Hundreds are feared dead or injured after a strike on a hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday, the Hamas-run health ministry said. Hundreds are still under the rubble, it said. If confirmed, the attack would be by far the deadliest Israeli airstrike in five wars fought since 2008. Israel’s military said it did not have any details on the reported bombing. The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, has declared three days of mourning.
The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said an Israeli airstrike had killed at least six people after striking one of its schools that has been functioning as a shelter for displaced people. Several hospitals in Gaza have become refuges for hundreds of people hoping to be spared bombardment.
The US president, Joe Biden, is expected to visit the Middle East on Wednesday, on a whirlwind tour of diplomacy which will take in meetings with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and other officials in Tel Aviv. Biden will then move on to meet Jordan’s King Abdullah, and the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, cancelled his meeting after the airstrike.
The United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday that Israel’s siege of Gaza and its evacuation order there could amount to the international crime of the forcible transfer of civilians. “We are concerned that this order, combined with the imposition of a complete siege of Gaza, may not be considered as lawful temporary evacuation and would therefore amount to a forcible transfer of civilians in breach of international law,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN human rights office, said.
Ministry of health officials in Gaza have said the overnight death toll stands at “at least 80 people”, and that people are trapped in rubble after a night of Israeli bombardments on the Gaza Strip. The heaviest bombardments occurred in three areas in the south of Gaza: Khan Younis, Rafah and Deir el-Balah, and many of those killed were reported to be families who had evacuated from Gaza City in the north, as the Israeli military had instructed.
A spokesperson for the UN’s relief and works agency (UNRWA) has said that “supplies are dwindling” in Gaza, amid fears “waterborne diseases are going to start spreading”. Juliette Touma, the UNRWA director of communications, said “Our staff are also very, very tired. They have been impacted themselves by the war. Many of them lost loved ones, we have sadly at UNRWA lost 14 staff members and these numbers continue to increase. No place is safe in the Gaza Strip, at the moment as the bombardments continue.”
Hamas has said a senior commander and member of its higher military council, Ayman Nofal, has been killed by an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli air force also said he had been killed, stating that “he directed many terrorist attacks against Israel and the security forces, and he directed the targets of Hamas’s rocket fire, specifically targeting areas populated by uninvolved civilians.”
Over a week on from Hamas’s massacres in Israel, more than 350 bodies of suspected civilian victims still have not been identified, according to Dr Chen Kugel, the director of Israel’s National Center of Forensic Medicine. Some bodies were burned beyond recognition and others had decayed badly before they were found.
The IDF has said 199 families have now been notified that their loved ones are being held hostage. It is an increase of 40 families, from 155 notified at the time of the last update.
Hamas has demanded the release of “6,000 male and female prisoners in Israeli prisons” in exchange for the hostages. A Hamas spokesperson said there were “about 200-250” Israeli captives in Gaza, a number higher than that recognised by Israeli authorities.
Hamas has released a video of Mia Schem, a 21-year-old French-Israeli woman taken hostage on 7 October. In the footage, Schem, whose injured arm is shown being treated by an unidentified medical worker, asks to be returned to her family as quickly as possible. The Israeli military issued a statement, saying it was in constant touch with Schem’s family and condemning Hamas as a “murderous terrorist organisation”. It said it was using “all intelligence and operational measures” for the return of the captives. France’s foreign ministry described the video as “vile”.
Turkey is in talks with Hamas on the release of foreigners, civilians, and children held hostage by the group, foreign minister Hakan Fidan said in Beirut on Tuesday.
Health authorities in Gaza say at least 3,000 people have been killed in Israel’s bombardment since 7 October. At least 940 children and 1,032 women have been killed, the Hamas government media office said.
A World Health Organization (WHO) official has said it believes there have been 2,800 deaths in Gaza, with 11,000 wounded. It says half are women and children. The WHO said there had been 115 attacks on health facilities in Gaza.
Israel’s health ministry has stated that 4,229 Israelis have been wounded since Hamas launched its attack on 7 October.
A British teenage girl said to be missing with her sister after the Hamas attacks has been murdered, her family has told the BBC. They said on Tuesday morning that 13-year-old Yahel was now confirmed as having been killed in the attack.
An Israeli military spokesman said on Tuesday that the status of the Gaza Strip after Israel’s planned ground assault would be a “global issue” for discussion by Israel’s politicians and with other countries. The spokesperson said the military had “presented an operational plan” to the Israeli cabinet but did not elaborate, adding “Gaza borders other countries … so when we say things on the final status, they will combine the orders of the political level and the military.”
Haaretz reported that “two people were wounded and many mortars hit the town” of Metula in northern Israel. The IDF said it had returned fire into Lebanon.
The Israeli air force has posted on social media to claim that it has killed four people who were approaching the country’s perimeter fence from the direction of Lebanon.
The head of Israeli military intelligence said he bears responsibility for the intelligence failures that led to Hamas carrying out its surprise onslaught on 7 October. Maj Gen Aharon Haliva is the latest Israeli defence official to publicly state that they take responsibility for the Hamas attack, after the head of the Shin Bet security agency and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff made similar remarks in recent days.
Egypt will host a summit of state leaders to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Saturday.
The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, is set to visit Israel, possibly as soon as Thursday, according to a Sky News report. Meanwhile, the UK Foreign Office said it had successfully brought back more than 900 people from Israel.
Jordan’s King Abdullah warned against trying to push Palestinian refugees into Egypt or Jordan, adding that the humanitarian situation must be dealt with inside Gaza and the West Bank. “That is a red line, because I think that is the plan by certain of the usual suspects to try and create de facto issues on the ground. No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt,” the king said at a news conference after a meeting with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in Berlin. Scholz called for preventing an escalation in the Middle East, and said: “I expressly warn Hezbollah and Iran not to intervene in the conflict.”
Germany’s duty is to “stand up for the existence of the state of Israel”, chancellor Olaf Scholz said during a joint press conference with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Berlin is “doing all it can to ensure that this conflict does not escalate” across the region, he added.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said bombardments in Gaza must stop immediately. He said Israeli officials should be tried for their crimes committed against Palestinians in Gaza, and claimed no one would be able to stop Muslims around the world and resistance forces if Israel’s crimes in Gaza continue.
A 12th Palestinian journalist has been reportedly killed by an Israeli airstrike since it began its retaliatory bombing campaign. Mohammad Balousha, who worked for Palestine Today, was in the al-Saftawi neighbourhood in northern Gaza. On Sunday the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said 11 journalists had been killed. Israel’s military has said it is still looking into the killing of a Reuters journalist in Lebanon near the border with Israel.
The UN’s culture body, Unesco, warned that the Hamas attack on Israel has led to intense fighting that has resulted in the “deadliest week for journalists in any recent conflict”. Nine journalists have been confirmed killed in the line of duty since 7 October and “the death toll could rise further still”, the agency said.
Jewish parents in the UK should continue to send their children to school, Israel’s ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely has said, after security fears have led to a number closing their doors.
Israel has a “moral and practical responsibility” to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, the UK’s development minister, Andrew Mitchell, has said.
Spain has dismissed Israel’s claims that some members of the acting coalition government have aligned themselves “with Isis-style terrorism” by criticising Netanyahu’s response to Hamas’s atrocities and suggesting Israeli forces are committing genocide and war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
