This blog is closing. Our live coverage will resume in a few hours’ time. In the meantime, you can find all of our coverage of the Israel-Hamas war here.
Summary
It is nearing 3.30 am in Gaza City. Here is where things stand:
The World Food Programme warned civilians in Gaza “face immediate possibility of starvation”. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the Gaza Strip now faces a “massive” food gap and widespread hunger while nearly the entire population of the Palestinian enclave is in “desperate” need of food assistance. In a statement on Thursday, WFP executive director Cindy McCain said food and water supplies are “practically non-existent” in Gaza, and “only a fraction” of aid that is needed is reaching the territory through the borders. She said: “With winter fast approaching, unsafe and overcrowded shelters, and the lack of clean water, civilians are facing the immediate possibility of starvation. There is no way to meet current hunger needs with one operational border crossing. The only hope is opening another, safe passage for humanitarian access to bring life-saving food into Gaza.”
At least 11,470 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the Israel-Hamas war broke out six weeks ago, according to figures by the Palestinian health authorities. The ministry said 4,707 of the dead were children and minors and that 3,155 were women. The vast majority have been killed in Israeli airstrikes. In recent days, the Palestinian health ministry in the West Bank has started updating the Gaza death toll, AP reported. Until last week, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza was the main official source for the death toll in the Palestinian enclave, but it stopped publishing updates after key ministry officials based in Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital lost electricity and connectivity.
All communications are down in Gaza on Thursday night. The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said Gaza was in a “total communication blackout” and that he feared the blackout could heighten panic in the Gaza Strip and erode civil order. The main telecommunications companies confirmed no telecom services were working because of the lack of fuel.
The Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza has been completely shut down and about 45 patients who urgently need surgery have been left in the reception area, the hospital chief Atef al-Kahlout has said. Al-Ahli hospital is currently under siege by Israeli tanks and a “violent attack is underway” at the hospital, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Thursday.
The Israeli operation in al-Shifa hospital continued on Thursday after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) entered the sprawling compound in the early hours of Wednesday morning. There were reports of shooting at the hospital. The IDF said it had uncovered a Hamas tunnel shaft and a vehicle with weapons at the Dar al-Shifa hospital complex. It made videos and photographs of the tunnel shaft and weapons public, but no independent verification was possible. The IDF accused Hamas earlier in the day of hiding evidence that would confirm that the organisation had used the hospital as a command and control centre – a charge Israel has made frequently in recent weeks as troops have advanced further into the territory and global anger has mounted.
Hamas and medical administrators have strenuously denied the allegation al-Shifa hospital was a command centre and the health ministry in Gaza said the Israeli military did not find any weapons in the hospital. Human Rights Watch said that images released by Israel on Wednesday of weapons it says its soldiers found inside al-Shifa were not sufficient to justify revoking the hospital’s status as protected by the laws of war. The White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said the US is still “convinced by the soundness” of its intelligence “that convinces us that Hamas was using al-Shifa as a command and control node”.
The UN is looking for ways to evacuate al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, but options are limited by security and logistical constraints, a senior World Health Organization (WHO) official said on Thursday. One obstacle is that the Palestinian Red Crescent lacks sufficient fuel for its ambulances within Gaza to evacuate patients, according to the WHO regional emergency director, Rick Brennan. The WHO understood that there were still about 600 patients, including 27 in critical condition, at Shifa, he said.
Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has announced a “next stage” of the offensive in Gaza during a situational assessment on Thursday. “I arrived today at the headquarters of the division whose special forces also operate inside the Shifa hospital,” i24NEWS reported Gallant saying alongside the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) deputy chief of staff and other senior officers. “There are significant findings. We are working with precision and determination.” His comments came as the Israeli military said it uncovered a Hamas tunnel shaft and a vehicle with weapons at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital complex. It made videos and photographs of the tunnel shaft and weapons public, but no independent verification was possible.
The Israeli military said it has recovered the body of an Israeli hostage from a building near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Yehudit Weiss, a 65-year-old woman, was abducted from the Be’eri kibbutz by Hamas during their attack on southern Israel on 7 October. The IDF said the body had been identified by forensic scientific examiners and the family had been informed.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said there will be no aid deliveries into Gaza from the Rafah crossing from Friday. All communications are down in Gaza because of a lack of fuel, UNRWA said in a statement on Thursday. “This makes it impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys,” Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s director of communications, said. The UNRWA commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said he believed there was a deliberate attempt to “strangle” its humanitarian work in Gaza.
The Israeli air force dropped leaflets overnight on Thursday in eastern areas of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip, telling people to evacuate to shelters for their own safety – suggesting imminent military operations in the area. The flyers told civilians in Bani Shuhaila, Khuza’a, Abassan and al-Qarara that anyone in the vicinity of militants or their positions was “putting his life in danger”, local people told Reuters. Tens of thousands of people displaced from the north have sought refuge in Khan Younis, causing severe overcrowding amid shortages of food and water.
The heads of several United Nations agencies and other humanitarian organisations have said they will not take part in the establishment of any “safe zones” in Gaza that are declared by only one side of the conflict. The joint statement on Thursday said proposals to unilaterally create “safe zones” in Gaza “risk creating harm for civilians, including large-scale loss of life, and must be rejected”.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said there were “strong indications” that some hostages were held in Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, and that it was “one of the reasons” Israeli forces entered the hospital. In an interview with CBS, Netanyahu added that “if they were, they were taken out.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also spoken with Israeli war cabinet Minister Benny Gantz and discussed efforts to boost and accelerate the transit of critical humanitarian assistance into Gaza, the State Department said on Thursday.
linken also stressed the urgent need for affirmative steps to de-escalate tensions in the West Bank, including by confronting rising levels of settler extremist violence, the department said in a statement.The UN high commissioner for human rights has said the killing of civilians in Gaza cannot be dismissed as “collateral damage”, while calling for a ceasefire based on humanitarian and human rights grounds. Volker Türk said that five weeks into the war, “massive outbreaks of infectious disease, and hunger” seemed inevitable in the densely populated Gaza.
Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam brigades, has claimed responsibility for a shooting at a checkpoint between Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem. Six Israeli security force members were wounded after three gunmen opened fire at the checkpoint on Wednesday, Israeli police said.
Shelling intensified across Lebanon’s frontier with Israel on Thursday, with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah saying it had fired missiles at eight positions across the border, and Israel saying it had retaliated with artillery.
Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, on Thursday repeated his call for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign. In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 on Wednesday, Lapid said “we can’t run an extended [military] operation with a prime minister we do not have faith in.”
Joe Biden has presented an unapologetic defence of his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, arguing on Wednesday night that Hamas presented a continuing threat to Israel. The US president 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. Biden’s remarks come amid escalating tensions between US and Israeli officials over Israel’s future strategy.
Israel’s UN ambassador has denounced a UN security council resolution calling for a “humanitarian pauses” as “disconnected from reality” and “meaningless”. The UNSC voted on Wednesday to back a resolution calling for “urgent extended humanitarian pauses for [a] sufficient number of days to allow aid access” to the embattled territory. The US and the UK abstained.
Norway’s parliament has adopted a resolution calling on the government to be ready to recognise an “independent” Palestinian state. Iceland, Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic and Romania are among countries to have already given legal recognition to a Palestinian state.
Updated
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described Israel’s attempts to minimise casualties in Gaza as “not successful”.
Netanyahu was asked by US television’s CBS News whether Israel’s killing of thousands of Palestinians as it retaliates for the 7 October attack by Gaza’s ruling Hamas militants would fuel a new generation of hatred.
“Any civilian death is a tragedy. And we shouldn’t have any because we’re doing everything we can to get the civilians out of harm’s way, while Hamas is doing everything to keep them in harm’s way,” Netanyahu said.
“So we send leaflets, (we) call them on their cell phones, and we say: ‘leave’. And many have left,” Netanyahu said.
Israel has said the goal of its military campaign is to destroy Hamas.
“The other thing that I can say is that we’ll try to finish that job with minimal civilian casualties. That’s what we’re trying to do: minimal civilian casualties. But unfortunately, we’re not successful.”
At least 11,470 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the Israel-Hamas war broke out six weeks ago, according to figures by the Palestinian health authorities.
