Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, speaking to the Arab League, said Brazil had condemned the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, but he added that the Israel’s response was “disproportional and indiscriminate” and unacceptable.
“The killing must be stopped,” the Brazilian leader said, adding Palestine should be recognized as a sovereign state and admitted to the United Nations as a full member, and he called for reform of the U.N. Security Council.
“The multilateral institutions that were created to help solve these problems do not work, which is why Brazil is committed to making the necessary changes in global governance bodies, and we hope to count on Egypt’s support,” he said to reporters alongside Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Lula said the permanent Security Council should be expanded and its veto powers abolished. “It is the permanent members of the Security Council that foment wars,” he said.
Brazil has supported South Africa’s case brought before the International Court of Justice against the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, he added.
Summary of the day so far
It has just gone 5pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv, and 6pm in Damascus. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
International medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported a “chaotic situation” at Nasser hospital and said its medical staff “have had to flee the hospital, leaving patients behind”. It also said one of its colleagues remained unaccounted for after Israeli forces shelled the hospital in the early hours of Thursday and another colleagues was detained at a checkpoint that Israeli Forces had set up “to screen people leaving the compound”. MSF said “we call for his safety and the protection of his dignity” and urged Israeli forces to stop “this attack”.
Israeli military confirmed its special forces were inside Nasser hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Thursday, saying it had “credible intelligence” that the bodies of hostages taken on 7 October may be in the facility.
IDF spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari, said forces were conducting a “precise and limited” operation in Nasser hospital and would not forcibly evacuate medics or patients but Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said Israel had launched a “massive incursion” with heavy shooting that injured many of the displaced people who had sheltered there. He said the military had ordered medics to move all patients into an older building that was not properly equipped for their treatment. “Many cannot evacuate, such as those with lower limb amputations, severe burns, or the elderly,” he said in an interview with the Al Jazeera network.
Videos that Reuters verified on Thursday as having been filmed inside Nasser hospital, though it could not verify when, reportedly showed scenes of chaos and terror. Men walked through dark corridors using the lights from their phones, with plaster dust swirling around and debris lying in the corridors, at one point wheeling a bed through a damaged area. At one point in a video gunshots rang out and a doctor shouted “Is there anyone still inside? There is gunfire, there is gunfire – heads down”.
Israeli forces fired into the main hospital in southern Gaza early on Thursday, killing a patient and wounding six others, according to medics. Dr Khaled Alserr, one of the remaining surgeons at Nasser hospital, told the Associated Press that the seven patients struck early on Thursday were already being treated for past wounds. On Wednesday, a doctor was lightly wounded when a drone opened fire on the upper stories of the hospital, he said, adding that “the situation is escalating every hour and every minute”.
Cashflows at the UN agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) will turn negative next month and its financial problems will accelerate in April if funding suspended by a number of countries does not resume, the head of the agency said on Thursday before a meeting in Dublin with the country’s foreign minister.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) reported “very intense shelling” in the vicinity of the al-Amal hospital overnight on Wednesday in an update to its X account.
More Israeli strikes were reported in south Lebanon on Thursday as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati condemned the escalation. Government institutions, schools and Lebanese University were to close on Thursday in protest of the airstrikes.
Israeli military said Thursday’s strikes in Lebanon targeted Hezbollah infrastructure and launch posts. Spokesperson Avi Hyman from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said: “Our message to Hezbollah has and always will be: Don’t try us”. Senior Hezbollah official Sheikh Nabil Kaouk said at an event on Thursday in southern Lebanon that the militant group was “prepared for the possibility of expanding the war”.
Senior Hezbollah official and member of parliament Hassan Fadlallah said on Thursday that Israel would face reprisal after two sets of strikes on southern Lebanon the previous day killed 10 civilians, half of them children. “The enemy [Israel] will pay the price for these crimes,” Fadlallah told Reuters when asked about the armed group’s reaction.
The UN peacekeeping force deployed along the Lebanon-Israel border, known as Unifil, expressed concerns over the latest “exchanges of fire,” and urged all sides involved to halt hostilities to prevent further escalation. “Attacks targeting civilians are violations of international law and constitute war crimes,” Unifil’s spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said in a statement. “The devastation, loss of life, and injuries witnessed are deeply concerning.”
