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At least 20 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are “no longer functioning”, according to the UN’s humanitarian agency.
Funerals are being held for Israeli soldiers killed in the Israel-Hamas war. Here are some images from a funeral in Jerusalem.
AFP has this update on the families working to bring hostages home:
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum has organised more than 20 foreign delegations each comprising three or four family representatives, according to Daniel Shek, head of the group’s diplomatic cell.
With the Israeli army’s operation in Gaza intensifying, the group is alert to the possibility of a “decrease in the sense of urgency” over hostages, said Shek, a former ambassador to France, who is now retired.
On the domestic front, public opinion is entirely behind the families of the hostages.
“For the past two weeks, the figures show the number-one priority for Israelis is the return of the hostages,” in contrast to the start of the war when it was “fighting Hamas”, said Shek.
One year after their last in-person talks, Xi Jinping and Joe Biden will come face to face once again on Wednesday in San Francisco, in an encounter that will dominate events at the Apec summit as the Chinese and US presidents seek to stabilise relations in an increasingly fraught geopolitical climate.
The meeting, which could last several hours, is the culmination of months of lower level dialogues which took place over the summer, with Washington sending more delegates to China than Beijing did to the US.
China and the US are now on opposing sides of two major conflicts, rather than just the Ukraine war, which overshadowed the leaders’ previous meeting at the G20 summit in Indonesia last year.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused data company, says that “Beijing’s political reality matters much more to it than its economic reality,” adding that the wars in Ukraine and Israel-Palestine “are broadly beneficial for Beijing”.
Beijing’s refusal to condemn Hamas for the latest violence in Israel and Palestine has frustrated western leaders and underlines why “the [Chinese] Communist party poses the largest threat to America’s global interests,” according to Stone Fish.
Gaza death toll has not been updated since Friday
Muhammed Zaqout, director of hospitals in Gaza, said on Sunday that the Health Ministry has been unable to update the death toll since Friday as medics are unable to reach areas hit by Israeli bombardment.
UNOCHA confirmed this in its update on Sunday, writing, “On 12 November, for the second consecutive day, following the collapse of services and communications at hospitals in the north, the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza did not update casualty figures.”
The most recent toll stands at 11,078, of whom 4,506 were said to be children and 3,027 women.
“About 2,700 others, including some 1,500 children, have been reported missing and may be trapped or dead under the rubble, awaiting rescue or recovery. Another 27,490 Palestinians have reportedly been injured,” the UN said.
Here is the full story on the Jewish school in Montreal hit by gunfire, marking the Canadian city’s third such attack in less than a week:
The UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees, is currently sheltering 618,000 people in southern Gaza in just 97 facilities. Three of these opened recently in Rafah, the UN said in a UNOCHA update on Sunday evening, adding, “Following these openings, the average number of IDPs per shelter slightly declined.”
1.5 million people in Gaza are internally displaced, the UN said.
In Australia, senior politicians have “softened their objections to a ceasefire” in Gaza, the Australian Associated Press reports, after a weekend of nation-wide demonstrations showed strong support for peace.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong told ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday everyone wanted to “take the next steps towards a ceasefire” but warned such action could not be “one-sided”.
Senator Wong said Israel should observe international law, citing Australia’s concerns with the deaths of civilians in struggling Gazan hospitals.
However, Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie claimed Senator Wong’s comments were an “equivocation”.
“Calling for a ceasefire as if there was some equivalence between the actions of Hamas and the actual reality of war is absolutely appalling and it needs to be highly condemned,” she told Seven’s Sunrise program on Monday.
But Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek clarified that Senator Wong said “we should be working towards the ceasefire” rather than outright pushing for an end to violence, and reiterated Israel’s “right to defend itself”.
“Working towards a ceasefire, calling for a humanitarian pause - that is a recognition that the civilian casualties in Gaza at the moment are very high, unacceptably high,” she told Sunrise on Monday.
Three nurses killed at al-Shifa, says UN
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory says that three of al-Shifa’s nurses have been killed
“Bombardments and armed clashes around the Shifa hospital in Gaza city intensified since the afternoon of 11 November. Critical infrastructure, including the oxygen station, water tanks and a well, the cardiovascular facility, and the maternity ward, was damaged,and three nurses killed,” the UN office reports in its most recent daily update.
Kamal Adwan Hospital has run out of fuel - report
The head of northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital has told Al Jazeera that the hospital has run out of fuel.
“Ahmed al-Kahlout, the head of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, said in an interview with Al Jazeera that the facility’s main generator has run out of fuel, forcing the hospital to shut its operation,” the news organisation reports.
More than 5,000 people are sheltering at the hospital in addition to patients, al-Kahlout said.
Kamal Adwan is the latest hospital to stop functioning, after the WHO said al-Shifa hospital had run out of fuel and the Palestine Red Crescent Society announced that the al-Quds hospital was “out of service and no longer operational”, also due to a shortage of fuel needed to power generators.
Updated
Jewish school in Montreal is fired upon for second time this week
A Jewish school in Montreal was fired on Sunday for the second time this week AFP reports, citing local police.
Police spokeswoman Veronique Dubuc said no one was in Yeshiva Gedola when shots were heard around 5.00 am local time and there were no reported injuries.
Officers discovered bullet damage to the building’s facade and found cartridges on the ground, Dubuc said.
The incident took place only two days after that school and another Jewish school in Montreal, Canada’s second-largest city, were fired upon, also without casualties.
“The fact that people took the liberty to attack the same target more than once demonstrates the situation’s seriousness,” school spokesman Lionel Perez said during a press conference, adding that classes would continue as usual.
Earlier in the week, a Montreal synagogue suffered minor damage in a firebombing, and three students were injured when pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel groups clashed at the city’s Concordia University.
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Israeli military planners are well aware that international pressure has halted Israeli offensives or counterattacks in a series of previous wars. In 1967 and the Yom Kippur war of 1973, the Israel Defence Forces rushed to make gains in the final hours before ceasefires were imposed.
Israeli military planners are well aware that international pressure has halted Israeli offensives or counterattacks in a series of previous wars. In 1967 and the Yom Kippur war of 1973, the Israel Defence Forces rushed to make gains in the final hours before ceasefires were imposed.
In 1982, the US president, Ronald Reagan, told the prime minister, Menachem Begin, to halt the intensive shelling and bombing of Beirut, leading Israeli hawks to claim that international pressure had deprived them of a conclusive victory against Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization.
There are few signs that the current Israeli government is about to make any such concession to the entreaties of Israel’s allies. Munir al-Boursh, an undersecretary at the Hamas-run health ministry, alleged on Sunday that Israeli snipers had deployed around Shifa, firing at any movement inside the compound. He said airstrikes had destroyed several homes next to the hospital, killing three people, including a doctor.
In typically bullish style, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said his country had offered fuel to Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, which has suspended operations during the fierce fighting with Hamas but that the militant group had refused to receive it. The Israeli military has said there is a safe corridor for civilians to evacuate from Shifa to southern Gaza, but people sheltering in the hospital said they were afraid to go outside.
Establishing control over al-Shifa hospital is a key Israeli objective for military and political reasons. The sprawling complex dominates the centre of Gaza City, where Hamas has much of its administrative infrastructure, and is close to the main north-south road that runs along the coast.
Destroying the ability of Hamas to govern Gaza is one of the stated aims of the Israeli offensive.
“In this war we have to dismantle the elements of Hamas that will prevent Hamas from becoming a military threat again or a government again,” said Prof Kobi Michael of the Institute of National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
“We cannot deal with the ideology by bombing or shooting. This requires different means … It is not connected to the immediate objectives of this war. Right now we have to deal with the military and political entity.”
However, as crucial as Israel feels the operation is, it is also fraught with diplomatic risk. The United States had no wish to see “innocent civilians” caught up in fighting in Gaza’s healthcare facilities, a senior US official said on Sunday.
“The United States does not want to see firefights in hospitals where innocent people, patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire and we’ve had active consultations with the Israeli Defence Forces on this,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS News in an interview.
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Reuters has a bit more context on the strikes: the United States has 900 troops in Syria, and 2,500 more in neighboring Iraq, on a mission to advise and assist local forces trying to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State, which in 2014 seized large swathes of both countries but was later defeated.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the strikes took place within the past several of hours and added that a US review was underway to determine whether the they killed or wounded anyone.