The ministry said 4,707 of the dead were children and minors and that 3,155 were women.
The vast majority are civilians killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Updated
Syrian state media reports that Syrian forces have shot down Israeli missiles fired from the Golan heights towards the outskirts of Damascus. The Guardian has not verified this independently. We’ll have more on this as it emerges.
More now on the protests outside the offices of Labour’s MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, Rushanara Ali after she did not back a Gaza ceasefire vote in parliament.
About 200 people protested at Ali’s office and some of those present said she had missed an opportunity to use her voice to condemn the violence from Israel – and said they felt resentment that she had chosen to remain on the Labour frontbench rather than signal what she believed.
Ali said on social media she had “long supported a ceasefire”, but explained she was abstaining from the vote because “the reality is that this motion does not secure a ceasefire and would not lead towards one”.
Eight Labour frontbenchers, including Jess Phillips, defied Starmer’s whip to back the ceasefire amendment. But the reasoning for Ali, and others who decided to abstain, was that they have more influence over Labour’s position – and, ultimately, on the international stage with Israel – if they made the case for a stop to the conflict from within the party’s top team.
Ali added: “Leaving the shadow government is something I am always willing to do, which is why I completely respect the decision taken by fellow MPs today. The moment I think my presence is less positively impactful than my absence, I will do so.”
If you’re just joining us, here is where things stand: Internet and telephone services collapsed across the Gaza Strip on Thursday for lack of fuel, the main Palestinian provider said, bringing a potentially long-term blackout of communications as Israel signaled its offensive against Hamas could next target the south, where most of the population has taken refuge.
Israeli troops for a second day searched Shifa Hospital in the north for traces of Hamas. They displayed what they said were a tunnel entrance and weapons found in a truck inside the compound. But the military has yet to release evidence of a central Hamas command centre that Israel has said is concealed beneath the complex. Hamas and staff at the hospital, Gaza’s largest, deny the allegations.
The military said it found the body of one of the hostages abducted by Hamas, 65-year-old Yehudit Weiss, in a building adjacent to Shifa, where it said it also found assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. It did not give the cause of her death.
The communications breakdown largely cuts off Gaza’s 2.3 million people from each other and the outside world, worsening the severe humanitarian crisis in southern Gaza, even as Israeli airstrikes continue there.
The UN’s World Food Program warned of “the immediate possibility of starvation” in Gaza as the food supply has broken down under Israel’s seal and too little is coming from Egypt.v
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also spoken with Israeli war cabinet Minister Benny Gantz and discussed efforts to boost and accelerate the transit of critical humanitarian assistance into Gaza, the State Department said on Thursday.
The two men discussed efforts to prevent the conflict widening and to secure the release of hostages. Blinken also stressed the urgent need for affirmative steps to de-escalate tensions in the West Bank, including by confronting rising levels of settler extremist violence, the department said in a statement.
Crowds gathered outside the constituency office of Labour’s MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, Rushanara Ali, on Thursday, chanting “vote her out” and “Labour party shame on you” after she did not back a Gaza ceasefire vote in parliament.
There were protests elsewhere against Labour MPs who backed Keir Starmer in the vote on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Some constituents were angry that Ali, a shadow business minister, did not back an amendment to the king’s speech brought by the SNP calling for a ceasefire.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry about efforts to increase humanitarian aid to Palestinians in urgent need, the State Department said on Thursday.
Blinken reaffirmed the importance of concrete steps to minimise harm to Palestinian civilians in all of Gaza, the State Department said, and reaffirmed Washington’s rejection of the forced displacement of Palestinians, the department said in a statement.
This is Helen Sullivan taking over the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
Benjamin Netanyahu has said there were “strong indications” that some hostages were held in Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, and that it was “one of the reasons” Israeli forces entered the hospital.
In an interview with CBS, the Israeli prime minister added that “if they were, they were taken out.”
He said Israel has “intelligence about the hostages”, but that “the less I say about it the better”.
🚨BREAKING NEWS: Israeli PM Netanyahu tells me they had “strong indications” some of the hostages were held in Al-Shifa Hospital. We’ll have more of our exclusive interview tonight on the @CBSEveningNews pic.twitter.com/xoTD4FdMZC
— Norah O'Donnell 🇺🇸 (@NorahODonnell) November 16, 2023
His remarks came as the Israeli military said it uncovered a Hamas tunnel shaft and a vehicle with weapons at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital complex. It also said it had recovered the body of Yehudit Weiss, a 65-year-old woman taken hostage by Hamas, near al-Shifa.
The Israel Defense Forces have accused Hamas of hiding evidence that would confirm that the organisation had used the hospital as a command and control centre – a charge Israel has made frequently in recent weeks as troops have advanced further into the territory and global anger has mounted.
Updated
A press freedom group has said it is “highly alarmed” by widespread reports of a communications blackout in Gaza due to a fuel shortage.
The complete shutdown of communications services throughout the Gaza Strip poses “an extreme risk” to the lives of journalists reporting in Gaza, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said.
A statement from Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator, reads:
By withholding fuel from Gaza, the Israeli government is preventing journalists in Gaza from providing the world with updates on the war, leaving the international community vulnerable to deadly propaganda, disinformation, and misinformation.
The Israeli and Egyptian governments must immediately allow fuel into the Gaza Strip as part of the essential humanitarian assistance needed in the region.
Death toll in Gaza rises to 11,470, including 4,707 children – health ministry
At least 11,470 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the Israel-Hamas war broke out six weeks ago, according to figures by the Palestinian health authorities.
The ministry said 4,707 of the dead were children and minors and that 3,155 were women. The vast majority have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.
In recent days, the Palestinian health ministry in the West Bank has started updating the Gaza death toll, Associated Press reported.
Until last week, the health ministry in Gaza was the main official source for the death toll in the Palestinian enclave, but it stopped publishing updates after key ministry officials based in Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital lost electricity and connectivity.
Updated
Protesters against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza were locked in a battle of words with Washington police on Thursday after accusing officers of violently breaking up a demonstration on Capitol Hill that organisers insist was peaceful.
Leaders of the Ceasefire Now Coalition said 90 of their activists were injured in confrontations that took place after they staged a candlelit vigil outside the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters on Wednesday evening.
The coalition said volunteers were pepper-sprayed, kicked, pulled by the hair and dragged down flights of stairs by officers in riot gear, who they accused of ignoring long-standing protocols for non-violent protest by failing to issue dispersal notices or engage with the rally’s specially designated police liaison representative.
But in a rebuttal, police said the group was “not peaceful” and said six officers had to be treated for injuries after being pepper-sprayed and punched. One 24-year-old protester was arrested for allegedly slamming an officer into a garage door and punching her in the face, police said in a statement.
Organisers said the event – jointly staged by three leftist groups, Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now and the Democratic Socialists of America – followed the traditions of non-violence pioneered by the US civil rights movement.
But Wednesday’s clashes was one of the most graphic signs yet of the dissension arising from Israel’s military response to last month’s attack by Hamas.
Updated
Israeli forces 'advancing to next stage' of war in Gaza, says defence minister
Israel’s defensce minister, Yoav Gallant, has announced a “next stage” of the offensive in Gaza during a situational assessment on Thursday.
“I arrived today at the headquarters of the division whose special forces also operate inside the Shifa hospital,” i24NEWS reported Gallant saying alongside the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) deputy chief of staff and other senior officers. “There are significant findings. We are working with precision and determination.”
His comments came as the Israeli military said it uncovered a Hamas tunnel shaft and a vehicle with weapons at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital complex. It made videos and photographs of the tunnel shaft and weapons public, but no independent verification was possible.
Gallant continued:
We have completed taking over and clearing the western part of Gaza City and are now advancing to the next stage of the offensive.
He said Israeli forces are working “precisely, determinedly, decisively” and coordinating air, sea and land forces, accompanied by “very strong and encompassing intelligence”.
Earlier on Thursday, Israel dropped leaflets into southern Gaza telling Palestinian civilians to leave four towns on the eastern edge of Khan Younis, raising fears that its war against Hamas could spread to areas it previously said were safe.
Updated
World Food Programme warns civilians in Gaza 'face immediate possibility of starvation'
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the Gaza Strip now faces a “massive” food gap and widespread hunger while nearly the entire population of the Palestinian enclave is in “desperate” need of food assistance.