Israel’s vow to push ahead with a “powerful” operation in Gaza’s Rafah was met with a growing chorus of international condemnation on Thursday, with leaders warning against catastrophic consequences for the 1.5 million Palestinians trapped there. Australia, Canada and New Zealand warned Israel “not to go down this path”, issuing a rare joint statement in the latest urgent appeal seeking to avert further mass civilian casualties. “An expanded military operation would be devastating,” they said. “There is simply nowhere else for civilians to go.”
Israel on Thursday toned down its criticism of the Vatican, saying that remarks by Pope Francis’ deputy on the killings in Gaza were “regrettable” rather than “deplorable”. Cardinal secretary of state Pietro Parolin had said that Israel’s military response to the Hamas militant group was disproportionate and caused “carnage”. A day later, Israel’s embassy to the Holy See criticised Parolin’s “deplorable statement” but on Thursday, the embassy said it should have used the word “regrettable”, and that the mix-up was the result of an imprecise translation.
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich has rejected plans for an establishment of a Palestinian state, writing on X that Israel “won’t agree in any way” to it. Israel’s national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir also posted on X. He wrote: “1,400 are murdered and the world wants to give them a state. Not going to happen. The establishment of a Palestinian state means the establishment of a Hamas state.”
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva criticised Israeli action in Gaza saying its ‘behaviour has no explanation’. On Thursday, he said that multilateral institutions were failing to resolve international conflicts. “Israel’s behavior has no explanation: with the pretext of fighting Hamas, it is killing women and children,” he said after a meeting with Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The 22 Arab countries at the UN are urging the UN security council to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and unhindered humanitarian assistance, and to prevent any transfer of Palestinians out of the territory. The Arab Group chair this month, Tunisia’s UN ambassador Tarek Ladeb, told UN reporters on Wednesday that about 1.5 million Palestinians who sought safety in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah face a “catastrophic scenario” if Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes ahead with a potential evacuation of civilians and military offensive in the area bordering Egypt.
Humanitarian officials stressed that states and especially Israel could not “offload” responsibility for the horrors unfolding in Gaza on to aid workers. The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross Mirjana Spoljaric told a Geneva briefing for diplomats on events in Gaza that their countries were responsible for ensuring the Geneva conventions are upheld.
US Central Command (Centcom) said on Thursday its forces carried out four strikes on Wednesday in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen where the Iran-backed militia had been preparing to target ships in the Red Sea.
The latest UNRWA situation report on the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, said that 156 UNRWA colleagues had been killed and 153 UNRWA installations damaged since 7 October 2023 (up to 12 February 2024). It also said there are 1.7 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in UNRWA installations, since 7 October 2023.
Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail Abu Omar, who was seriously injured in an Israeli airstrike that allegedly targeted him and his camera operator, Ahmad Matar, is now in intensive care after his health deteriorated says the news organisation.
Updated
MSF report 'chaotic situation' at Nasser hospital and say its medical staff 'have had to flee the hospital, leaving patients behind'
International medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has posted an update on the situation at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis. On X, MSF wrote:
🔴 Gaza update:
— MSF International (@MSF) February 15, 2024
Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, was shelled in the early hours of this morning, despite Israeli Forces having told medical staff and patients they could remain in the facility.
Thousands of displaced people were ordered to evacuate it on 13 February...🧵
Gaza update: Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, was shelled in the early hours of this morning, despite Israeli Forces having told medical staff and patients they could remain in the facility. Thousands of displaced people were ordered to evacuate it on 13 February ...
Following shelling this morning, our staff reported a chaotic situation, with an undetermined number of people killed and injured.
Since the attack, one of our colleagues remains unaccounted for …
Our medical staff have had to flee the hospital, leaving patients
behind. Israeli Forces set up a checkpoint to screen people leaving the
compound; one of our colleagues was detained at this checkpoint. We call for his safety and the protection of his dignity …
Israeli Forces are currently carrying out operations in Nasser hospital.
We call on them to immediately stop this attack, as it endangers
medical staff and patients who are still stuck inside the facility.”
Updated
Israel tones down criticism of Vatican's Gaza remarks
Israel on Thursday toned down its criticism of the Vatican, saying that remarks by Pope Francis’ deputy on the killings in Gaza were “regrettable” rather than “deplorable”, reports Reuters.