AP: The Iran-backed militant groups, who in Iraq operate mainly under the name Islamic Resistance, have carried out nearly 50 attacks since 17 October on bases housing US personnel in Iraq and Syria.
According to the Pentagon, about 56 US personnel have been injured in the attacks in Syria and Iraq, but all have returned to duty. Their injuries are a combination of traumatic brain injury and minor wounds.
US strikes two locations in eastern Syria
The US military conducted airstrikes on two locations in eastern Syria involving Iranian-backed groups, hitting a training location and a weapons facility, according to the Pentagon and US officials. It marks the third time in a bit more than two weeks that the US has retaliated against the militants for what has been a growing number of attacks on bases housing US troops in Iraq and Syria.
In a statement, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the strikes targeted sites near Abukama and Mayadin and were used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as well as Iran-backed militias.
“The President has no higher priority than the safety of US personnel, and he directed today’s action to make clear that the United States will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests,” Austin said.
A US official said one site also included weapons storage. The official spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a military operation.
Biden senior Middle East advicer to visit Israel on Tuesday
Brett McGurk, Biden’s senior Middle East adviser, will visit Israel on Tuesday and meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with further visits planned in Brussels, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar, a US official told Reuters.
Qatar’s government earlier said Al Thani had stressed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the permanent opening of the Rafah crossing into Egypt in the call with Biden.
Washington has rejected calls from Arab leaders and others for it to insist that Israel halt its assault on the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip.
Gaza health ministry says fuel left near al-Shifa by IDF not enough won't last an hour
The Associated Press has this update on al-Shifa hospital, where the last generator ran out of fuel Saturday, leading to the deaths of three premature babies and four other patients, according to the Health Ministry.
It said another 36 babies are at risk of dying.
Israel’s military asserted it placed 300 liters (79 gallons) of fuel near Shifa overnight for an emergency generator powering incubators for premature babies and coordinated the delivery with hospital officials. “Sadly, they haven’t taken the fuel yet,” spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said. He said if this fuel doesn’t work, they will seek “other solutions for the babies.”
A Health Ministry spokesperson, Ashraf al-Qidra, told Al Jazeera the fuel would not be enough to operate the generator an hour. “This is a mockery towards the patients and children,” Al-Qidra said.
This is Helen Sullivan taking over the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
Updated
Summary
It is 1am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. Here is where the day stands:
In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said that Israel cannot use Hamas’s October 7 attacks as “reason for collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” “You need to be able to distinguish Hamas from the Palestinian people. And so you cannot use the horrific things that Hamas did as a reason for collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” Guterres said.
The World Health Organization has managed to get in touch with healthcare workers at Gaza’s al Shifa hospital where thousands of Palestinians, including critically injured ones, are sheltering as the Israeli military encircles the hospital. In a statement on Sunday, WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus called the situation “dire and perilous.”
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has spoken with the Qatari prime minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on efforts to expand humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza. They also spoke of ensuring the safe passage of foreign nationals and the critically wounded out of the war-torn strip, Blinken said in a tweet on Sunday.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz said Sunday he opposed an “immediate” ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, as calls multiply globally to halt the conflict. “I don’t think the calls for an immediate ceasefire or long pause – which would amount to the same thing – are right,” Scholz said in a debate organised by the German regional daily Heilbronner Stimme, Agence France-Presse reports.
Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Sunday that it has not been able to contact its staff in Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital since last night. “Other MSF colleagues living in Gaza city reported that the hostilities around Al-Shifa have not stopped. We are worried for their lives,” the humanitarian organization said.
Regional directors of Unicef, UN Population Fund and the World Health Organization are calling for “immediate action to halt attacks on healthcare in Gaza.” “Attacks on medical facilities and civilians are unacceptable and are a violation of international humanitarian and human rights law and conventions… The right to seek medical assistance, especially in times of crisis, should never be denied,” they said.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US does not believe Israel intends to re-occupy Gaza after its ongoing war with Hamas. “This is not our understanding of the Israel government’s position,” said Sullivan, his words in apparent contrast to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who told separately CNN, “The first thing we … will do … [is] destroy Hamas. The second thing we have to understand is that there has to be an overriding and overreaching Israeli military envelope.”
State-run Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has signed a $1.2bn deal to supply air defense systems to Israel’s military, the company said on Sunday, citing the country’s war with Hamas in Gaza, Reuters reports. “IAI finds itself in an accelerated mode to supply systems and solutions for Israel’s defense establishment, for all theaters of operation, whether sea, ground, air or space,” IAI said, noting the deal was with the defense ministry.
Nine Americans are still missing following the 7 October attack by Hamas on Israel, the US national security adviser said on Sunday.
Jake Sullivan, the White House’s chief security adviser, said the US is involved in “ongoing negotiations” for the release of hostages believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza.
The comments come as Hamas said it is suspending hostage negotiations because of Israel’s handling of the besieged al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. On Saturday, the World Health Organization said it had lost communication with people at the hospital, where more than 30 premature babies are among the sick Palestinians trapped by fighting.
Speaking on ABC’s This Week, Sullivan said:
“There are ongoing negotiations involving the Israelis, the Qataris, and we, the United States, are actively engaged in this as well because we want to make sure that we bring home those Americans who have been taken hostage as well as all of the other hostages.”
Sullivan said president Joe Biden “is not going to rest” until every hostage was released. He said it was unclear how many people were being held by Hamas.
“We know the number of missing and that’s the number the Israelis have given. But we don’t know how many of those are still alive,” Sullivan said.
Updated
UN chief: Israel cannot use Hamas's October 7 attacks as reason for "collective punishment of the Palestinian people"
In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said that Israel cannot use Hamas’s October 7 attacks as “reason for collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
“Since the very beginning, I have condemned Hamas. What Hamas did is horrific. Terror attacks, slaughtering women and children, and I’ve been very clear in the condemnation of Hamas.
But there is a basic principle for me… Hamas is not the Palestinian people. And you need to be able to distinguish Hamas from the Palestinian people. And so you cannot use the horrific things that Hamas did as a reason for collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” Guterres said.
He went on to describe the dire humanitarian condition in Gaza, saying:
“What we have seen until now is a drop by drop in the increase of humanitarian aid. After today we have about 900 trucks in this 22 days. 930-something trucks. Before, in the past, there were 500 trucks every day supplying Gaza. You can imagine what this means…”
He added that he has spoken to Iran and asked it to put pressure on Hamas to release the hostages, as well as inform Hezbollah that “you cannot create a situation in which Lebanon will be completely engulfed by this conflict.”
“If Hezbollah will launch a massive attack on Israel, it might create I don’t know what kind of impact. But one thing I’m sure Lebanon would not survive,” Guterres said.
In a webinar call with the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund on Sunday, British-Palestinian plastic surgeon Ghassan Abu Sittah delivered a harrowing testimony from Gaza on the rapidly deteriorating healthcare system in the strip.
In an emotional call, Abu Sittah said:
Right now, the Israelis have not shown any sign of humanitarianism. The brutalism of what is happening, it’s beyond belief … It’s clear that there is no intervening in this war to stop what is happening right now …
Lots of amputations. Blast injuries, the burns, the blast, dirt dust. The longterm effect is devastating because not only are we going to face the problem with the initial injuries, but also [the] delay in treatment … will mean more surgeries will be needed.
People will end up with more disabilities. In the case of children, children with war injuries need reconstruction until they stop growing …
He added:
I am at al-Ahli [Arab hospital]. I was going back and forth between al-Shifa and al-Ahli but I’ve been in al-Ahli since al-Shifa was about to collapse. This was an elective hospital. We are three surgeons here …
We don’t have access to the blood bank because the Israeli’s hit the blood bank. We have no access to al-Shifa since it was surrounded. We’re providing a rudimentary service. We’re the only show in town.”
Updated
The International Committee of the Red Cross has joined other global humanitarian organizations in calling for the urgent protection of civilians in Gaza, whether they are trying to evacuate or staying where they are.
In a statement released on Sunday, the ICRC said:
The ICRC is gravely concerned by the precarious and unsafe conditions under which civilians are evacuating.