In a statement on Thursday, WFP executive director Cindy McCain said food and water supplies are “practically non-existent” in Gaza, and “only a fraction” of aid that is needed is reaching the territory through the borders. She said:
With winter fast approaching, unsafe and overcrowded shelters, and the lack of clean water, civilians are facing the immediate possibility of starvation.
There is no way to meet current hunger needs with one operational border crossing. The only hope is opening another, safe passage for humanitarian access to bring life-saving food into Gaza.
Earlier this week, WFP confirmed the closure of the final bakery operating in partnership with the agency due to lack of fuel. Bread, a staple food for people in Gaza, is scarce or non-existent, it said.
The shortage of fuel is also crippling humanitarian distribution and operations, including the delivery of food assistance, it said. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said there will be no aid deliveries into Gaza from the Rafah crossing from tomorrow because of fuel shortages.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s nearly midnight in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
All communications are down in Gaza on Thursday night. The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said Gaza was in a “total communication blackout” and that he feared the blackout could heighten panic in the Gaza Strip and erode civil order. The main telecommunications companies confirmed no telecom services were working because of the lack of fuel.
The Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza has been completely shut down and about 45 patients who urgently need surgery have been left in the reception area, the hospital chief Atef al-Kahlout has said. Al-Ahli hospital is currently under siege by Israeli tanks and a “violent attack is underway” at the hospital, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Thursday.
The Israeli operation in al-Shifa hospital continued on Thursday after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) entered the sprawling compound in the early hours of Wednesday morning. There were reports of shooting at the hospital. The IDF said it had uncovered a Hamas tunnel shaft and a vehicle with weapons at the Dar al-Shifa hospital complex. It made videos and photographs of the tunnel shaft and weapons public, but no independent verification was possible. The IDF accused Hamas earlier in the day of hiding evidence that would confirm that the organisation had used the hospital as a command and control centre – a charge Israel has made frequently in recent weeks as troops have advanced further into the territory and global anger has mounted.
Hamas and medical administrators have strenuously denied the allegation al-Shifa hospital was a command centre and the health ministry in Gaza said the Israeli military did not find any weapons in the hospital. Human Rights Watch said that images released by Israel on Wednesday of weapons it says its soldiers found inside al-Shifa were not sufficient to justify revoking the hospital’s status as protected by the laws of war. The White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said the US is still “convinced by the soundness” of its intelligence “that convinces us that Hamas was using al-Shifa as a command and control node”.
The UN is looking for ways to evacuate al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, but options are limited by security and logistical constraints, a senior World Health Organization (WHO) official said on Thursday. One obstacle is that the Palestinian Red Crescent lacks sufficient fuel for its ambulances within Gaza to evacuate patients, according to the WHO regional emergency director, Rick Brennan. The WHO understood that there were still about 600 patients, including 27 in critical condition, at Shifa, he said.
The Israeli military said it has recovered the body of an Israeli hostage from a building near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Yehudit Weiss, a 65-year-old woman, was abducted from the Be’eri kibbutz by Hamas during their attack on southern Israel on 7 October. The IDF said the body had been identified by forensic scientific examiners and the family had been informed.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said there will be no aid deliveries into Gaza from the Rafah crossing from Friday. All communications are down in Gaza because of a lack of fuel, UNRWA said in a statement on Thursday. “This makes it impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys,” Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s director of communications, said. The UNRWA commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said he believed there was a deliberate attempt to “strangle” its humanitarian work in Gaza.
The Israeli air force dropped leaflets overnight on Thursday in eastern areas of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip, telling people to evacuate to shelters for their own safety – suggesting imminent military operations in the area. The flyers told civilians in Bani Shuhaila, Khuza’a, Abassan and al-Qarara that anyone in the vicinity of militants or their positions was “putting his life in danger”, local people told Reuters. Tens of thousands of people displaced from the north have sought refuge in Khan Younis, causing severe overcrowding amid shortages of food and water.
The heads of several United Nations agencies and other humanitarian organisations have said they will not take part in the establishment of any “safe zones” in Gaza that are declared by only one side of the conflict. The joint statement on Thursday said proposals to unilaterally create “safe zones” in Gaza “risk creating harm for civilians, including large-scale loss of life, and must be rejected”.
The UN high commissioner for human rights has said the killing of civilians in Gaza cannot be dismissed as “collateral damage”, while calling for a ceasefire based on humanitarian and human rights grounds. Volker Türk said that five weeks into the war, “massive outbreaks of infectious disease, and hunger” seemed inevitable in the densely populated Gaza.
Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam brigades, has claimed responsibility for a shooting at a checkpoint between Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem. Six Israeli security force members were wounded after three gunmen opened fire at the checkpoint on Wednesday, Israeli police said.
Shelling intensified across Lebanon’s frontier with Israel on Thursday, with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah saying it had fired missiles at eight positions across the border, and Israel saying it had retaliated with artillery.
The EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has urged Israel not to be “consumed by rage” in its response to the Hamas attacks of 7 October. Speaking from kibbutz Be’eri on Friday, Borrell said “Israel must be defended” but that “one horror does not justify another: innocent civilians, including thousands of children, have died in recent weeks.
Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, on Thursday repeated his call for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign. In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 on Wednesday, Lapid said: “We can’t run an extended [military] operation with a prime minister we do not have faith in.”
Joe Biden has presented an unapologetic defence of his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, arguing on Wednesday night that Hamas presented a continuing threat to Israel. The US president 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. Biden’s remarks come amid escalating tensions between US and Israeli officials over Israel’s future strategy.
Israel’s UN ambassador has denounced a UN security council resolution calling for a “humanitarian pauses” as “disconnected from reality” and “meaningless”. The UNSC voted on Wednesday to back a resolution calling for “urgent extended humanitarian pauses for [a] sufficient number of days to allow aid access” to the embattled territory. The US and the UK abstained.
Norway’s parliament has adopted a resolution calling on the government to be ready to recognise an “independent” Palestinian state. Iceland, Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic and Romania are among countries to have already given legal recognition to a Palestinian state.
Updated
Dozens of protesters were arrested on Thursday after shutting down a portion of the San Francisco Bay Bridge as part of a demonstration calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The protest blocked all westbound traffic on the bridge – a key commuter route into the city that sees roughly 260,000 vehicles daily – as San Francisco hosts the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum.
Organizers said 200 people attended the demonstration on Thursday morning. Footage posted on social media showed protesters had formed a human chain between vehicles as they sat on the bridge while others laid under white sheets as part of a “die-in” near bridge near a giant banner urging Joe Biden to call for a ceasefire now. They also displayed a large banner reading “stop the genocide” and demanded an end to US military aid to Israel.
Media captured footage of law enforcement in riot gear making their way across the bridge as sheriff’s deputies led a line of handcuffed-protesters toward buses. Other images showed protesters zip-tied on the bridge.
The California highway patrol did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but told the San Francisco Chronicle it planned to “press all the charges it can” against protesters. A spokesperson for the agency told the newspaper that at least 50 people were arrested and as many as 20 more people are likely to be arrested.
Israel has dropped leaflets into southern Gaza telling Palestinian civilians to leave four towns on the eastern edge of Khan Younis, raising fears that its war against Hamas could spread to areas it had previously said were safe.
The flyers told civilians in Bani Shuhaila, Khuza’a, Abassan and al-Qarara that anyone in the vicinity of militants or their positions was putting their life in danger, local people told Reuters.
Here’s our video report:
Updated
At a US State Department press briefing, there was feisty back and forth between reporters and spokesperson Matthew Miller on what Israeli reports of guns found at al-Shifa hospital signified.
This happened before the unverified assertion from the Israeli military that it had found an “operational tunnel shaft” and a vehicle with weapons at the hospital complex in Gaza City.
Miller was challenged on the difference between the US over the last two days backing up the Israeli government’s assertion that Hamas has a military command node at the hospital and what the Israeli government said earlier about having found what amounted to a small number of assault rifles and other armaments at the complex.
“There should not be any assault rifles at a hospital,” Miller said, adding: “We stand by the assessment that we made the other day.”
Updated
Israeli military reports finding 'operational tunnel shaft' in Shifa hospital complex
The Israeli military has said in the last 30 minutes that it uncovered a tunnel shaft and a vehicle with weapons at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital complex, Reuters reports.
