Closing summary
The Israeli military has launched a fresh attack on the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people according to medics, after ordering Palestinians to leave several neighbourhoods including areas that had been designated by the military as part of a humanitarian zone. Palestinian civil defence in the territory estimated that 400,000 people sheltering in the city were affected by the order, which included the eastern part of Al-Mawasi, a sandy strip of land without infrastructure where Palestinians have sought shelter in tent encampments in recent months.
Lebanese armed group Hezbollah broadcast drone video on Wednesday that it said showed air defence facilities, planes and fuel storage units at Israel’s Ramat David airbase, nearly 50km (30 miles) into Israeli territory. It was the third in a series of videos released by Hezbollah which the group has said are meant to demonstrate how far its surveillance of Israel has reached. The first video showed the Israeli port city of Haifa and the second the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 39,145 Palestinians and wounded 90,257 since 7 October, the Palestinian health ministry said on Wednesday. A total of 55 Palestinians have been killed and 110 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry said in a statement.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have blocked entrances to the Foreign Office in London in protest at the perceived failure of the new Labour government to do more to change UK policy towards Israel’s offensive in Gaza. As many as 300 people sealed off access to the Foreign Office on Wednesday morning with a large banner saying “Genocide Made in Britain”. Protesters said six demonstrators had been arrested.
British police on Wednesday arrested nine people during a protest against arms exports to Israel that briefly blocked the street outside the foreign ministry, highlighting pressure on the new Labour government over its stance on the Gaza war. Pro-Palestinian protesters in Britain have been campaigning for a government ban on arms sales to Israel following its offensive on Gaza in response to the 7 October attack.
There are also protests in Washington DC over the arrival of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, including a sit-in at a congressional office building that ended with multiple arrests, according to the Associated Press. Some of the demonstrations have condemned Israel but others have expressed support while pressuring Netanyahu to strike a ceasefire deal and bring home the hostages still being held by Hamas.
SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said that his Starlink satellite internet service has been activated in a hospital in Gaza, where many medical facilities have been destroyed by the war, with the help of the United Arab Emirates and Israel. The Gulf Arab state’s foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, thanked the billionaire entrepreneur for supporting the UAE field hospital in Gaza, where many medical facilities have been demolished and medicines are scarce, Reuters reported.
Doctors in the largest hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis yesterday pleaded for supplies from a facility overwhelmed by wounded people, as Israeli airstrikes, artillery fire and fighting on the streets continued. “There’s no space for more patients. There’s no space in the operating theatres. There is a lack of medical supplies, so we cannot save our patients,” Mohammed Zaqout, the director of Nasser hospital, told AFP. The UN’s office for humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said the hospital was facing “a new mass casualty influx, amid a dire lack of blood units, medical supplies and hospital beds”.
The German government has banned a Hamburg-based organization accused of promoting the Iranian leadership’s ideology and supporting Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, as police raided 53 properties around the country. The ban on the Islamic Center Hamburg, or IZH, and five suborganizations around Germany followed searches in November, AP reported. Interior minister Nancy Faeser said evidence gathered in the investigation “confirmed the serious suspicions to such a degree that we ordered the ban today.”
The Palestinian Authority’s budget deficit is projected to surge by 172% in 2024 compared to 2023, according to a statement from the cabinet on Tuesday, Reuters reports. Revenues are also expected to drop by 21% due to the ongoing conflict in Gaza. The announcement followed President Mahmoud Abbas’ approval of the emergency budget for 2024, which includes austerity measures such as reducing salaries, operational and capital expenditures, and maintaining minimal development expenditures.
That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Middle East crisis live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
The Israeli military has launched a fresh attack on the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people according to medics, after ordering Palestinians to leave several neighbourhoods including areas that had been designated by the military as part of a humanitarian zone.
Palestinian civil defence in the territory estimated that 400,000 people sheltering in the city were affected by the order, which included the eastern part of Al-Mawasi, a sandy strip of land without infrastructure where Palestinians have sought shelter in tent encampments in recent months.
The military claimed Hamas militants in Khan Younis and part of Al-Mawasi were using the area to launch rockets at Israel.
“We were displaced from the eastern regions, they called us to evacuate, we took our children and left,” Osama Qudeih told the Associated Press (AP). “There was no safe place left in the Gaza Strip … We went out walking in the streets, not knowing where to go.”
Another woman collapsed in exhaustion after saying it was her seventh or eighth displacement. “Every day we are displaced,” Kholoud al-Dadas told AP as she clutched her children. “Where are the countries? Where is the world, where are the presidents, where are they? Come and see how we are, our children, and what is happening to us.”