Men, women, and children, waving white flags, walk for dozens of kilometers past dead bodies lying on the streets and without necessities like food and water.
At the same time, the ICRC teams in Gaza and hotline operators receive numerous calls from displaced people searching for their family members. It is paramount that members of the same family are not separated during evacuations.
Irrespective of the modalities of evacuations, safe zones or humanitarian pauses, the parties to the conflict continue to be bound by their obligations under international humanitarian law.
While civilians continue to move from the north to the south of Gaza, a hundred thousand displaced people lack essentials like shelter, food, water, and hygiene. The situation is rapidly approaching a humanitarian disaster.
The southern area is not equipped to cater to the massive number of people arriving with nothing but the clothes they are wearing, and the quantity of humanitarian aid coming in is largely insufficient. The ICRC reiterates its call for unimpeded and regular flow of humanitarian assistance.”
Updated
Unicef is repeating its calls for a humanitarian ceasefire, as well as unrestricted humanitarian access across Gaza and the release of all abducted children.
Speaking in a new video released by Unicef from a UN-run shelter, 12-year old Remas said, “Of course we are scared. We are still children. What is our fault?”
“To be forced to come to shelters where there is no water, no food, no mattresses, and we sleep on the floor in the cold,” she added.
"We are still children. What is our fault?” asks 12-year-old Remas from Gaza.
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) November 12, 2023
UNICEF continues to call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, unrestricted humanitarian access across Gaza, and immediate and safe release of all abducted children. pic.twitter.com/7Japa8NxsM
Al-Shifa hospital ‘no longer functioning’, says WHO
The World Health Organization has managed to get in touch with healthcare workers at Gaza’s al Shifa hospital where thousands of Palestinians, including critically injured ones, are sheltering as the Israeli military encircles the hospital.
In a statement on Sunday, WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus called the situation “dire and perilous”.
It’s been 3 days without electricity, without water and with very poor internet which has severely impacted our ability to provide essential care. The constant gunfire and bombings in the area have exacerbated the already critical circumstances.
Tragically, the number of patient fatalities has increased significantly. Regrettably, the hospital is not functioning as a hospital anymore. The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation, and despair,” he added.
.@WHO has managed to get in touch with health professionals at the Al-Shifa hospital in #Gaza.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) November 12, 2023
The situation is dire and perilous.
It's been 3 days without electricity, without water and with very poor internet which has severely impacted our ability to provide essential…
The WHO joins calls from other humanitarian groups including Medecins Sans Frontieres to stop attacks against healthcare facilities and for immediate ceasefire.
Updated
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has spoken with the Qatari prime minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on efforts to expand humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza.
They also spoke of ensuring the safe passage of foreign nationals and the critically wounded out of the war-torn strip, Blinken said in a tweet on Sunday.
Important conversation yesterday with Qatari Prime Minister @MBA_AlThani_ on efforts to expand humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza and ensure the safe passage of foreign nationals and the critically wounded out of Gaza.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) November 12, 2023
Updated
The non-governmental humanitarian organization Care International has released the following statement on the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, calling it “unrecognisable”.
Hiba Tibi, Care’s West Bank and Gaza country director, said:
Gaza is now unrecognisable. The conditions in the north are unbearable. It is almost impossible to find food and drinking water. There is simply nothing left.
The journey to the south is incredibly dangerous and hard. Many of those who have made it out have experienced and witnessed terrible suffering. With each day that passes it is a miracle that people are still alive, particularly in the area near the two hospitals.
My uncle is among those seeking refuge near Shifa hospital in the north to get treatment for a pre-existing condition. This week, they went to get food but could only find a few cucumbers and lemons to feed 13 people. The cucumbers cost eight times what they used to. Just a handful of the nearly 30 apartments in his building are occupied.
Before, Gaza had 600 trucks arriving each day to bring supplies. Today, 32 days into the conflict, less than 600 have entered Gaza combined. We urgently need a ceasefire so that civilians can access food, water and medical supplies.”
Updated
German chancellor Olaf Scholz said Sunday he opposed an “immediate” ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, as calls multiply globally to halt the conflict.
“I don’t think the calls for an immediate ceasefire or long pause – which would amount to the same thing – are right,” Scholz said in a debate organised by the German regional daily Heilbronner Stimme, Agence France-Presse reports.
“That would mean ultimately that Israel leaves Hamas the possibility of recovering and obtaining new missiles,” he added, calling instead for “humanitarian pauses”.
Scholz’s stance clashes with many Arab countries, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is due to meet the German leader in Berlin next week.
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Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Sunday that it has not been able to contact its staff in Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital since last night.
Other MSF colleagues living in Gaza city reported that the hostilities around Al-Shifa have not stopped. We are worried for their lives,” the humanitarian organization said.
MSF has not been able to contact its staff inside Al-Shifa hospital since last night.
— Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (@MSF_canada) November 12, 2023
Other MSF colleagues living in Gaza city reported that the hostilities around Al-Shifa have not stopped.
We are worried for their lives. #Gaza
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Here are some images coming through the newswires from Gaza where thousands of Palestinians, including critically injured patients, sheltering in hospitals which have run out of fuel and oxygen, have either been trapped or forced to evacuate by Israel’s deadly bombardment:
Updated
Regional directors of Unicef, UN Population Fund and the World Health Organization are calling for “immediate action to halt attacks on healthcare in Gaza”.
In a joint statement released on Sunday, the regional directors said:
“We are horrified at the latest reports of attacks on and in the vicinity of Al Shifa Hospital, Al Rantissi Naser Paediatric Hospital, Al Quds Hospital, and others in Gaza city and northern Gaza, killing many, including children. Intense hostilities surrounding several hospitals in northern Gaza are preventing safe access for health staff, the injured, and other patients.
Premature and new-born babies on life support are reportedly dying due to power, oxygen, and water cuts at Al-Shifa Hospital, while others are at risk. Staff across a number of hospitals are reporting lack of fuel, water and basic medical supplies, putting the lives of all patients at immediate risk…
Attacks on medical facilities and civilians are unacceptable and are a violation of International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law and Conventions. They cannot be condoned. The right to seek medical assistance, especially in times of crisis, should never be denied.
More than half of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip are closed. Those still functioning are under massive strain and can only provide very limited emergency services, lifesaving surgery and intensive care services…
Decisive international action is needed now to secure an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and prevent further loss of life, and preserve what’s left of the health care system in Gaza.”
Updated
With thousands of Palestinians seeking shelter in al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest medical center, Israel’s deadly ground offensive around the hospital has forced Palestinians to evacuate further south while many more stay trapped inside.
“We thought the hospital was a safe place but it wasn’t. If we had stayed another five minutes, we would have been killed. They started to bomb us and we ran away from al-Shifa,” one Palestinian woman said.
The hospital’s last generator has also run out of fuel, which has lead to at least six deaths, including a premature baby and child in an incubator.
Updated
Al-Shifa hospital head of surgery: 'I am afraid that all of the babies will lose their lives'
(Warning: this post contains distressing images)
Inside a darkened operating theatre in Gaza’s largest hospital complex, staff swaddled dozens of tiny premature babies eight to a bed, in a desperate effort to keep the infants warm – and alive.
With no oxygen supplies or power for incubators, nurses attempted to provide what little care they could for 39 babies who were transferred from the neonatal unit in another part of the sprawling complex following a strike on Dar al-Shifa’s intensive care unit.
Just getting them to the theatre was a potentially deadly mission after staff reported strikes on anyone moving inside the hospital compound.
“The neonatal unit is not connected to the main surgical units within the al-Shifa medical complex; it was dangerous to go from the main building to get the babies,” said doctor Marwan Abu Sada, head of surgery at al-Shifa, once considered the heart of Gaza’s healthcare system, now operating under fire.
“We called the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Israelis just to ensure the passage of the babies from the neonatal ICU to the surgical area.”
36 infants managed to survive the transfer, but their conditions worsened over the weekend. “We lost the life of one baby today, yesterday we lost two and I am afraid that all of the babies will lose their lives,” said Abu Sada.
Al-Shifa previously had the largest neonatal unit in Gaza and nowhere else could care for the infants, he said, making evacuation impossible. “We no longer have any oxygen supplies or even fuel to run a generator,” he said.