In the Shifa Hospital, IDF troops found an operational tunnel shaft and a vehicle containing a large number of weapons,” the military said, using the acronym for the Israel Defense Forces.
The military also made public videos and photographs of the tunnel shaft and weapons.
There is no independent verification of the IDF claim at this time.
Ofir Gendelman, a spokesperson for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, posted a short video clip on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter:
Our forces have found an operational shaft to a Hamas terror tunnel inside the #AlShifaHospital compound. pic.twitter.com/ZoraVlKbmX
— Ofir Gendelman (@ofirgendelman) November 16, 2023
We await further details and reaction. More context on this situation from the Guardian’s initial story published a few moments ago.
Updated
UNRWA says no aid deliveries into Gaza from tomorrow
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said there will be no aid deliveries into Gaza from the Rafah crossing on Friday.
All communications are down in Gaza because of a lack of fuel, UNRWA said in a statement.
This makes it impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys.
From our📍#Gaza team @TomWhite:
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) November 16, 2023
There will NOT be a cross-border aid operation at the Rafah Crossing tomorrow.
The communications network in #Gaza is down because there is NO fuel.
This makes it impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys. pic.twitter.com/Kaj8z0lE9f
Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s director of communications, said that from tomorrow, the agency will be unable to send trucks to pick up aid supplies for Palestinians from the border with Egypt.
“We have been warning about the impact of the siege on people’s lives,” Touma told the BBC. “It seems our calls have fallen on deaf ears.”
Updated
The EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has urged Israel not to be “consumed by rage” in its response to the Hamas attacks of 7 October.
Speaking from kibbutz Be’eri – where at least 85 of the 1,200 people killed that day died and from where about 30 of more than 240 people were kidnapped – Borrell said “Israel must be defended”but that “one horror does not justify another: innocent civilians, including thousands of children, have died in recent weeks.
I understand your fears and your pain. I understand your rage. But let me ask you not to let yourself be consumed by rage.
The diplomat also called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of those taken hostage by Hamas that day.
Meanwhile, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, acknowledged splits in Europe on the conflict.
Macron, who was visiting Switzerland, urged an “immediate truce leading to a humanitarian ceasefire” but admitted that “there is not a united position, to be honest, at the European level”.
Updated
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its soldiers have recovered the body of a hostage seized by Hamas militants on 7 October from a building near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
The body of Yehudit Weiss, an Israeli woman who was abducted from kibbutz Be’eri, “was extracted by IDF (army) troops from a structure adjacent to Al-Shifa hospital”, an IDF statement said, adding:
In the structure in which Yehudit was located, military equipment including Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs were also found.
Updated
The al-Shifa hospital has become a key objective for Israel, because proving their claim that Hamas used it to shield military activities would help counter the international outcry prompted by the Israel Defense Forces killing a large number of civilians.
Writing in Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, columnist Amos Harel said the IDF had moved into Shifa to pursue specific goals – proving their claim that Hamas used medical facilities for military purposes and to search for intelligence about Israeli hostages – but also because of the hospital’s “symbolic importance”. Harel wrote:
The IDF wants to signal that even though the current raid has limited goals, there is no place its forces fear to enter and there is no place Hamas can feel safe.
Updated
IDF says body of hostage recovered near al-Shifa hospital
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said they have recovered the body of Yehudit Weiss, 65, one of about 240 hostages taken by Hamas during the 7 October attacks on Israel.
The body was recovered from a building near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the IDF said on Thursday. It was brought into Israel for identification and the family were informed, it said.
Weiss, a mother of five, was abducted from kibbutz Be’eri on 7 October, the Times of Israel reported. Her husband, Shmulik Weiss, was found murdered in the safe room of their home.
The IDF did not provide further details on the cause of death. The IDF statement reads:
The body of Yehudit Weiss, who was abducted by the Hamas terrorist organisation, was extracted by IDF troops from a structure adjacent to the Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip and was transferred to Israeli territory. In the structure in which Yehudit was located, military equipment including Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs were also found.
The IDF “sends its heartfelt condolences to the family”, it said, adding: “We will not cease from the mission until it will be completed.”
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The Israeli military has accused Hamas of hiding evidence that would confirm the organisation used al-Shifa hospital in Gaza as a command and control centre.
Israeli special forces moved into al-Shifa hospital early on Wednesday morning and continued to search the sprawling complex in the centre of Gaza City on Thursday.
An IDF spokesperson said on Thursday:
It is important to emphasise that from the moment the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) publicly exposed the use of hospitals for terrorist activity a few weeks ago, Hamas has persistently worked to conceal infrastructure and cover up evidence.
Hamas and medical administrators have strenuously denied the allegation the hospital was a command centre, and the health ministry in Gaza said the Israeli military did not find any weapons in the hospital. A British doctor working at Shifa said the charge was an “outlandish excuse”.
“The soldiers are proceeding one building at a time, searching each floor, all while hundreds of patients and medical staff remain in the complex,” an IDF spokesperson said.
The operational activity is being carried out in a discrete, methodical and thorough manner, based on ongoing field assessments and informed by questioning taking place in the field.
The IDF said that “after searching some of the hospital complex buildings”, troops had found weapons as well as “intelligence materials, military technologies and equipment, command and control centres, and communications equipment, all belonging to Hamas”.
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Norway’s parliament has adopted a resolution calling on the government to be ready to recognise an “independent” Palestinian state.
Passed with an overwhelming majority in parliament, the declaration paves the way for full recognition of Palestine as its own state, but not right now.
The proposition said the assembly “asks the government to be ready to recognise Palestine as an independent state when recognition could have a positive impact on the peace process, without making a final peace accord a condition”, AFP reported.
Iceland, Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic and Romania are among countries to have already given legal recognition to a Palestinian state.
The general manager of the Palestinian telecommunications company, Paltel, said he has urged international bodies to persuade Israel to allow fuel to enter Gaza in order to restore telecommunications to the besieged territory.
Earlier today, Paltel announced that all communication services – landlines, mobile phones and internet connections – were down due to a lack of fuel.
We regret to announce that all telecom services in 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐚 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐩 have 𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭 of service as all energy sources sustaining the network have been depleted, and 𝐟𝐮𝐞𝐥 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧.#KeepGazaConnected
— Paltel (@Paltelco) November 16, 2023
The Paltel chief executive Abdulmajeed Melhem told the Associated Press:
Since the outbreak of the war, there has been no electricity. Therefore we have relied on alternative sources to operate the generators. If they [Israel] allow the entry of fuel, this problem will be solved.
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Sewage is now flowing through the streets of Gaza, the director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees’ affairs (UNRWA), has said.
UNRWA has warned that many of its services in the Gaza Strip have already been closed due to a lack of fuel, including dozens of water wells, two water plants and sewage pumping stations.
Sewage is flowing in the streets of Rafah as all sewage pumps have run out of fuel.@UNRWA #Gaza @UNOCHA
— Thomas White (@TomWhiteGaza) November 16, 2023
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All communications are down in Gaza tonight, after the main telecommunications companies confirmed no telecom services were working, because of the lack of fuel.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said Gaza was in a “total communication blackout” and that he feared the blackout could heighten panic in the Gaza Strip and erode civil order.
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UN chiefs reject unilateral proposals to create 'safe zones' in Gaza
The heads of several United Nations agencies and other humanitarian organisations have said they will not take part in the establishment of any “safe zones” in Gaza that are declared by only one side of the conflict.
A joint statement signed by nearly a dozen heads of UN agencies, including the UN’s humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, human rights chief, Volker Türk, children’s fund chief, Catherine Russell, and head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, reads:
As humanitarian leaders, our position is clear: We will not participate in the establishment of any ‘safe zone’ in Gaza that is set up without the agreement of all the parties, and unless fundamental conditions are in place to ensure safety and other essential needs are met and a mechanism is in place to supervise its implementation.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled from northern to southern Gaza in recent weeks towards an area offering only marginally more safety. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have established what it calls “humanitarian corridors” even as Israeli strikes continue in the south of Gaza, and refugees are forced to flee amid an Israeli blockade of food, water and fuel.