Cardinal secretary of state Pietro Parolin had said that Israel’s military response to the Hamas militant group was disproportionate and caused “carnage”. A day later, Israel’s embassy to the Holy See criticised Parolin’s “deplorable statement” and said the Palestinian militant group Hamas bore all the blame for the death and destruction in Gaza.
But on Thursday, the embassy said it should have used the word “regrettable”, and that the mix-up was the result of an imprecise translation.
Pope Francis has regularly condemned violence across the Middle East and beyond. But any comments involving Israel have particular historical and cultural sensitivities, built up over centuries.
Relations between the Vatican and Israel have grown increasingly tense since the start of the war in Gaza, with Jewish groups accusing Pope Francis of failing to describe the invasion of Gaza as an act of self-defence after the 7 October Hamas attacks.
The Israeli embassy said on Thursday the original English text of its statement had used the word “regrettable” and its staff had translated that into “deplorevole” in the Italian version they released.
“A more precise” Italian translation would have been “sfortunata”, the embassy said, a word which means something more like unfortunate.
More Israeli strikes reported in south Lebanon as caretaker prime minister condemns escalation
More Israeli strikes were reported in south Lebanon on Thursday as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati condemned the escalation, reports AP.
“At a time where we are insisting on calm and call all sides to not escalate, we find the Israeli enemy extending its aggression,” read a statement from his office.
The Israeli military said Thursday’s strikes targeted Hezbollah infrastructure and launch posts. Lebanese state media said Israel’s air force carried out strikes near the border towns of Labbouneh, Wadi Slouqi, Majdal Selm and Houla, according to the state-run National News Agency (NNA).
The Israeli army would continue to respond to Hezbollah’s regular attacks, said spokesperson Avi Hyman from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. “Our message to Hezbollah has and always will be: Don’t try us.”
The UN peacekeeping force deployed along the Lebanon-Israel border, known as Unifil, expressed concerns over the latest “exchanges of fire,” and urged all sides involved to halt hostilities to prevent further escalation.
“Attacks targeting civilians are violations of international law and constitute war crimes,” Unifil’s spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said in a statement. “The devastation, loss of life, and injuries witnessed are deeply concerning.”
Senior Hezbollah official Sheikh Nabil Kaouk said at an event on Thursday in southern Lebanon that the militant group was “prepared for the possibility of expanding the war” and would meet “escalation with escalation, displacement with displacement, and destruction with destruction.”
Government institutions, schools and Lebanese University were to close on Thursday in protest of the airstrikes.
Updated
The 22 Arab countries at the UN are urging the UN security council to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and unhindered humanitarian assistance, and to prevent any transfer of Palestinians out of the territory, reports AP.
The Arab Group chair this month, Tunisia’s UN ambassador Tarek Ladeb, told UN reporters on Wednesday that about 1.5 million Palestinians who sought safety in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah face a “catastrophic scenario” if Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes ahead with a potential evacuation of civilians and military offensive in the area bordering Egypt.
Algeria, the Arab representative on the Security Council, circulated a draft resolution about two weeks ago demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access, as well as rejecting the forced displacement of Palestinian civilians, which has been the subject of intense discussions.
US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said last week that the resolution could jeopardise “sensitive negotiations” aimed at achieving a pause in the Israel-Hamas war and release of some hostages taken during Hamas’ 7 October attack in southern Israel.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, said Wednesday that there is “massive support” for the resolution and Arab diplomats have had “very frank discussions” with the US ambassador, trying to get US support.
“We believe that it is high time now for the security council to decide on a humanitarian ceasefire resolution after 131 days,” he said. “The space is narrowing for those who are continuing to ask for more time.”
Some Arab countries were pushing for a vote on the Algerian draft this week, but several Arab and council diplomats said a vote is now likely early next week, giving more time for negotiations with the US to avoid a veto. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions have been private, say AP.
Updated
Humanitarian chiefs stressed that states and especially Israel could not “offload” responsibility for the horrors unfolding in Gaza onto aid workers.
The Red Cross chief Mirjana Spoljaric told a Geneva briefing for diplomats on events in Gaza that their countries were responsible for ensuring the Geneva conventions are upheld.