Hospitals across Gaza City are in a struggle for survival, with only one facility able to receive hundreds of wounded people arriving daily. Staff in Dar al-Shifa, the largest medical facility in the territory, were working under Israeli bombardment and without power, clean water, or food.
“Shifa is besieged: no one can get out, and no one can enter,” said Abu Sada. “It is dangerous for us, even the medical staff, to look out the window. We are so afraid of the shooting,” he said.
Amid fears of sniper fire, hospital staff have moved all 600 remaining patients away from the windows and into corridors deeper inside the complex.
Updated
Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, maintained Sunday that the White House does not believe Israel intends to re-occupy Gaza after its ongoing war there with Hamas – even as the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemingly suggested his country would refuse to accept Palestinian rule of the territory.
CNN State of the Union host Dana Bash told Sullivan on Sunday that to her it “sounds like an Israeli occupation of Gaza” was a likely outcome of the war that Israel launched after the attack by Hamas on 7 October.
“Is that where this is going?” Bash asked Sullivan.
Sullivan replied: “This is not our understanding of the Israel government’s position.”
“The American position on this is straightforward. Secretary [of state Antony] Blinken laid it out this past week: no reoccupation of Gaza, no reduction in the territory of Gaza, no forcible displacement of Palestinians. And Gaza should never be allowed to be used as a base for terrorist attacks against Israel or anyone else,” he continued.
Those remarks did not seem to comfortably align with ones Netanyahu made to Bash separately on Sunday.
“The first thing we … will do … [is] destroy Hamas. The second thing we have to understand is that there has to be an overriding and overreaching Israeli military envelope because we have seen any place that we leave – we just exit, give to some other force – very soon, terrorism resurgence, so we have achieved nothing,” he said.
Netanyahu then went on to accuse the state of Palestine of failing to “demilitarize” or “de-radicalize” Hamas-ruled Gaza before adding: “We have to do it.”
Bash asked Netanyahu: “So, if not the [state of Palestine], then who?”
Netanyahu, without elaborating, said: “There has to be a reconstructed civilian authority. There has to be something else.”
“Let’s create a different reality there,” he added.
Updated
Patients in Gaza are “in streets without care” as hospitals across Gaza are forced to evacuate amid Israel’s deadly ground offensive that has left many patients stranded behind.
Agence France-Presse reports:
“The forced evacuations of Al-Nasr and Rantisi paediatric hospitals have left sick people on the streets without care” in Gaza City, Mohammed Zaqut, director-general of hospitals in the Palestinian territory, told reporters.
“We have completely lost contact with the caregivers” at these two hospitals, he added.
Earlier Sunday, the Israeli military said it had “enabled the evacuation” of the two hospitals and opened an additional route to facilitate the safe passage of the civilian population to the south of the Gaza Strip.
Zaqut also described a “catastrophic” situation inside Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, saying “no one can enter or leave it” amid heavy fighting. Doctors and aid groups on Saturday said two out of 39 babies had died in Al-Shifa’s neonatal unit after power to their incubators was cut off.
“We must save premature babies,” Zaqut said.
Israel pledged on Saturday to help evacuate babies from the facility, which has been caught in Israel’s ground offensive and repeatedly hit by strikes.
But Melanie Ward, chief executive of the group Medical Aid for Palestinians, questioned how such an evacuation could be undertaken safely. “The transfer of critically ill neonates is a complex and technical process,” Ward said.
“With ambulances unable to reach the hospital – particularly those with the skills and equipment needed to transfer these babies – and no hospital with capacity to receive them, there is no indication of how this can be done safely.”
For days, Al-Shifa officials have said that dozens of bodies have been abandoned near the hospital and in its courtyard.
An Al-Shifa ambulance driver, speaking to AFP by telephone, said ambulances had come under sniper fire while trying to approach the bodies. “We asked to be able to bury the bodies, but anyone who goes out into the courtyard of Al-Shifa hospital gets shot,” Zaqut said.
The Gaza health ministry, he added, is “no longer able” to report on the dead and injured due to lack of access.
According to last toll from the ministry released on Friday, more than 11,000 people have died in Israel’s relentless bombing on the Gaza Strip, mostly civilians and including thousands of children.
Updated
State-run Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has signed a $1.2bn deal to supply air defense systems to Israel’s military, the company said on Sunday, citing the country’s war with Hamas in Gaza, Reuters reports.
“IAI finds itself in an accelerated mode to supply systems and solutions for Israel’s defense establishment, for all theaters of operation, whether sea, ground, air or space,” IAI said, noting the deal was with the defense ministry.
Updated
Here is testimony from Fadi Abu Riyala, a healthcare worker with Médecins Sans Frontières, who was forced to evacuate al-Nasr children’s hospital:
We were bombed in the hospitals. We had to leave the patients behind. In the ICU of al-Nasr children’s hospital, we had to leave the patients on the beds. We could not take any patients with us. There are patients in the reception, still alive and breathing, and we were not able to take them with us.
Abu Riyala added that he left surrounded by tanks and live ammunition, as well as artillery shelling inside the hospital.
He continued:
To all the Arabs who are watching this movie, what are you looking at? What are you doing still sitting? Move! Gaza needs relief. Gaza needs the Red Cross. Gaza needs the media. Gaza needs people to amplify its news …
Whoever gets shot, they die. The martyrs are spread in front of al-Nasr hospital, in front of al-Rantisi hospital, in front of the eye hospital. We ask every humanitarian out there … to come and help the Gaza Strip.
تغطية صحفية: ممرض يروي شـــهادة عن جريمة الاحتلال في مستشفى النصر للأطفال. pic.twitter.com/wWpNR29fDt
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) November 12, 2023
Updated
In an interview with CNN on Sunday, the UN secretary general António Guterres said, “No, on the contrary” in response to a question on whether UN personnel in Gaza were out of harm’s way.
Speaking to the CNN host Fareed Zakaria, the UN chief said, “The numbers are growing by the day,” adding that the UN had lost 101 employees in Gaza as of Sunday.
“You can’t imagine what it is [like] to run an organisation in which 101 people that were working purely to help address the humanitarian needs of people … [are] killed. And some of them were killed with their families in their houses by bombardment,” said Guterres.
He added that there would be one minute of silence on Monday across the UN.
“We are a family. We feel very dramatically [for] those of our family that die. And you can’t imagine how difficult it is for me to tell our colleagues that they must go on in this very dangerous situation,” he said.
Updated
Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will not stop its fighting around al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, where there have been multiple reports of people being shot as they attempted to flee the facility.
In an interview with CNN’s State of the Union, Netanyahu was asked how Israel, which claims Hamas are sheltering in the hospital, would ensure sick and injured people would not be caught up in Israeli attacks.
“Well, we’ve called to evacuate all the patients from that hospital and in fact 100 or so have already been evacuated,” Netanyahu said.
Earlier today the Guardian reported that an extension to the intensive care unit had been bombarded, while dead and injured people were still lying on the ground at the hospital entrance. There are 39 babies in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Netanyahu did not elaborate on how Palestinians should evacuate seriously ill people from al-Shifa hospital and other besieged hospitals in Gaza.
“We’re telling them to leave,” Netanyahu said.
“[We’re] helping them by creating safe corridors. So we have designated routes to a safe zone, south of Gaza City where there’s no fighting and we’re telling them: ‘Go ahead, move.’”
Netanyahu said he would not implement longer “humanitarian pauses” of several days, if “large groups” of Israeli hostages were freed. The US has called for Israel to implement three-day long pauses in its fighting in Gaza, in order to allow Palestinians to escape the worst-hit areas.
“That’s not a pause. If you’re talking about stopping the fighting, that’s exactly what Hamas wants,” Netanyahu said.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
It is 5pm in Gaza City and in Tel Aviv. Here are the latest headlines …
Hamas on Sunday said it was suspending hostage negotiations because of Israel’s handling of the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, a Palestinian official briefed on the hostage talks has told Reuters. Israel’s three major TV news channels, without citing named sources, had reported there was some progress toward a deal, which would involve 50 to 100 women, children and elderly being released in stages during a three- to five-day pause in fighting.