The signatories of the joint statement on Thursday said that none of the humanitarian organisations they represent have been involved in preparing for the arrival of displaced people in any prospective “safe zone” – or “humanitarian zone” – in Gaza.
The joint statement on Thursday said proposals to unilaterally create “safe zones” in Gaza “risk creating harm for civilians, including large-scale loss of life, and must be rejected”, adding:
No ‘safe zone’ is truly safe when it is declared unilaterally or enforced by the presence of armed forces.
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Pictures and videos posted online of yesterday’s ceasefire protests in Washington DC showed Capitol police scattering candles, which were laid out to mourn the 11,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli strikes.
At one point, video showed a Capitol police officer appearing to spit on the candles after kicking them around.
Police are trampling the candles we brought to honor the 11,200+ Palestinians that have been killed since October 7th pic.twitter.com/gSLgJZp6od
— rebeccah (@Reb_Hoffmann) November 16, 2023
Capitol police clashed with dozens of demonstrators outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters on Wednesday evening where several Democratic representatives, including the house minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, were inside for a campaign reception.
Capitol police said that approximately 150 people were “illegally and violently protesting” and that one person was arrested “for assault on an officer”.
Organisers of the ceasefire demonstrations said that more than 90 non-violent protesters were injured by Capitol police.
Our statement on the violent police response to our nonviolent protest with @JvpAction & @DemSocialists at @TheDemocrats HQ.
— IfNotNow🔥 (@IfNotNowOrg) November 16, 2023
Police injured 90+ protesters, with injuries ranging from being pepper sprayed, dragged by the hair, choked, thrown down stairs, and punched in the face. pic.twitter.com/V9FwdAnQhw
My colleague Maya Yang is covering the aftermath of the ceasefire demonstrations on our US politics live blog.
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Gaza hospital completely shut down, announces hospital director
The Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza has been completely shut down and about 45 patients who urgently need surgery have been left in the reception area, the hospital chief Atef al-Kahlout has told Al Jazeera.
“The Indonesian hospital has completely stopped serving and operating,” Kahlout said, Reuters reported. He added:
Due to our clinical inability to accommodate patients from Gaza and the north, we announce that the hospital has completely stopped operating.
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There have been reports of shooting at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza today, as an Israeli military official confirmed its commandos have been combing through the complex.
A BBC journalist reported one of its contacts saying:
Soldiers are everywhere, shooting in all directions.
He said soldiers had “stormed all departments” of the hospital, destroying the southern part of the building’s wall and dozens of cars.
He also said armoured bulldozers had been brought in to the complex.
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A dialysis patient died while Israeli forces raided al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, according to a spokesperson for the Palestinian ministry of health in the besieged enclave.
The patient died when the dialysis machines stopped working when the power was cut off, Ashraf al-Qudra said today.
He warned that a number of premature babies at Shifa were in mortal danger because there was no electricity to power their incubators, NBC reported.
There was also no food and no water for the remaining 650 patients or approximately 7,000 displaced people who were sheltering at the complex, he said.
The Gaza health ministry spokesperson described the situation at Shifa as “very dangerous”, and said Israeli troops had destroyed all the cars in the parking lot and refused to allow medical staff to leave.
He also said Israeli claims about the presence of weapons at the hospital were a “lie”, adding:
The Israeli story about the presence of weapons in the al-Shifa complex is false and does not deceive anyone. The Shifa complex and Gaza’s hospitals are humanitarian institutions and we will not allow them to be used as a theatre for military operations.
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'Violent attack' at Gaza's al-Ahli hospital, says Palestinian Red Crescent Society
Al-Ahli hospital in the Gaza Strip is currently under siege by Israeli tanks, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) have said.
In a statement posted to social media, the PRCS said a “violent attack is underway” at the hospital in Gaza City. It said it teams were unable to move and reach injured people.
Israeli military tanks besiege Al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza, and violent attack is underway. PRCS teams are unable to move and reach those who are injured.#Gaza #NotATarget #IHL pic.twitter.com/f3HRoWlbQd
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 16, 2023
Here is our video report on how Israel’s military actions have reduced large parts of Gaza to rubble:
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Human Rights Watch (HRW) have said images released by Israel showing what it said were weapons found inside Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital were not sufficient to justify the hospital’s status as protected by the laws of war.
On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released a video that it said showed some of the material recovered from an undisclosed building within the large hospital complex, including automatic weapons, grenades, ammunition and flak jackets.
The video was released after Israel sent troops into Shifa hospital in a raid that drew fierce condemnation from the head of the World Health Organization, who called it “totally unacceptable”. Later on Wednesday, a senior Israeli military official said “weapons and other terror infrastructure” had been found during the operation “in one specific area”.
Speaking to Reuters today, the HRW UN director, Louis Charbonneau, said:
Hospitals have special protections under international humanitarian law. Doctors, nurses, ambulances and other hospital staff must be permitted to do their work and patients must be protected.
Hospitals only lose those protections if it can be shown that harmful acts have been carried out from the premises. The Israeli government hasn’t provided any evidence of that.
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Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam brigades, has claimed responsibility for this morning’s shooting at a checkpoint between Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem.
Six Israeli security force members were wounded after three gunmen opened fire at the checkpoint on Wednesday, Israeli police said.
Israel’s police chief, Yaakov Shabtai, said the assailants arrived in a vehicle from the direction of Bethlehem and opened fire when Israeli forces there began questioning them. They were killed when the Israeli forces shot back, he said.
The gunmen had planned a much bigger attack, he said. The Israeli police said they found two automatic rifles, two handguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, 10 fully loaded magazines and two axes on the suspects and in their vehicle.
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Here is more from Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), who has been speaking to reporters in Geneva today.
Lazzarini said he feared civil order could break down after Gaza was hit with a new communications blackout on Thursday.
“Gaza is again in a total communication blackout, and … it is because there is no fuel,” AFP reported him saying.
He said he was worried that the blackout could heighten panic in the Gaza Strip and erode the last traces of public order.
A communications blackout “triggers and fuels even more the anxiety and the panic”, he said, adding:
This can provoke or accelerate the last remaining civil order that we have in the Gaza Strip. And if this completely breaks down, we will have difficulties to operate in an environment where you do not have a minimum of order.
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The actions of pro-Palestinian protestors who climbed on to a war memorial in London were “inflammatory” but not illegal, the Metropolitan police commissioner said on Thursday.
Video appears to show at least two pro-Palestinian protestors clambering on the Royal Artillery memorial at Hyde Park corner, central London, on Wednesday evening, timed to coincide with a vote on calls for a ceasefire in Gaza in the Commons. The video shows the protesters being spoken to by a police officer, and agreeing to come down.
The new home secretary, James Cleverly, criticised the “offensive” protesters who clambered on to the memorial, calling their actions “deeply disrespectful” and adding that he was considering “what further measures need to be taken so the police can take action”.
It comes after the government and police clashed over how to deal with large pro-Palestinian protests last week, with the Met commissioner, Mark Rowley, resisting demands for a ban on a pro-Palestinian march on Armistice Day amid claims it was disrespectful to Britain’s war dead and risked damaging the Cenotaph. The march, agreed with protesters before the event, did not go close to war memorials or cause damage to them, with far-right demonstrators creating disorder and violence when they attacked police in Whitehall.
Wednesday’s incident led Downing Street to claim police do have powers to take action, contradicting Rowley, who had claimed they did not. Downing Street gave no detail about what those laws may be.
On Thursday, Rowley warned against police “pandering”, saying officers must follow the law. He said:
It is it is not illegal to climb on to a statue. I think that might be something that government may consider.
Updated
John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, was questioned by reporters today about the limited evidence Israel has so far produced to back its claim that the al-Shifa hospital was being used as a Hamas command centre and weapons store.
Kirby replied:
We have our own intelligence that convinces us that Hamas was using al-Shifa as a command and control node and most likely as well as a storage facility.
They were sheltering themselves in the hospital, using the hospital as a shield against military action, placing the patients and medical staff at greater risk. We are still convinced of the soundness of that intelligence.
He declined to say what if any intelligence Israel had shared on the hospital since its seizure by IDF troops.
The questions for Kirby came the morning after Joe Biden’s full-throated support of IDF operations in Gaza, at Shifa in particular.
