide-scale evacuations of the hospital and maintained regular dialogue with hospital authorities. We call upon all Hamas terrorists present in the hospital to surrender.
On its hebrew X account, the IDF appeared to signal that once inside the hopsital, it would continue to have a presence there, writing, “in the continuation of the operation, incubators, medical equipment and baby food are expected to be transferred to the hospital”.
What are the competing claims about Hamas operations inside al-Shifa?
Israel claims that Hamas has built its headquarters in bunkers and tunnels under the hospital, effectively using the building, patients and staff as a human shield. Security officials have also said that, after the surprise attacks into Israel by Hamas which killed 1,200 Israelis, mainly civilians in their homes or at a dance party, the senior Hamas leaders have been based in a “command complex” under the hospital.
At a recent press conference an IDF spokesperson displayed a satellite photograph of the hospital site with military “command” elements marked on it, which it described as an illustration based on “the true material that we have in our hands”. In footage said to be from an interrogation, a Hamas militant captured last month described how Hamas had “hidden in the hospitals”. Israel has also released other evidence apparently showing tunnels close to or in other medical facilities in Gaza.
Hamas and officials of the Hamas-run health authorities in Gaza have denied the claims, saying they are propaganda used to justify attacks on health facilities. Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British doctor working at al-Shifa described the Israeli claim as an “outlandish excuse”. Human Rights Watch, the US campaign group, said it could not corroborate the Israeli allegation.
How many people are inside al-Shifa hospital?
Figures for the number of people sheltering inside the al-Shifa hospital complex differ widely.
Marwan Abu Sada, the head of surgery at al-Shifa,told the Guardian on Tuesday that an estimated 15,000 people were sheltering in al-Shifa as of Saturday morning, after thousands fled the intensifying bombardments.
The World Health Organization said that about 1,500 people were sheltering in al-Shifa. On Sunday the WHO said, “There are between 600 and 650 inpatients at al-Shifa, as well as 200 to 500 health workers, and about 1,500 displaced people seeking shelter there.”
On Wednesday, as the IDF announced that it had entered the hospital, Ahmed Mokhallalati, a doctor at al-Shifa, told Al Jazeera that there are 650 patients at the hopsital, with 100 in critical condition.
He said between 2,000 and 3,000 people were sheltering at the hospital and that 700 medics and administrators were there.
UN negotiating resolution demanding 'immediate extended humanitarian pauses'
The UN Security Council is negotiating a new resolution that demands “immediate extended humanitarian pauses” throughout the Gaza Strip but makes no mention of a cease-fire, the Associated Press reports.
The resolution, drafted by Malta, does demand that “all parties” comply with their obligations under international law.
The Security Council has rejected four resolutions on the war, and many of its 15 members have said they don’t want a vote on a new resolution unless it’s going to be approved.
The draft, obtained Tuesday by AP, says the pauses should be “for a sufficient number of days” to open humanitarian corridors and enable unhindered access for UN, Red Cross and other aid workers to get water, electricity, fuel, food and medical supplies to those in need as well as to repair essential infrastructure and enable urgent rescue and recovery efforts.
Youssef Abul Reesh, an official from the Hamas-run health ministry who is inside the hospital, has told AFP he can see tanks inside the al-Shifa complex and “dozens of soldiers and commandos inside the emergency and reception buildings.”
Updated
Israeli defence officials say they will allow fuel shipments into Gaza for aid distribution
Israeli defense officials say they have agreed to allow fuel shipments into the Gaza Strip for humanitarian operations, the Associated Press reports.
It is the first time that Israel has allowed fuel into the territory since the Hamas militant group’s bloody cross-border invasion on 7 October.
Israel declared war and barred fuel shipments after the attack, saying Hamas would divert supplies for military use. But fuel is key to operations at Gaza hospitals, which run on generators, and the shortages hindered the United Nations from delivering humanitarian aid.
COGAT, the Israeli defence body responsible for Palestinian affairs, announced early Wednesday that it would allow UUN trucks to refill at the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border later Wednesday. It said the decision was in response to a request from the US. But it gave no details on when the shipments are to be delivered, other than to say it’s allowing 24,000 litres (6,240 gallons) of fuel into Gaza.
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, had warned late Tuesday that its fuel-storage facility in Gaza had run dry and that it would soon be forced to halt operations.
Updated
Dr Muhammad Zaqout, the Gaza health ministry’s director of hospitals, also told Al Jazeera that some of the people sheltering at al-Shifa hospital came under fire while trying to leave using a hospital corridor that had been declared safe (it is unclear who declared the corridor safe, the IDF or local authorities).
“Not a single bullet was fired from inside the hospital during the occupation forces’ storming of the complex,” Zaquout told Al Jazeera.
Dr Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Gaza health ministry, told Al Jazeera television that Israeli forces had raided the western side of the medical complex.