The World Health Organization said late on Saturday it had lost communication with its contacts in al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza, and expressed “grave concerns” for the safety of everyone trapped there by the fighting while calling for an immediate ceasefire. “As horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks continue to emerge, we assume our contacts joined tens of thousands of displaced people and are fleeing the area,” it said in a post on social media. The hospital’s last generator ran out of fuel on Saturday, causing the death of a premature baby, another child in an incubator and four other patients, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Israel military spokesperson Lt Col Richard Hecht said plans to try to evacuate babies from the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza were still being “developed”. On Saturday the Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said: “We will provide the assistance needed” to remove the babies from the hospital.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society announced on Sunday that the al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip was “out of service and no longer operational”. It stated that “the cessation of services is due to the depletion of available fuel and power outage”.
The Hamas-run health authority in Gaza has said it is unable to issue updated casualty statistics in the Gaza Strip “due to the targeting of hospitals”.
The Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy has accused international agencies operating within Gaza of actively putting Palestinian civilians’ lives at risk. Specifically naming the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, Levy said: “For a month, they’ve refused to support an evacuation from north. Now they’re endangering everyone by requiring a hasty evacuation in the middle of ground urban warfare.”
13 people have reportedly been killed in an attack on a residential building in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, in the area that Israel is ordering Palestinians to move to. Al Jazeera’s correspondent Hani Mahmoud reports that one the family members who survived the attack said “the ground was shaking underneath their feet before the explosion took place and destroyed the building”.
An Israeli ambulance service spokesperson has told Israel’s N12 News that one civilian was critically wounded and between three and five others injured by fire into Israel from Lebanon on Sunday morning. The Israeli military said it was retaliating with artillery fire, after the civilians were hit by anti-tank missiles.
Egyptian security sources told Reuters that on Sunday at least seven injured Palestinians arrived on Egyptian soil through the Rafah border crossing, and that 32 Egyptians crossed over, alongside 80 foreign nationals and dependents. Russians and Poles were among those said to have crossed. Egyptian security sources also told the news agency that at least 80 aid trucks had moved from Egypt into Gaza by Sunday afternoon.
Pope Francis on Sunday called for the wounded in Gaza to be taken care of immediately and the protection of civilians to be assured, along with more humanitarian aid for the territory and the freeing of hostages held by Hamas.
Updated
Hamas says it is suspending hostage negotiations because of Israel's handling of al-Shifa hospital
Hamas on Sunday said it was suspending hostage negotiations because of Israel’s handling of the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, a Palestinian official briefed on the hostage talks has told Reuters.
More details soon …
Updated
Israel’s military spokesperson, Lt Col Richard Hecht, has said plans to try to evacuate babies from al-Shifa hospital in Gaza were still being developed.
Hecht told Sky News:
We understand the timeliness of this and we are working very hard to try to coordinate this effort. There will be more information coming on that. Our goal is not to take over hospitals. Our goal is to dismantle terrorist infrastructure.
Yesterday, another Israeli military spokesperson, Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, said “we will provide the assistance needed” to remove the babies from the hospital.
In a separate development, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has claimed in an interview with NBC news that Israel offered the hospital more fuel.
“On the contrary, we offered actually, last night, to give them enough fuel to operate the hospital, operate the incubators and so on, because we’ve no battle with patients or civilians at all. We just offered Shifa hospital the fuel, they refused it,” Reuters reports that the Israeli prime minister said, without him providing further details.
Israel has repeatedly insisted that Hamas headquarters are under the hospital. Earlier today, an Israeli government spokesperson, Eylon Levy, called it “the al-Shifa terror compound” on the BBC, saying:
In the last few days we’ve seen the IDF helping to evacuate civilians from inside hospitals, including places where they were being held as human shields by Hamas.
The east side of the hospital is currently free. The hospital hasn’t been entirely surrounded. And our troops are committed to help get [the babies] out of harm’s way, despite knowing that on previous occasions over the weekend when we’ve facilitated safe passage for Palestinians from hospitals, our troops have actually been attacked by Hamas as we tried to protect civilians.
Updated
The US wants to avoid armed fighting inside hospitals in the Gaza Strip, which endangers the lives of civilians, and has conveyed its view to Israeli forces, the White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS News on Sunday, Reuters reports.
Sullivan backed Israeli claims that Hamas operates out of hospitals inside the Gaza Strip, saying that open-source information indicated that “Hamas is using hospitals as it uses many other civilian facilities, for command and control, for weapons storage, to house its fighters. And this is a violation of the laws of war.”
He also said the US continues to move its citizens out of Gaza.
“The gate has been open and closed. The lists have included Americans some days and not other days. But the bottom line is, today the gate is open. We are moving American citizens and their families members out,” he said.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Gaza and from Israel.
Jon Henley is in Paris for the Guardian:
Tens of thousands of people, including many senior politicians, are expected to march in Paris against antisemitism amid a dramatic surge in anti-Jewish incidents across France and bitter political rows over whether – and how – to take part.
“I will be marching for the values of the Republic and against antisemitism,” wrote Élisabeth Borne, the French prime minister whose Jewish father was deported during the second world war, on X, formerly Twitter. “This combat is vital for our national cohesion.”
The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said more than 3,000 police and gendarmes would be deployed to maintain security along the route of the “great civic march” from the Quai d’Orsay, on Paris’s Left Bank, to the Luxembourg gardens in the centre of the capital.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has said he will not take part but will be there “in my heart and in my thoughts”, adding that there could be “no tolerance for the intolerable” and France must be “united behind its values, its universalism”.
In a letter published in Le Parisien newspaper, Macron condemned the “unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism” in France. “A France where our Jewish citizens are afraid is not France,” he said.
Read more of Jon Henley’s report from Paris here: Bitter rows among French politicians over Paris march to condemn antisemitism
UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, has issued a statement expressing concern about the situation in al-Shifa hospital, where three out of 39 premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit have reportedly died while the hospital is suffering from Israeli attacks and a lack of fuel and resources.
In the statement, it described the reports coming from the hospital as “deeply troubling”, saying they “reveal a dire situation where thousands of injured and displaced civilians find themselves trapped within the hospital grounds.”
The statement goes on to say:
We are also deeply concerned about reports that the hospital has run out of fuel today, severely compounding an already horrific situation. Without fuel, the hospital risks being inoperable and unable to run lifesaving equipment such as incubators for newborns.
Ongoing fighting and the lack of fuel are putting at risk the lives of health workers, patients and some of the most vulnerable people in Gaza, many of whom have been sheltering at Al Shifa, including women, children, the elderly and disabled. They, and critically ill patients, have nowhere safe to go, with reports of ambulances being unable to leave the grounds. There are also reports of fighting around a number of other hospitals.
Humanity must prevail. UNFPA reiterates the secretary-general’s call for a humanitarian ceasefire. International humanitarian law must be upheld by all parties. We repeat: Hospitals, health workers and civilians must never be targets.
Earlier, Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy accused international agencies operating within Gaza of actively putting Palestinian civilians’ lives at risk.
He said that “UN agencies also need to take a long, hard look in the mirror about their complicity with Hamas’ human shield strategy”, and complained that “For a month, [NGOs and UN agencies] refused to support an evacuation from north. Now they’re endangering everyone by requiring a hasty evacuation in the middle of ground urban warfare.”
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has claimed that over 11,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began airstrikes on the Gaza Strip following the 7 October Hamas massacre inside Israel’s borders which killed 1,200 Israelis.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society has published a video clip of an interview with CNN by its spokesperson Nebal Farsakh, about the situation in al-Quds hospital, which it earlier declared out of action.
She told viewers:
This has been seven days – over a week – that al-Quds hospital has been isolated from the surrounding area because of the continuous bombardment that is taking place, as well as the complete closure of all roads that lead to the hospital. No one can go out. No one can come in. Unfortunately the aid has not been getting in, which has resulted in a dire situation inside the hospital.
Our teams now are trying their best to continue providing urgent health care services to those who are wounded and injured inside the hospital.
Tanks were surrounding the hospital from all areas. They have opened fire at al-Quds hospital, which has resulted in a number of injuries. The situation is extremely dangerous. We are extremely worried about the safety of our staff and patients, along with the internally displaced people who are taking shelter inside the hospital.
🏥❌Al-Quds Hospital is out of service, due to the depletion of available fuel and power outage.