Biden had suggested that the ground operation should be more targeted than the aerial bombing campaign, which he appeared to acknowledge had been less discriminate. Biden said on Wednesday night:
So this is a different story than I believe was occurring before – the indiscriminate bombing.
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UNRWA chief says 'deliberate attempt to strangle' UN agency's operations in Gaza
Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), has said he believed there was a deliberate attempt to “strangle” its humanitarian work in Gaza.
Speaking to journalists in Geneva on Thursday, he said:
I do believe there is a deliberate attempt to strangle our operation and paralyse the operation.
He added that UNRWA, which supports more than 800,000 displaced Palestinians in Gaza, was at risk of suspending its operations entirely.
The UN agency has pleaded for weeks for access to fuel, he said, adding that it was “outrageous” to force humanitarian aid agencies to beg for fuel.
A truck carrying 24,000 litres (6,340 gallons) of diesel fuel for UN aid distribution trucks was allowed into Gaza on Wednesday – marking the first time Israel has approved a truck carrying fuel into Gaza since the start of the war.
The delivery is nowhere near what people in Gaza need to survive, Lazzarini said, adding:
Because of the lack of fuel, we will not be able to send our trucks across the south of the Gaza Strip where we have people waiting for humanitarian deliveries.
Updated
Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has repeated his call for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign.
In a statement posted to social media on Thursday, Lapid said there would be broad support to form a unity government led by Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party. A translation of his statement by Reuters reads:
The time has come - we need to establish a national reconstruction government. Likud will lead it, Netanyahu and the extremists will be replaced, over 90 members of the Knesset will be partners in the coalition for healing and reconnection.
He added:
I hear those saying this is not the time. We waited 40 days, there is no more time. What we need now is a government that will deal with nothing other than security and the economy.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 on Wednesday, Lapid said “we can’t run an extended [military] operation with a prime minister we do not have faith in.”
Efforts to provide medical relief for Palestinians from the Gaza Strip should be concentrated within the besieged coastal enclave, Egypt’s foreign minister said on Thursday.
Egypt has received limited numbers of medical evacuees from Gaza this month, most of whom have been taken to Egyptian hospitals for treatment. One group of cancer patients that crossed into Egypt from Gaza was flown to Turkey on Wednesday, Reuters reports.
At a briefing for foreign media in Cairo, the foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, said:
We have to concentrate on getting medical facilities established inside of Gaza so it can be more accessible to Palestinians who are in need for medical assistance.
Shoukry also said there was no truth to reports that Israel and the US had put pressure on Cairo to take in refugees from Gaza in return for debt cancellation, reiterating that Palestinians could not be displaced from their homeland.
He said:
There’s absolutely no truth and no possibility of any form of displacement of Palestinians outside their homeland, their current location.
Egypt has repeatedly said it rejects any mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, as Israel’s military campaign there has displaced hundreds of thousands of people towards the south of the territory and a humanitarian crisis has deepened.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It is just past 5.30pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
The Israeli air force dropped leaflets overnight on Thursday in eastern areas of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip, telling people to evacuate to shelters for their own safety – suggesting imminent military operations in the area. The flyers told civilians in Bani Shuhaila, Khuza’a, Abassan and al-Qarara that anyone in the vicinity of militants or their positions was “putting his life in danger”, local people told Reuters. Tens of thousands of people displaced from the north have sought refuge in Khan Younis, causing severe overcrowding amid shortages of food and water.
The UN is looking for ways to evacuate al-Shifa hospital in Gaza but options are limited by security and logistical constraints, a senior WHO official said on Thursday. One obstacle is that the Palestinian Red Crescent lacks sufficient fuel for its ambulances within Gaza to evacuate patients, according to the WHO regional emergency director, Rick Brennan. The WHO understood that there were still about 600 patients, including 27 in critical condition, at Shifa, he said.
The Israeli operation in Shifa hospital continued on Thursday after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) entered the sprawling compound in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Israeli commandos are searching through every building and every floor while hundreds of patients and medical staff remain in the complex, an Israeli military official said.
All telecoms services in the Gaza Strip have gone down as all energy sources sustaining the network have been depleted, Gaza’s main telecommunications companies Paltel and Jawwal said in a statement on Thursday.
Israeli fighter jets struck the Gaza home of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, the IDF said on Thursday. Haniyeh, considered to be the militant group’s overall leader, has lived in Qatar for several years.
The UN high commissioner for human rights has said the killing of civilians in Gaza cannot be dismissed as “collateral damage”, while calling for a ceasefire based on humanitarian and human rights grounds. Volker Türk said that five weeks into the war, “massive outbreaks of infectious disease, and hunger” seemed inevitable in the densely populated Palestinian territory.
Israel’s UN ambassador has denounced a UN security council resolution calling for a “humanitarian pauses” as “disconnected from reality” and “meaningless”. The UNSC voted on Wednesday to back a resolution calling for “urgent extended humanitarian pauses for [a] sufficient number of days to allow aid access” to the embattled territory. The US and the UK abstained.
A group of UN experts said there was “evidence of increasing genocidal incitement” against the Palestinian people in what it said were “grave violations” committed by Israel. A statement said they were “profoundly concerned about the support of certain governments for Israel’s strategy of warfare”.
Shelling intensified across Lebanon’s frontier with Israel on Thursday, with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah saying it had fired missiles at eight positions across the border, and Israel saying it had retaliated with artillery.
The EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, are to visit the Middle East in a multilayered diplomatic push to protect civilians, open fresh humanitarian corridors and keep priming the region for peace talks.
Joe Biden has presented an unapologetic defence of his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, arguing on Wednesday night that Hamas presented a continuing threat to Israel and that Israeli forces were seeking to avoid civilian casualties. The US president 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. Biden’s remarks come amid escalating tensions between US and Israeli officials over Israel’s future strategy.
France has condemned violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, calling it a “policy of terror” aimed at displacing Palestinians, and urging Israeli authorities to protect Palestinians from the violence. Israeli police said on Thursday that they had shot and “neutralised” a suspect in a shooting attack at the Tunnels checkpoint between Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem.
Relatives of hostages taken by Hamas in its 7 October attack on Israel continued a march from Tel Aviv to Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem as they pleaded for the release of their loved ones held captive in Gaza.
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, has said Israel cannot leave a vacuum in Gaza and would have to maintain a strong force there for the near future to prevent Hamas from re-emerging in the Palestinian enclave, in an interview.
US Capitol police officers in riot gear clashed with dozens of demonstrators who gathered outside the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in Washington on Wednesday evening to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.
Hello, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong in Washington taking over the live blog. You can reach me at leonie.chao-fong@theguardian.com.
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The head coach of the Palestinian football team, Makram Daboub, has said he is “determined to raise the Palestinian flag and win” before his side’s 2026 World Cup qualifier against Lebanon in Sharjah.
Palestine have never qualified for a World Cup and the team want to offer their people some hope during the Israel-Hamas war.
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Palestinian telecoms provider says all communications services across Gaza down due to lack of fuel
All telecoms services in the Gaza Strip have gone down as all energy sources sustaining the network have been depleted, Gaza’s main telecommunications companies Paltel and Jawwal said in a statement on Thursday.
Updated
Most of the remaining Irish citizens in the Gaza Strip will be evacuated within the next three days, Ireland’s foreign affairs minister and deputy prime minister, Micheál Martin, said after meeting an Israeli minister at the site of a Hamas massacre near the Palestinian enclave, the Irish Times reports.
Updated
The signatories of a statement from the heads of several UN humanitarian agencies that said they would not take part in any unilateral proposals to create “safe zones” in the Gaza Strip included the head of the UN aid agency, Martin Griffiths, and the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Reuters reports.
Updated
Shelling intensified across Lebanon’s frontier with Israel on Thursday, with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah saying it had fired missiles at eight positions across the border and Israel saying it had retaliated with artillery.
In statements throughout the day, the Iran-backed Hezbollah said it had hit eight sites in Israel, including a group of Israeli soldiers, a barracks and other military posts.
A Lebanese security source said Israeli bombardment, including drone strikes, hit at least a dozen villages all along Lebanon’s southern border, Reuters reports.
The Israeli military said it had struck a cell in Lebanon that had tried to launch anti-tank missiles towards Israel and was firing artillery on to other targets.