“It is not in your interest to offload (that) responsibility... on to humanitarian actors,” she said.
“If the way operations are conducted today limit our operational space to a minimum... we will not be able to resolve the problem,” she added.
“It doesn’t make sense to criticise humanitarian actors for not doing more. You have to enable us to do more.”
Christopher Lockyear, head of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, agreed.
In the current situation, “when we are talking about humanitarian assistance, we’re talking about an illusion of aid,” he said.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths warned the diplomats not to “look to the humanitarian community as a rescue brigade for the people compressed into that area” in southern Gaza.
“Conditions do not allow it,” he said.
“It will not be our fault if people suffer,” he said. “It will be the fault of those who decide to make this happen.”
Updated
Videos that Reuters verified on Thursday as having been filmed inside Nasser hospital, though it could not verify when, reportedly showed scenes of chaos and terror.
Men walked through dark corridors using the lights from their phones, with plaster dust swirling around and debris lying in the corridors, at one point wheeling a bed through a damaged area.
At one point in a video gunshots rang out and a doctor shouted “Is there anyone still inside? There is gunfire, there is gunfire - heads down”.
Speaking about the hospital raid, Israeli military spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari said “this sensitive operation was prepared with precision and is being conducted by IDF special forces who underwent specified training”.
Updated
Here is a map from the Guardian’s graphics team showing where the reported Israeli ground operations are taking place in the southern Gaza Strip. It also highlights where Nasser hospital in Khan Younis is located.
Brazilian president criticises Israeli action in Gaza saying its 'behaviour has no explanation'
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Thursday that multilateral institutions are failing to resolve international conflicts and criticised Israeli actions in Gaza, reports Reuters.
“Israel’s behavior has no explanation: with the pretext of fighting Hamas, it is killing women and children,” he said after a meeting with Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Lula said there would not be peace without the establishment of a Palestinian state and called for an immediate ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The UN relief and works agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) published its latest situation report on the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
🔹5 February; 2 @UNRWA medical personnel sustained injuries due to strike that hit a school📍#Gaza
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) February 15, 2024
🔹7-10 February; Israeli troops conducted military operations inside a Rehabilitation Centre for Visually Impaired, causing severe damage & burnt out rooms.https://t.co/GYbXCnwE7r pic.twitter.com/n21TMyWs0R
All information, unless specified, is from 11–12 February 2024 and is valid as of 12 February 2024. Here are the key points:
There are 1.7 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in UNRWA installations, since 7 October 2023.
At least 396 IDPs sheltering in UNRWA premises have been killed and 1,381 have been injured since 7 October 2023.
156 UNRWA colleagues have been killed since 7 October 2023.
There have been 318 incidents recorded and 153 UNRWA installations damaged since 7 October 2023.
367,422 families outside of shelters have received flour in middle areas and southern governates since 21 November 2023.
Only six out of 23 UNRWA health care centres were operational (according to a partial update on 5 February due to security and internet connectivity issues).
20,460 patients received healthcare in six (out of 23) UNRWA health care centres and shelters (according to a partial update on 5 February due to security and internet connectivity issues).
As per an update on 16 January, seven water wells continue to operate pumping approximately 3,000 cubic metres of water.
Solid waste management continues in Rafah and Khan Younis and partially in Middle Areas, where approximately 45 truck loadings were transferred to temporary sites.
Updated
Israel formally complains to the Vatican after Cardinal Pietro Parolin spoke of 'carnage' in Gaza
Israel has formally complained to the Vatican after its number two spoke of the “carnage” in Gaza by what he termed a disproportionate Israeli military operation after the 7 October Hamas attacks.
The Israeli embassy to the Holy See called the comments by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, “deplorable.” In a statement on Wednesday, the embassy said he hadn’t considered what it said were the relevant facts on which to judge the legitimacy of Israel’s actions.
Speaking on Monday at a reception, Parolin had condemned the 7 October attacks against Israel and all forms of antisemitism. But he questioned Israel’s claim to be acting in self-defence by inflicting “carnage” on Gaza.
“Israel’s right to self-defence has been invoked to justify that this operation is proportional, but with 30,000 dead, it’s not,” he said.