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 12, 2023
Nebal Farsakh, PRCS Spokesperson in an interview with @CNN.#Gaza #NotTarget #AlQudsHospital #IHL pic.twitter.com/MdkQcvH7LZ
Updated
Robert Tait is in Washington for the Guardian:
“When we were told they were kidnapped, we were joyful,” said the older brother of twins Ziv and Gali Berman. “It’s such a weird thing. It was a glimmer of hope.”
The entire family had endured a nightmarish day on 7 October when Hamas fighters overran Kibbutz Kfar Aza, less than two miles from the border with Gaza, putting it on the frontline of the Palestinian group’s attack that killed some 1,200 Israelis and saw around 240 taken hostage.
With many bodies too badly burned or mutilated for easy identification, the Bermans did not know if Ziv and Gali were among the dead or the kidnapped.
Liran Berman, 36, said “The week after October 7 was the worst week of my life. I went to nine funerals, sometimes having to choose which ones to go to because many were being held at the same time, all while waiting for word of my brothers.”
Berman, a care worker for adults with special needs, was assailed by memories of his last text exchanges with two brothers with whom – despite a 10-year age gap – he is especially close.
“At first, it was just ‘how are you’, ‘are you still in the safe room’, ‘are you safe’,” he said. “Then, when they stopped answering in the evening, I sent them messages saying ‘I love you’ and ‘I miss you’.”
Then, after ten days, came news that kindled an unexpected optimism : “Israeli officers came and told us that, with 99.9% guarantee, that they were kidnapped by Hamas. It meant they were still alive. We are still living on that hope. It’s the only thing we have left.”
Read more here: A family holds onto hope for twin brothers kidnapped by Hamas: ‘It’s the only thing we have left’
Ruth Michaelson reports for the Guardian:
I just spoke to Dr Marwan Abu Sada, head of surgery at the besieged Dar al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Since Friday, Israeli forces including tanks and snipers have surrounded the hospital. Yesterday, there were multiple accounts of people being shot as they attempted to flee, and there are dead and injured people still laying on the ground at the hospital entrance.
In the neonatal intensive care unit, three out of 39 premature babies have died and the lives of the remaining infants are hanging in the balance.
“We lost the life of one baby today, yesterday we lost two, and I am afraid that all of the babies will lose their lives,” said Abu Sada.
After the bombardment of an extension to the intensive care unit, Abu Sada said that staff at al-Shifa moved the entire neonatal unit to an operating theatre previously used for cardiac patients and placed the babies in beds there, ten to a bed, in an attempt to make them comfortable despite the lack of temperature controlled required to keep them alive.
“The neonatal unit is not connected to the main surgical units within the al-Shifa medical complex, it was dangerous to go from the main building to get the babies,” he said. “We called the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Israelis just to ensure the passage of the babies from the neonatal ICU to the surgical area.”
“Where could we evacuate over 30 babies to?” he said, responding to demands from Israeli officials to evacuate patients from al-Shifa, which contains the largest neonatal unit in Gaza. Dar al-Shifa is Gaza’s largest and most well resourced hospital, and the cornerstone of its healthcare system.
“We no longer have any oxygen supplies, or even fuel to run a generator,” he said, referring to both the neonatal unit and to resources across the entire hospital.
Al Jazeera reports that the Hamas-run health authority in Gaza has said it is unable to issue updated casualty statistics in the Gaza Strip “due to the targeting of hospitals.”
The news network carries a statement from the government media office in Gaza which said:
Due to the targeting of hospitals and the prevention of entry of any of the bodies or wounded, the ministry of health was unable, on Saturday, to issue accurate statistics for the numbers of dead and injured during the past hours.
We recall that the occupation committed more than 1,130 massacres, and the number of casualties reached more than 11,100 dead, including more than 8,000 children and women, and the number of wounded was more than 28,000.
During the course of the conflict it has not been possibly for the casualty figures issused from inside the Gaza Strip to be independently verified.
In an update on the number of people who have been able to exit Gaza and enter Egypt today, Reuters reports that at least seven injured Palestinians arrived on Egyptian soil, and that 32 Egyptians crossed over, alongside 80 foreign nationals and dependents.
Egyptian security sources also told the news agency that at least 80 aid trucks had moved from Egypt into Gaza by Sunday afternoon.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from inside Gaza and Israel.
Four Egyptian security sources have told Reuters that so far on Sunday morning after the Rafah border crossing re-opened, several injured Palestinians arrived on Egyptian soil to receive medical treatment, plus 80 foreign nationals and dependents, with more undergoing border procedures.
Pope Francis on Sunday called for the wounded in Gaza to be taken care of immediately and the protection of civilians to be assured, along with more humanitarian aid for the territory and the freeing of hostages held by Hamas, Reuters reports.
The head of Poland’s national bureau of security, Jacek Siewiera, has posted to social media to say that “The first Polish citizens staying in the Gaza Strip crossed the border crossing in Rafah and are on the Egyptian side. The process has begun.”
Reuters reports that he added that Poland was ready with air transport in Egypt to bring them home.
Earlier, in Russia, Tass reported that the evacuation of Russian citizens from the Gaza Strip had begun. It quoted the Russian ministry of emergency situations saying “At the moment, citizens of the Russian Federation who wish to leave the conflict zone are crossing the checkpoint.
Images sent over the news wires this morning from the Rafah Crossing show people being processed.
Reuters has a quick snap that the first evacuees from Gaza on Sunday have made it over the Rafah Crossing, which has been re-opened for limited travel today.
More details soon …
An Israeli ambulance service spokesperson has told Israel’s N12 News that one civilain was critically wounded and between three and five others injured by fire into Israel from Lebanon this morning.
Reuters reports that the Israeli military said it was retaliating with artillery fire, after the civilians were hit by anti-tank missiles.
Since the 7 October Hamas attack inside southern Israel which killed “around 1,200” people according to the latest Israeli estimate, fire has frequently been exchanged between anti-Israeli forces and the IDF over the UN-drawn blue line which marks the boundary between Israel and Lebanon in the north. Israel has evacuated multiple communities that were near to Lebanon.
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy has accused international agencies operating within Gaza of actively putting Palestinian civilians’ lives at risk.
Specifically naming the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN office for the coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, Levy said:
For a month, they’ve refused to support an evacuation from north. Now they’re endangering everyone by requiring a hasty evacuation in the middle of ground urban warfare.
International agencies in Gaza—@ICRC, @WHO, @ochaopt—have actively put Palestinian civilians’ lives at risk.
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) November 12, 2023
For a month, they’ve refused to support an evacuation from north.
Now they’re endangering everyone by requiring a hasty evacuation in the middle of ground urban warfare.
He added in a second post on social media that “UN agencies also need to take a long, hard look in the mirror about their complicity with Hamas’ human shield strategy.”
Israel’s military has been repeatedly demanding that residents in the north of Gaza move to the south of the Gaza Strip. It has continued to bomb cities in the south of the Gaza Strip, including Rafah and Khan Younis.
In a statement two days ago, the World Health Organization director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, noted that:
1.5 million people have been displaced [in Gaza], and are looking for shelter anywhere they can find it. But nowhere and noone is safe.
As more and more people move to a smaller and smaller space, overcrowding is increasing the risks of outbreaks of diarrheal and respiratory disease and skin infections.
WHO is on the ground in Gaza, alongside our partners, to support health workers, who are physically and mentally exhausted and are doing their best in unimaginable conditions.
In addition to caring for the 27 000 people who are wounded, many of them with life-threatening injuries, they are trying to manage the regular health needs of more than two million people.
Summary of the day so far …
It is approaching 1pm in Gaza City and in Tel Aviv. Here are the latest headlines …
The World Health Organization said late Saturday it had lost communication with its contacts in al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza, and expressed “grave concerns” for the safety of everyone trapped there by the fighting while calling for an immediate ceasefire. “As horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks continue to emerge, we assume our contacts joined tens of thousands of displaced people and are fleeing the area,” it said in a post on social media. The hospital’s last generator ran out of fuel on Saturday, causing the death of a premature baby, another child in an incubator and four other patients, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society announced Sunday that the al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip is “out of service and no longer operational”. It states that “the cessation of services is due to the depletion of available fuel and power outage.”