It said no injuries were reported in shelling on Israel.
The Lebanese security source said it was one of the most violent days there since Hezbollah began trading fire with Israeli forces after the eruption of the Hamas-Israel war on 7 October.
Hezbollah’s statements said its attacks were “in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip”. The exchanges mark the deadliest violence at the border since Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in 2006.
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Israeli commandos are searching through every building and every floor of Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital while hundreds of patients and medical staff remain in the complex, an Israeli military official said on Thursday.
“The operation is shaped by our understanding that there is well-hidden terrorist infrastructure in the complex,” the official said, declining to be named, according to Reuters.
Hamas weapons and equipment had been found in al-Shifa, the official said, adding that “Hamas has persistently worked to conceal infrastructure and cover up evidence” in Gaza’s hospitals. Hamas has denied operating out of medical facilities.
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France has condemned violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, calling it a “policy of terror” aimed at displacing Palestinians and urging Israeli authorities to protect Palestinians from the violence.
Speaking to reporters, the foreign ministry spokesperson Anne-Claire Legendre also said that about half of the 100 tonnes of aid that France had sent to Gaza had entered the enclave, Reuters reports.
She said it should not be up to Israel to decide the future governance of Gaza, which she said should be part of a future Palestinian state.
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The UN high commissioner for human rights has said the killing of civilians in Gaza cannot be dismissed as “collateral damage”, while calling for a ceasefire based on humanitarian and human rights grounds.
Speaking after the UN security council backed a resolution on Wednesday calling for “urgent extended humanitarian pauses”, Volker Türk said: “The only winner of such a war is likely to be extremism and further extremism.”
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The White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US was “deeply concerned that Jordanian medical personnel in Gaza were wounded in an attack near their field hospital”.
“Their essential role in conflict must be protected,” Sullivan wrote in a post on X, calling Jordan “a critical ally”. Jordan said seven staffers were wounded in shelling on Wednesday, according to reports.
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UN investigating ways to evacuate al-Shifa hospital, says WHO
The UN is looking for ways to evacuate al-Shifa hospital in Gaza but options are limited by security and logistical constraints, a senior World Health Organization official said on Thursday.
One obstacle is that the Palestinian Red Crescent lacks sufficient fuel for its ambulances within Gaza to evacuate patients, the WHO regional emergency director, Rick Brennan, told Reuters.
Egypt was open to having its ambulances cross into Gaza to help evacuate people as long as security guarantees and safe passage could be provided, he said in an interview from Cairo.
The WHO understood that there were still about 600 patients including 27 in critical condition at al-Shifa hospital, which Israeli forces entered this week after a days-long siege, Brennan said.
He said:
We are looking at the case for full medical evacuation but there are a lot of security concerns, there are a lot of logistics constraints. Our options are rather limited but we hope to have some better news in the next 24 hours or so.
Those given priority in an evacuation would include the critically ill and 36 newborn babies who lost access to incubators because of lack of fuel to generate power, he said.
Plans for an evacuation had been complicated by the fact that communications with the hospital had been cut most of the time, Brennan said.
He added:
The idea is that we would bring the majority of patients over days or weeks from Shifa.
We’d bring the bulk of them to hospitals in southern Gaza but those hospitals are already overwhelmed as well so that’s another complicating factor. The other option is of course to bring a number of them to Egypt.
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Here is a picture of Ireland’s foreign affairs minister and deputy prime minister, Micheál Martin, during his visit to kibbutz Be’eri in Israel, where the Irish-Israeli eight-year-old Emily Hand was living before being abducted by Hamas.
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More Irish citizens are expected to cross the border from Gaza into Eygypt today after the arrival of 23 Irish nationals on Wednesday evening.
Ireland’s foreign affairs minister and deputy prime minister, Micheál Martin, has travelled to Egypt as part of the diplomatic efforts to free Irish hostages and allow nationals to leave the conflict zone.
Martin has confirmed that 23 Irish citizens and their dependents exited Gaza on Wednesday and were received at the Rafah crossing by a team from the embassy in Cairo.
He also visited the southern Israel kibbutz where the Irish-Israeli eight-year-old Emily Hand was living before being abducted by Hamas.
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A group of UN experts said there was “evidence of increasing genocidal incitement” against the Palestinian people in what it said were “grave violations” committed by Israel, Reuters reports.
In a statement, the group of experts, which included several UN special rapporteurs, said:
We are deeply disturbed by the failure of governments to heed our call and to achieve an immediate ceasefire.
We are also profoundly concerned about the support of certain governments for Israel’s strategy of warfare against the besieged population of Gaza, and the failure of the international system to mobilise to prevent genocide.
UN experts had previously warned that the Palestinian people were at “grave risk of genocide”.
Relatives of hostages taken by Hamas in its 7 October attack on Israel continue a march from Tel Aviv to Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem as they plead for the release of their loved ones held captive in Gaza.
The march began on Tuesday and is 40 miles long. The families aim to march between the two cities over five days, camping in tents along the way and arriving outside Netanyahu’s office on Saturday.
Family members hold posters of their loved ones and many wear T-shirts with their relatives’ faces on and the words “bring [name of captive] home now!”
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Russia is concerned about Israeli army raids in the occupied West Bank during which “dozens of people have been killed”, the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said, according to Reuters.
The EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, are to visit the Middle East in a multilayered diplomatic push to protect civilians, open fresh humanitarian corridors and keep priming the region for peace talks.
They will warn that settler violence in the West Bank is “totally unacceptable” and must end.
Borrell will arrive today and start with a visit to an Israeli kibbutz that was attacked on 7 October, followed by high-level meetings with Israel’s foreign minister, the UN special coordinator and representatives of hostage families.
He will then fly to Ramallah for a meeting with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, followed by meetings in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Jordan involving talks with leaders of those countries along with representatives of Iraq and Kuwait who will be in Bahrain for separate talks.
Von der Leyen, who was in Israel in the week after Hamas’s attack, will not return to Tel Aviv this time but direct her efforts in Egypt and Jordan.
Sources say the leaders are working in concert to bring a joint message of “a vision beyond death and destruction” to help secure a roadmap for Gaza postwar.
Israel is not willing to talk about any “day after” plans and Arab countries are also reluctant but the EU believes it is important to show the Middle East that despite the horrors of the past weeks, there has to be a parallel endeavour to establish a post-conflict plan.
Both have already laid out similar roadmaps, which involve:
No place for Hamas.
No forced displacement of Gazans.
No long-term security presence of Israel in Gaza.
One Palestinian authority for the West Bank and Gaza.
An active role for Europe.
On Monday Borrell said the EU had “delegated” responsibility for peace in the Middle East to the US, and Europe needed to step up its leadership in peace talks in the region.
Insiders say part of the postwar vision is the EU getting involved in institution-building in Palestine, building of infrastructure, and “not just throwing money” at the region.
They say Borrell’s “peace day” initiative aimed at relaunching peace talks is “still alive” with meetings led by the EU, Egypt and Jordan and attended by 60 other delegations at the UN general assembly on 18 September.
“Then 7 October happened. But the plan is not dead. We simply have to wait,” said a source.
The EU is also pressing ahead with a meeting of Mediterranean countries on 27 November in Barcelona. It consulted with Jordan and other Arab countries and decided to go ahead, acknowledging it would be “difficult”.
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South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) party said on Thursday that it would support a parliamentary motion calling for the Israeli embassy in South Africa to be closed.
The opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) will propose the motion later on Thursday, also calling for the suspension of all diplomatic relations with Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian people amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Reuters reports.
South Africa’s strong support for Palestinians dates back to the former president Nelson Mandela’s days, with the country likening their plight to its own before the end of apartheid in 1994. Israel rejects the comparison.
In a statement, the ANC said:
The African National Congress will agree to a parliamentary motion which calls upon the government to close the Israel embassy in South Africa and suspend all diplomatic relations with Israel until Israel agrees to a ceasefire.
The Israeli embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ANC’s remarks and the parliamentary debate.
Earlier this month South Africa recalled its diplomats from Israel.
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The Israeli air force dropped leaflets overnight on Thursday in eastern areas of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip, telling people to evacuate to shelters for their own safety – suggesting imminent military operations in the area.