In its statement, the Israeli embassy accused Hamas of turning the Gaza Strip into “the biggest terrorist base ever seen.” It said Israeli armed forces were acting according to international law and said the proportion of Palestinian civilians to “terrorists” killed was less than in other conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
But in a front-page editorial on Thursday entitled “Stop the Carnage,” the Vatican’s editorial director Andrea Tornielli doubled down on the Vatican position. Tornielli quoted a Rome-based Holocaust survivor, Edith Bruck, who has been highly critical of the Israeli government’s response, which she has blamed for the rise in antisemitic acts against Jews around the world.
Updated
Israeli military says it has 'credible intelligence' that Hamas held hostages at Nasser hospital
The Israeli military said it had “credible intelligence” that Hamas had held hostages at the hospital and that the remains of hostages might still be inside, reports AP.
IDF spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari, said forces were conducting a “precise and limited” operation there and would not forcibly evacuate medics or patients. Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals and other civilian structures to shield its fighters.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said Israel had launched a “massive incursion” with heavy shooting that injured many of the displaced people who had sheltered there. He said the military had ordered medics to move all patients into an older building that was not properly equipped for their treatment.
“Many cannot evacuate, such as those with lower limb amputations, severe burns, or the elderly,” he said in an interview with the Al Jazeera network. In a statement to the news organisation, al-Qidra said six patients on ventilators had been transferred.
Updated
US Central Command (Centcom) said on Thursday its forces carried out four strikes on Wednesday in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen where the Iran-backed militia had been preparing to target ships in the Red Sea.
Feb. 14 Summary of Red Sea activities
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) February 15, 2024
On Feb. 14, between the hours of 1p.m. – 7:30p.m.(Sanaa time), U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces successfully conducted four self-defense strikes against seven mobile anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM), three mobile unmanned aerial… pic.twitter.com/CWU8w2f21b
We "won't agree in any way" to a two-state peace plan, says Israeli finance minister
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich has rejected plans for an establishment of a Palestinian state, saying Israel “won’t agree in any way” to it.
On his X account on Thursday, Smotrich posted a screenshot of a headline from the Israeli news website Ynet that translates as “report: US promotes comprehensive plan for establishment of Palestinian state” and wrote:
We won’t agree in any way to this plan which actually says that the Palestinians deserve a reward for the terrible massacre they did to us: a Palestinian state whose capital is Jerusalem.
The message is that it really pays off to massacre Israeli citizens
A Palestinian state is an existential threat for the state of Israel as was proven on the 7 October, Kfar Saba won’t be Kfar Aza!”
לא נסכים בשום אופן לתוכנית הזו שלמעשה אומרת שמגיע לפלסטינים פרס על הטבח הנורא שעשו לנו: מדינה פלשתינית שבירתה ירושלים.
— בצלאל סמוטריץ' (@bezalelsm) February 15, 2024
המסר הוא שמשתלם מאוד לטבוח באזרחי ישראל.
מדינה פלסטינית זה איום קיומי על מדינת ישראל כמו שהוכח ב7 לאוקטובר, כפר סבא לא תהיה כפר עזה! pic.twitter.com/e9uJK4TO82
Israel’s national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir also posted on X. He wrote:
1,400 are murdered and the world wants to give them a state. Not going to happen. The establishment of a Palestinian state means the establishment of a Hamas state.”
Israeli military confirm its special forces are inside Nasser hospital
Israeli special forces are operating inside Nasser hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the military said on Thursday, saying it had credible information that the bodies of hostages taken on 7 October may be in the facility reports Reuters.
“We conduct precise rescue operations – as we have in the past – where our intelligence indicates that the bodies of hostages may be held,” the military said in a statement.
Updated
Hezbollah says Israel 'will pay' after civilians killed in south Lebanon strikes
Senior Hezbollah official and member of parliament Hassan Fadlallah said on Thursday that Israel would face reprisal after two sets of strikes on southern Lebanon the previous day killed 10 civilians, half of them children.
“The enemy [Israel] will pay the price for these crimes,” Fadlallah told Reuters when asked about the armed group’s reaction.
Israeli forces storm Nasser hospital, says Al Jazeera journalist
Israeli forces have stormed Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, according to Al Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud who is reporting from Rafah in southern Gaza.