The Israeli military’s Arabic language social media channel said there would again be a limited corridor open Sunday for residents in north Gaza to move south of the Gaza River. It said Salah El-Din Street would be open from 9am (7am GMT) in the morning until 4pm (2pm GMT) in the afternoon. It also announced a “temporary tactical cessation of military activities for humanitarian purposes in the village of Jabalia and Ezbet Mlin” which will run from 10am (8am GMT) until 2pm (noon GMT).
IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari has reiterated that Israel says it is opening an evacuation corridor that it claims will enable people to move “from the Shifa, Rantisi and Nasser hospitals”. Ahmed al-Mokhallalati, a surgeon at the al-Shifa hospital said earlier that “The Israelis called the hospital director the day before yesterday ordering us to evacuate. He asked them to help arrange a way to evacuate the patients. They didn’t have a plan”. Gaza’s health ministry says there are still 1,500 patients at the al-Shifa hospital, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter
13 people have reportedly been killed in an attack on a residential building in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, in the area that Israel is ordering Palestinians to move to. Al Jazeera’s correspondent Hani Mahmoud reports that one the family members who survived the attack said “the ground was shaking underneath their feet before the explosion took place and destroyed the building.”
Israel’s three major TV news channels, without citing named sources, said there was some progress toward a deal to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not discuss details of any possible deal, which according to N12 News would involve 50 to 100 women, children and elderly being released in stages during a three to five day pause in fighting. According to the reports by the channels, Israel would release women and minor Palestinian prisoners and consider letting fuel in to Gaza, while reserving the right to resume fighting.
Israel’s prime minister pushed back in a televised address Saturday night against growing international calls for a ceasefire, saying, “the war is advancing with full force, and it has one goal, to win. There is no alternative to victory”. A ceasefire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by militants in Gaza are released, Netanyahu said in the address.
Netanyahu announced the deaths of five more Israeli soldiers in Gaza. The Israeli military said 46 had been killed since its ground operations there began.
IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari has reiterated that Israel says it is opening an evacuation corridor that it claims will enable people to move “from the Shifa, Rantisi and Nasser hospitals”.
Following the repeated calls by the IDF to Gazan residents to evacuate from northern Gaza for their own safety, the IDF is enabling a passage from the Shifa, Rantisi and Nasser hospitals >> pic.twitter.com/5c07P97Ch5
— דובר צה״ל דניאל הגרי - Daniel Hagari (@IDFSpokesperson) November 12, 2023
Israel has repeatedly instructed residents in northern Gaza to move to the south of the Gaza Strip into areas which Israel continues to bombard, including the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis. 13 people were reported killed in an Israeli strike on a residential building in Khan Younis earlier this morning.
Palestine Red Crescent Society announces al-Quds hospital 'no longer operational'
The Palestine Red Crescent Society has announcesd that the al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip is “out of service and no longer operational”.
It states that “the cessation of services is due to the depletion of available fuel and power outage.”
In a statement it added:
Medical staff are making every effort to provide care to patients and the wounded. Repeated appeals for urgent international assistance, given the week-long siege and a five-day communication and internet blackout, have been unsuccessful. The hospital has been left to fend for itself under ongoing Israeli bombardment, posing severe risks to the medical staff, patients, and displaced civilians.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the northern region has worsened dramatically, with the escalation of Israeli military attacks. This includes the targeted sieging and deprivation of aid to hospitals, leading to their closure.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society holds the international community and signatories of the fourth Geneva conventions accountable for the complete breakdown of the health system and the resulting dire humanitarian conditions.
@PalestineRCS announces Al-Quds Hospital out of service and no longer operational.
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 12, 2023
🚨✋The cessation of services is due to the depletion of available fuel and power outage.
🛑 PRCS holds the international community and signatories of the Fourth Geneva Convention accountable… pic.twitter.com/SPg69Zv7GH
Al Jazeera reports that 13 people have been killed in an attack on a residential building in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. The network’s correspondent Hani Mahmoud reports that one the family members who survived the attack said “the ground was shaking underneath their feet before the explosion took place and destroyed the building.”
The claims have not been independently verified. Khan Younis is in the south of the Gaza Strip, and is inside the area where Israel’s military has been directing Palestinians to evacuate to.
The Israel Defence Force (IDF) has published to its Telegram channel additional details of what it claims are its anti-terrorist operations in Al-Shati camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
It says that over the past 24 hours, “soldiers killed numerous terrorists and uncovered a large number of terrorist infrastructure in the area”.
It said:
During one of the battles with the terrorists, IDF troops identified civilians who were located in a building in the area. The IDF secured an evacuation route for the civilians, and as the civilians were evacuating, terrorists fired at the troops from the outskirts of the area. In order to protect the evacuation route, IDF troops responded with light weapons fire and tanks to kill the terrorists.
In another engagement, IDF troops identified a terrorist cell barricaded inside a house in the area and posed a threat to the forces. IDF troops directed an aircraft and fired at the terrorists, killing the terrorists. In addition, following an identification of an anti-tank missile launched from a weapons storage facility inside a building, a fighter jet struck the source of the fire.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
Jason Burke in Jenin and Sufian Taha in Ramallah report for the Observer:
After the march through the town centre, the men dispersed: to mosques, to their homes, to the few stands that had opened to sell juice or coffee. Many were armed, cradling their M16 assault rifles and ammunition in their arms. All were young, with close-cropped hair, wearing black T-shirts and baseball caps, trainers or combat boots, and all ready to fight.
The day before, many had done exactly that. A raid by Israeli forces into Jenin, a town in the far north of the occupied West Bank, had led to a protracted and chaotic battle. When it ended, 14 were dead and many more injured. These included at least two non-combatants: a 31-year-old paramedic badly wounded when she tried to retrieve an injured militant, and a 40-year-old construction worker who was killed. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said they had detained terrorist leaders, destroyed terrorist infrastructure and seized a stash of handmade bombs.
When the bodies of many of the casualties from the fighting were paraded through Jenin’s main street on Friday, they were wrapped in shrouds bearing the colours of Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad faction, and held high on stretchers by young men often carrying weapons.
“We are the resistance to the occupation. In Gaza, in the West Bank, we are one and the same,” said one young Hamas fighter, a chequered scarf drawn up to his eyes and an M16 in one hand.
Read more here: ‘We are the resistance’: show of defiance by Hamas as funeral parade follows battle in Jenin
The Israeli military’s Arabic language social media channel has announced that there will be a limited corridor open today for residents in north Gaza to move south of the Gaza River.
It said:
Hundreds of thousands of residents have moved over recent days through the humanitarian safe corridor, either by car or on foot along Salah al-Din Street. Sunday, Salah El-Din Street will also be opened to your traffic, from 9am (7am GMT) in the morning until 4pm (2pm GMT) in the afternoon in order to move south beyond Wadi Gaza. Do not surrender to Hamas – your continued presence in the region exposes you to very great danger.
In addition, the message announces a “temporary tactical cessation of military activities for humanitarian purposes in the village of Jabalia and Ezbet Mlin” which will run from 10am (8am GMT) until 2pm (noon GMT).
#عاجل سكان شمال غزة لديّ عدة رسائل مهمة اليكم هذا الصباح:
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) November 12, 2023
مئات الآلاف من السكان قد انتقلوا على مدار الأيام الأخيرة عبر الممرّ الآمن الإنساني، سواء بالسيارات أو مشيًا على الأقدام عبر شارع صلاح الدين.
🔴 اليوم (الأحد) أيضًا سيتم فتح شارع صلاح الدين أمام مروركم، اعتبارًا من… pic.twitter.com/9VuWmdN21o
The message also includes a phone number which Palestinians are asked to use if Hamas prevents them moving south.
Israel has repeatedly ordered Palestinians to evacuate from the north of Gaza to the south, while also continuing to launch airstrikes on the south of the Gaza Strip including on the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
Al Jazeera is carrying some quotes from Ahmed al-Mokhallalati, a surgeon at the al-Shifa hospital. He told the network:
We can hardly treat the patients within the hospital and are in the middle of the war zone. There are continuous airstrikes and the drones are hovering within the hospital area.
Day before yesterday at about 2am, the electricity stopped because of some issues. The engineer who went to try to fix that was shot by a drone and injured in his neck. Four of his limbs are paralysed.