Similar leaflets had been dropped about two weeks earlier. This time they were followed by heavy Israeli tank shelling on eastern neighbourhoods, Reuters reports.
Tens of thousands of people displaced from the north have sought refuge in Khan Younis, causing severe overcrowding amid shortages of food and water.
Naming the neighbourhoods of Khuzaa, Abassan, Bani Suhaila and al-Qarara, the leaflets said:
For your safety, you need to evacuate your places of residence immediately and head to known shelters.
Anyone near terrorists or their facilities puts their life at risk, and every house used by terrorists will be targeted.
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The UN’s human rights chief said on Thursday that outbreaks of disease and hunger in Gaza seemed inevitable after weeks of Israeli assault on the densely populated city.
According to Reuters, at an informal briefing to states at the UN in Geneva after a visit to the Middle East, Volker Türk said:
Massive outbreaks of infectious disease, and hunger, seem inevitable.
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Israeli police said on Thursday that they had shot and “neutralised” a suspect in a shooting attack at the Tunnels checkpoint between Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, adding that large forces were deployed to the scene.
Israel’s ambulance service said its medics were treating five people who were wounded, including one in critical condition, Reuters reports.
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Thai Muslim politicians said they had received assurances from Hamas that all of the Thai hostages being held would be among those released if mediators succeed in brokering a truce in Gaza, Reuters reports.
The Islamist militants took an estimated 240 people hostage on 7 October, and Thailand’s foreign ministry says 25 Thais were among those abducted, and 39 were among those killed that day.
More than 30,000 Thais were working in agriculture in Israel, according to Thai government estimates, and more than 7,200 have been repatriated since the crisis erupted.
Lepong Syed, the president of the Thai-Iran alumni association, told reporters in Bangkok’s parliament building:
Any ceasefire either three days or five days … Hamas will release hostages, including all Thais being held, which they promised.
This could be in less than 10 days or in the next two to three days.
Lepong is part of a team formed by Thai Muslim politicians, headed by the parliamentary speaker, Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, that has reportedly been in contact with Hamas since October.
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A man has crashed a car into a barricade near the entrance of the Israeli embassy in Tokyo on Thursday, injuring a police officer, Reuters reports.
Police arrested a 53-year-old man at the scene, local media reported.
An official at the Israeli embassy said the matter was under police investigation and declined further comment.
The incident happened at an area near the embassy that has been the site of a handful of pro-Palestinian demonstrations against Israel‘s bombardment of the Gaza Strip in recent weeks.
Police had stepped up security in the area, including erecting the temporary barricades, since the Israel-Hamas war began on 7 October, residents said.
A month ago, a staffer at the Israeli embassy in Beijing was assaulted on the street and hospitalised.
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A bit more background on Ismail Haniyeh, whose house the Israeli military says it has struck in Gaza (although he is believed to be in Qatar).
Haniyeh was elected as Hamas’s leader in 2017 and has largely controlled his group’s political activities from outside Gaza.
He was the right-hand man to the Hamas founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in Gaza before the cleric was assassinated in 2004.
Haniyeh became prime minister shortly after leading the group to victory in elections in Gaza in 2006 but was shunned by the international community as his group was deemed a terrorist organisation by the US and EU, among others.
Hamas then seized control of Gaza from the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority during a brief civil war in 2007.
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Israeli airstrike hits home of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, IDF says
Israeli fighter jets struck the Gaza home of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said on Telegram.
Haniyeh, considered to be the militant group’s overall leader, has lived in Qatar for several years.
The IDF said his house was “used as terrorist infrastructure and often served as a meeting point for Hamas’s senior leaders”.
Israeli soldiers had also “located and destroyed a Hamas naval forces weapons cache, containing diving gear, explosive devices and weapons,” the IDF said.
They also “struck terrorists and located weapons including explosive belts, explosive barrels, RPGS, anti-tank missiles, comms equipment and intelligence documents”.
The Guardian was not able to verify these claims.
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Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, has said Israel cannot leave a vacuum in Gaza and would have to maintain a strong force there for the near future to prevent Hamas from re-emerging in the Palestinian enclave, the Financial Times has reported.
According to Reuters, he told the British newspaper:
If we pull back, then who will take over? We can’t leave a vacuum. We have to think about what will be the mechanism; there are many ideas that are thrown in the air … But no one will want to turn this place, Gaza, into a terror base again.
Last week the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told ABC News that Israel would “for an indefinite period” have security responsibility for the enclave after the war, but the US pushed back saying Palestinians should govern Gaza once Israel ends its war against Hamas.
Herzog told the FT that Israel’s government was discussing many ideas about how Gaza would be run once the war between Israel and Hamas ends and added that he assumed that the US and “our neighbours in the region” would have some involvement in the post-conflict order.
Joe Biden said on Wednesday he had made it clear to Netanyahu that a two-state solution was the only answer to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict and that occupying Gaza would be “a big mistake”.
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There have been rowdy scenes in Washington, where police have clashed with protesters calling for a ceasefire outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Associated Press reports:
US Capitol Police said about 150 people were “illegally and violently protesting” near the DNC headquarters building in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington. Members of Congress were evacuated from the building as the protest erupted.
Video posted on social media showed protesters shoving police officers and trying to grab hold of metal barricades as the officers moved in to make arrests. The videos also show officers shoving protesters. Many of the protesters were wearing black shirts that read “Cease Fire Now.”
Protesters included members of If Not Now and Jewish Voice for Peace, who have organized other demonstrations in Washington.
Protester Dani Noble said the demonstrators came to the DNC on Wednesday night to peacefully call on Democratic Party leadership to support a cease-fire in Gaza. Instead, “we were met by police pulling on folks that are disabled or have have chronic illnesses, pulling people to the ground in riot gear,” Noble said.
Noble, who lives in Philadelphia and is a supporter of the group Jewish Voice for Peace, said no one group organized the protest, but instead it was a coalition of many groups and individuals who support a cease-fire.
“It is shameful the way that nonviolent protesters and members of our community were met with violence tonight. It is absolutely shameful,” Noble added.
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Here are some of the latest images coming to us from the city of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. Palestinians have fled to the south after being told to do so by the Israeli military, which has however also launched strikes there.
Israel calls UN security council resolution 'disconnected from reality'
Israel’s UN ambassador has denounced a UN security council resolution calling for a “humanitarian pauses” as “disconnected from reality” and “meaningless”. He said in a post on X:
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 unfortunate that the Council continues to ignore, not condemn, or even mention the massacre that Hamas carried out on October 7, which led to the war in Gaza. It is truly shameful!
The UN security council resolution, passed late Wednesday after weeks of disagreement among members, calls for “urgent extended humanitarian pauses for [a] sufficient number of days to allow aid access” to Gaza.
The US and the UK, two potentially veto-wielding powers, abstained on the resolution on the grounds that although they supported the emphasis on humanitarian relief, they could not give their full support because it contained no explicit criticism of Hamas.
Russia also abstained on the grounds that it made no mention of an immediate ceasefire, its top imperative.
The resolution, drafted by Malta, was passed with 12 votes in favour, and is the first UN resolution on the Israel-Palestine conflict since 2016.
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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Joe Biden issues strident defence of 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 presents a continuing threat to Israel and that Israeli forces are seeking to avoid civilian casualties. After a summit meeting with the 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 1,200 people 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 Defense 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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Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war with me, Helen Livingstone.
Joe Biden has defended his refusal to call for a ceasefire, arguing that Hamas has said it would attack Israel again and that “the idea that they’re going to just stop and not do anything is not realistic”.
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.”
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.
In other key developments:
The UN 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 Shifa hospital complex in Gaza city almost 24 hours after an overnight raid that 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 centre beneath the hospital.
Hamas 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”.
Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the director of the al-Shifa hospital, said water, electricity and medical oxygen supplies were completely cut off within the facility and 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,” the foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said, adding that “many other” Palestinians were killed or injured.
The health ministry 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 Britain’s opposition Labour party resigned or were fired for defying their leader Keir Starmer’s demand that 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 would 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’s 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 1 million children to turn.”
Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general 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 UNRWA in Gaza, has said 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 was 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.
Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, called on Benjamin Netanyahu to resign, 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.
Qatari mediators were on Wednesday seeking to negotiate a deal between Hamas and Israel that would include 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.
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