In a breaking news update to the publication, Mahmoud said Israeli forces had given those in Nasser hospital until 7am (Gaza time) to evacuate and as of Thursday morning there is “a presence of Israeli soldiers inside the facility”. “At the same time, there is heavy tank and machine gun fire,” he added.
Mahmoud said the hospital’s maternity ward, orthopaedics unit and emergency room were targeted. He said:
Dozens have been wounded in attacks, some victims injured more than once. This is the largest health facility in southern Gaza. It is completely out of service now. The entire medical staff was rounded up, their hands tied behind their backs.
Military checkpoints were set up and Palestinians were told to come in groups of five – doctors, nurses, those with injuries. A large number of young people were detained.”
PRCS report 'very intense shelling' in the vicinity of al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) reported “very intense shelling” in the vicinity of the al-Amal hospital overnight on Wednesday in an update to its X account.
🚨Urgent: Now very intense shelling in the vicinity of PRCS Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis, resulting in damage to the building.#NotATarget ❌#IHL #Gaza #AlAmalHospital pic.twitter.com/WiZk1Md8zl
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) February 14, 2024
In another post on X from Wednesday, the PRCS said its teams had dealt with an injured person in the east of Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza. It blamed the injuries on Israeli forces “targeting of a number citizens with artillery shells”.
In an accompanying video by PRCS volunteer Mohammed Suliman, an injured person can be seen being transferred via stretcher from a car to a PRCS ambulance by a volunteer while a crowd gathers around them.
Israeli forces have fired into Nasser hospital in Khan Younis killing a patient, say medics
Israeli forces fired into the main hospital in southern Gaza early on Thursday, killing a patient and wounding six others, according to medics, as the army sought to evacuate thousands of displaced people from the medical complex that has been largely cut off by weeks of fighting, reports the Associated Press (AP).
Nasser hospital, in the southern city of Khan Younis, has been the latest focus of operations that have gutted Gaza’s health sector as it struggles to treat scores of patients wounded in daily bombardments. Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals and other civilian structures to shield its fighters.
Video of the aftermath of an Israeli strike, seen by AP, showed medics scrambling to wheel patients on stretchers through a corridor filled with smoke or dust. A medic used a mobile phone flashlight to illuminate a darkened room where a wounded man screamed out in pain as gunfire echoed outside. AP said it could not authenticate the videos but they were consistent with its reporting.
Dr Khaled Alserr, one of the remaining surgeons at Nasser hospital, told AP that the seven patients struck early on Thursday were already being treated for past wounds. On Wednesday, a doctor was lightly wounded when a drone opened fire on the upper stories of the hospital, he said, adding that “the situation is escalating every hour and every minute”.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it had opened a secure corridor for displaced people to leave the hospital but would allow doctors and patients to remain there. Videos circulating online showed scores of people walking out of the facility on foot carrying their belongings on their shoulders.
The military had ordered the evacuation of Nasser hospital and surrounding areas last month. But as with other health facilities, medics said patients were unable to safely leave or be relocated, and thousands of people displaced by fighting elsewhere remained there. Palestinians say nowhere is safe in the besieged territory, as Israel continues to carry out strikes in all parts of it.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said last week that Israeli snipers on surrounding buildings were preventing people from entering or leaving the hospital. Prior to Thursday’s strike, it said 10 people had been killed inside the complex over the past week, including three shot and killed on Tuesday.
Updated
Head of UNRWA warns of 'negative cashflow as of March' as funding of UN agency paused by major donors
Cashflows at the UN agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) will turn negative next month and its financial problems will accelerate in April if funding suspended by a number of countries does not resume, the head of the agency said on Thursday reports Reuters.
“We will hit a negative cashflow as from March and then it will be accelerated in April unless this frozen contribution is unlocked,” Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s commissioner general, told Irish national broadcaster RTÉ before a meeting in Dublin with the country’s foreign minister.
Here is a bit more background on the situation, from Guardian reporter Emine Sinmaz:
Israel has claimed as many as 10% of staff are Hamas supporters, and wants the organisation to be disbanded. It has accused a dozen of the agency’s 13,000 staff in Gaza of taking part in Hamas’s 7 October attacks in Israel that killed 1,200 people.
A diplomat at Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs told Lazzarini about the allegations on 18 January and nine of the 12 UNRWA employees were fired (two others were already dead). The allegations prompted the UK, the US, and 14 other nations to freeze about £350m of funding to the agency.