“There are big explosions and dust entered the areas where we are. We believe an explosion occurred inside the hospital,” Bursh said.
Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra to Al Jazeera: “The occupation army is now in the basement, and searching the basement. They are inside the complex, shooting and carrying out bombings”.
Israeli forces first raided the surgery and emergency departments, Mohammed Zaqout, the Gaza health ministry’s director of hospitals, told Al Jazeera.
Israeli military says it is carrying out operation inside Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital
Israel’s military has said had entered al-Shifa hospital early on Wednesday, conducting what it called a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area” of the medical complex.
Less than an hour earlier, around 1am local time, a Gaza health ministry spokesperson said Israel had told officials in the territory that it would raid the hospital complex “in the coming minutes”. Al-Shifa is Gaza’s biggest hospital.
Dr Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Gaza health ministry, told Al Jazeera television that Israeli forces had raided the western side of the sprawling site. “There are big explosions and dust entered the areas where we are. We believe an explosion occurred inside the hospital,” Bursh said.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in Gaza has told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces are searching the basement of the al-Shifa Hospital.
Updated
Opening summary
This is the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war with me, Helen Sullivan.
The top development this morning: the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said early on Wednesday it was “carrying out a precise and targeted operation” against Hamas in al-Shifa hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza.
Gaza’s health ministry was quoted by Palestinian news agency Shebab as saying that “dozens of soldiers” have entered the al-Shifa emergency department building, and that tanks have entered the complex.
More shortly.
In the meantime, here is a summary of the last few hours:
A witness inside al-Shifa told the BBC they saw six tanks and more than 100 soldiers inside the hospital complex, in the area around the emergency department. The Guardian has not been able to verify the claims.
Ahmed Mokhallalati, a surgeon at al-Shifa, has told Al Jazeera that Israeli tanks and bulldozers had entered the complex. ‘The firing is still heavy, and we are hearing explosions everywhere,’ he said.
Figures vary widely on how many civilians are at the site. On Sunday, the World Health Organization (WHO) put the figure at about 1,500 displaced people, up to 650 inpatients and 200 to 500 health workers.
A White House official, speaking after the operation was announced, said it does not want to see a firefight in a hospital. A spokesperson for the National Security Council, who did not wish to be named, said: “We do not support striking a hospital from the air and we don’t want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, sick people trying to get medical care they deserve are caught in the crossfire.
Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu spoke “at length” about ongoing efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas, including many children and a number of Americans, the White House said.
The IDF announcement of its operation came within an hour of Palestinian health officials in Gaza saying the IDF had told them it would raid the hospital “within minutes”. The Gaza health ministry spokesperson, Ashraf al-Qidra, told Al Jazeera that Israel “informed us that it will raid al-Shifa hospital complex in the coming minutes”.
On its Hebrew X account, the IDF appeared to signal that once inside the hospital, it would continue to have a presence there, saying, “in the continuation of the operation, incubators, medical equipment and baby food are expected to be transferred to the hospital”.
The White House has said it has intelligence supporting Israel’s claims that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad use some hospitals in the Gaza Strip – including al-Shifa hospital – to conceal or support their military operations and to hold hostages. “That is a war crime,” national security spokesperson John Kirby said, adding that those actions by Hamas did not lessen Israel’s responsibility to protect civilians in the course of its military operations.
Hamas said it strongly condemned and rejected the claims, adding that these statements “give a green light to the Israeli occupation to commit further brutal massacres targeting hospitals”.
The WHO has insisted that moving the most vulnerable patients from al-Shifa hospital has become an “impossible task”. WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris, speaking to reporters in Geneva, said the “heroic” health workers have been “doing whatever they can to keep going” while the facility has been without power since Saturday and there was not enough food and clean water.
Another 200,000 people have fled northern Gaza in the past 10 days, the UN has said. The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (Ocha) said on Tuesday that only one hospital in the northern half of the blockaded Gaza Strip, al-Awda, still had electricity and was able to receive patients, with other medical facilities in sprawling Gaza City now mostly functioning as shelters for those fleeing the violence.
Israeli authorities have said they have now identified the remains of 859 civilians killed during the 7 October Hamas attack inside southern Israel. The work to identify bodies is ongoing, they said. On 10 November, Israel revised down the number of Israeli deaths on 7 October from the previously given figure of 1,400 to 1,200.
The families of Israelis being held hostage by Hamas have started a five-day march on Tuesday from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to demand the government does more to secure their release. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is coming under fierce criticism from some relatives for not doing more to secure their release, even as Israeli troops push further into the Gaza Strip and the region is bombarded by the Israeli air force.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators have gathered in Washington on Tuesday to support Israel, condemn antisemitism and demand the release of the hostages. US Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke at the “March for Israel” event on the National Mall, as well as family members of the hostages.