I saw a family of five in front of my eyes who tried to move from the east yesterday and they were shot. So they came back injured.
The Israelis also called the hospital director the day before yesterday ordering us to evacuate. He asked them to help arrange a way to evacuate the patients. They didn’t have a plan.
Gaza’s health ministry says there are still 1,500 patients at the al-Shifa hospital, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter, the Associated Press reports.
Residents reported heavy airstrikes and shelling overnight in Gaza City, including in the area around the hospital.
“We spent the night in panic waiting for their arrival,” said Ahmed al-Boursh, a resident taking shelter in the hospital. “They are outside, not far from the gates.”
“If we do not stop this bloodshed immediately with a ceasefire or at the bare minimum a medical evacuation of patients, these hospitals will become a morgue,” medical aid group Doctors Without Borders warned Sunday, according to Agence France-Presse.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images coming in from the global news agencies:
WHO loses contact with staff at main Gaza hospital
The World Health Organization said late Saturday it had lost communication with its contacts in al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza, and expressed “grave concerns” for the safety of everyone trapped there by the fighting while calling for an immediate ceasefire.
“As horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks continue to emerge, we assume our contacts joined tens of thousands of displaced people and are fleeing the area,” it said in a post on X.
The hospital’s last generator ran out of fuel on Saturday, causing the death of a premature baby, another child in an incubator and four other patients, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The director of al-Shifa hospital, Mohammed Abu Selmia, also said the facility had lost power, with close-quarter battles raging around the most important hospital in the heart of its biggest city.
“Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die,” hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia told the Associated Press by phone over the sound of gunfire and explosions.
Two premature infants died and others are at risk due to power cuts at the hospital, Physicians for Human Rights Israel said on Saturday. “As a result of the lack of electricity, we can report that the neonatal intensive care unit has stopped working. Two premature infants have died, and there is a real risk to the lives of 37 other premature infants” the group said, citing doctors at the hospital, Agence France-Presse reported.
The Israeli military will help evacuate babies trapped in the al-Shifa hospital on Sunday, the chief Israeli military spokesperson, rear admiral Daniel Hagari, said on Saturday. “The staff of the Shifa hospital has requested that tomorrow we help the babies in the pediatric department to get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed,” Hagari told a news conference.
The WHO said it has “grave concerns for the safety of the health workers, hundreds of sick and injured patients, including babies on life support and displaced people who remain inside the hospital”, and reiterated its call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
.@WHO has lost communication with its contacts in Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza. As horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks continue to emerge, we assume our contacts joined tens of thousands of displaced people and are fleeing the area. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/SouW2W3cad
— WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (@WHOEMRO) November 12, 2023
Updated
Reports are still emerging that senior Israeli officials are cautiously optimistic that a hostage deal has become likelier.
Reuters reports that Israel’s three major TV news channels, without citing named sources, said there was some progress toward a deal to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
Netanyahu said he would not discuss details of any possible deal, which according to N12 News would involve 50 to 100 women, children and elderly being released in stages during a three to five day pause in fighting.
According to the reports by the channels, Israel would release women and minor Palestinian prisoners and consider letting fuel in to Gaza, while reserving the right to resume fighting.
More now from that Netanyahu televised address late Saturday.
The Associated Press reports Netanyahu pushed back against growing international calls for a cease-fire, saying, “the war against [Hamas] is advancing with full force, and it has one goal, to win. There is no alternative to victory.”
A cease-fire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by militants in Gaza are released, Netanyahu said in the address.
The AP reports:
The Israeli leader also insisted that after the war, now entering its sixth week, Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain security control there. Asked what he meant by security control, Netanyahu said Israeli forces must be able to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants.
He also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers autonomous areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza.
Previously, US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said that the Palestinian Authority should play a central role in what comes next in the Gaza Strip.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict with me, Christine Kearney.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed back against growing international calls for a cease-fire, saying Israel’s battle to crush Gaza’s ruling Hamas militants will continue with “full force.”
A ceasefire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by militants in Gaza are released, Netanyahu said in a televised address late Saturday, as close-quarter battles raged around the most important hospital in the heart of Gaza City.
“The war against (Hamas) is advancing with full force, and it has one goal, to win. There is no alternative to victory,” Netanyahu said.
Fighting has been raging around al-Shifa hospital, under which the Israeli government believes Hamas has its headquarters, over the past days. The situation at the hospital, where thousands of Palestinians fleeing Israeli attacks are also sheltering, has become increasingly desperate.
Hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said the facility had lost power on Saturday. “Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die,” he said by phone, with gunfire and explosions in the background.
Later on Saturday, the World Health Organization said it had lost contact with its staff there and expressed “grave concerns” for the safety of everyone trapped there by the fighting while calling for an immediate ceasefire.
In other key developments:
The UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator has released a statement saying: “Hospitals must be places of greater safety, not of war.” In a tweet on Saturday, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said: “There can be no justification for acts of war in healthcare facilities, leaving them with no power, food or water, and shooting at patients and civilians trying to flee.”
Médecins Sans Frontières has warned that patients and medical staff in Gaza are “trapped in hospitals under fire” and called on the “Israeli government to cease this unrelenting assault on Gaza’s health system”. In a statement released on Saturday, the humanitarian organization said: “MSF urgently reiterates its calls to stop the attacks against hospitals, for an immediate ceasefire and for the protection of medical facilities, medical staff and patients.”
The Israeli military will help evacuate babies trapped in Gaza’s Dar al-Shifa hospital on Sunday, the chief Israeli military spokesperson rear admiral Daniel Hagari said on Saturday. “The staff of the Shifa hospital has requested that tomorrow we help the babies in the pediatric department to get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed,” Hagari told a news conference.
Two premature babies have died due to power cuts at al-Shifa hospital, Physicians for Human Rights Israel said on Saturday. “As a result of the lack of electricity, we can report that the neonatal intensive care unit has stopped working. Two premature infants have died, and there is a real risk to the lives of 37 other premature infants” at Al-Shifa hospital, the group said, citing doctors at the hospital, Agence France-Presse reports.
Netanyahu announced the deaths of five more Israeli soldiers in Gaza. The Israeli military said 46 had been killed since its ground operations there began.
Israel’s three major TV news channels, without citing named sources, said there was some progress toward a deal to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Netanyahu said he would not discuss details of any possible deal, which according to N12 News would involve 50 to 100 women, children and elderly being released in stages during a three to five day pause in fighting.
The head of Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah party said its armed wing had used new types of weapons and struck new targets in Israel, and pledged that the front against its sworn enemy would remain active. In a televised address, only his second speech since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began in October, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Hezbollah had shown “a quantitative improvement in the number of operations, the size and the number of targets, as well as an increase in the type of weapons”.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant warned Hezbollah not to escalate fighting along the border. “Hezbollah is dragging Lebanon into a war that might happen,” Gallant told troops in a video aired by Israeli television channels.
Arab and Muslim leaders condemned Israeli forces’ “barbaric” actions in Gaza but declined to approve punitive economic and political steps against the country at an extraordinary summit of Arab-Islamic leaders in Saudi Arabia, highlighting regional divisions. The final declaration on Saturday rejected Israeli claims that it is acting in “self-defence” and demanded that the UN security council adopt “a decisive and binding resolution” to halt Israel’s “aggression”.
Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi has called on Islamic governments to designate Israel’s military a “terrorist organisation”, citing its current operations in the Gaza Strip. “Islamic governments should designate the army of the occupying and aggressor regime as a terrorist organisation,” Raisi told the summit in Saudi Arabia.
Anti-war protesters gathered in Tel Aviv late Saturday to call for a ceasefire and the release of hostages by Hamas. Many demonstrators carried signs reading, “Israelis for ceasefire,” “War has no winners” and “Only peace talks with solve this”.
Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), has urged the joint Arab-Islamic summit to “act now to change the trajectory” of the crisis in Gaza. Lazzarini called for support for a humanitarian ceasefire, a continuous flow of humanitarian aid and support for the UNRWA.
Hundreds of thousands of people marched peacefully through central London yesterday to protest against Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza. The Metropolitan police said about 300,000 people had converged on the capital from all parts of the country, while organisers of the pro-Palestinian event put the number closer to 800,000 and claimed it was one of the biggest marches in British history.