Updated
10 people killed in Israeli strikes across south Lebanon - reports
At least five family members were killed in an Israeli strike in south Lebanon, official media said on Thursday in an updated toll, adding one boy was pulled alive from the rubble.
AFP reports that the raid on Wednesday evening in the southern city of Nabatiyeh resulted in the highest civilian death toll in a single strike in Lebanon since cross-border hostilities began in October, raising fears of a broader conflict between Israel and militant group Hezbollah.
A total of 10 people were killed in Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon on Wednesday, eight of them civilians, official media and Hezbollah said.
The state-run National News Agency (NNA) said on Thursday that “five bodies were pulled out” of the wreckage of a flat in Nabatiyeh, identifying them as apartment owner Hussein Barwaji, his two daughters, his sister and his grandson. It had previously reported four dead. Barwaji’s wife and niece’s “bodies” were unaccounted for, the NNA said.
Emergency responders managed to pull a boy alive from the rubble “after midnight”, it added, while another relative and at least six other people were taken to hospital.
The agency said the Israeli strike, carried out by “a drone with a guided missile”, caused severe damage to the three-storey apartment building, warning it could collapse and reporting damage to nearby buildings, vehicles and infrastructure. An AFP correspondent at the scene said authorities had cordoned off the area.
Also on Wednesday, the NNA said Israeli warplanes targeted a house in south Lebanon’s Sawwaneh, killing three members of the same family, identifying them as a Syrian woman and her child, aged two, and stepchild, 13.
Two Hezbollah fighters were also killed in the Israeli strikes elsewhere in south Lebanon on Wednesday, the group said. The strikes came as the Israeli army said a soldier was killed in rocket fire from Lebanon.
No group has taken responsibility for the rocket fire, with Hezbollah claiming no attacks on Israeli troops or positions on Wednesday.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini has said he doesn’t think UNRWA will be able to continue to operate if there is a ground offensive in Rafah.
More details to follow …
Updated
Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail Abu Omar, who was seriously injured in an Israeli airstrike that allegedly targeted him and his camera operator, Ahmad Matar, is now in intensive care after his health deteriorated says the news organisation.
Al Jazeera said that footage it had seen shows Omar in the intensive care unit at the European Gaza hospital in Khan Younis due to “continuous bleeding”. It aslo added that surgery is scheduled for Omar in the coming hours, which follows the amputation of his right leg on Tuesday as a result of the attack.
You can read more on the original story here:
MSF condemn Israeli evacuation order on Nasser hospital
International medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have condemned an Israeli evacuation order on Nasser hospital in southern Gaza and called for an “immediate ceasefire”.
MSF said Israeli forces were “ordering thousands of displaced people out ‘into an apocalyptic landscape’”.
Israeli forces have issued an evacuation order on Nasser hospital, in southern #Gaza, ordering thousands of displaced people out “into an apocalyptic landscape”.
— MSF International (@MSF) February 14, 2024
We condemn this decision and call for an immediate ceasefire.
More 👇https://t.co/UNmuW8YofV
Nurse Mohammed al-Astal told Al Jazeera that the health facility in southern Khan Younis has been “besieged” for a month with no food or drinking water left.
“At night, tanks opened heavy fire on the hospital, and snipers on the roofs of buildings surrounding Nasser hospital opened fire and killed three displaced people,” he said.
According to MSF, at least five people have been killed and 10 others wounded in the past few days after shots were fired directly at the hospital. The medical charity said:
On 13 February, an Israeli military bulldozer destroyed the north gate of the hospital grounds and ordered displaced people to leave through it. Medical staff and patients were told they may remain in the hospital with a limit of one caretaker per patient. MSF staff are still in the building and continue to treat patients amid near impossible conditions.”
Since the war in Gaza began, MSF say its medical teams and patients have been “forced to evacuate nine different healthcare facilities in the Gaza Strip, after coming under fire from tanks, artillery, fighter jets, snipers and ground troops, or being subject to an evacuation order”. It added:
Medical staff and patients have been arrested, abused and killed. Provision of healthcare and scaling up lifesaving assistance is being made impossible by the intensity of Israel’s bombings and shelling, as well as intense fighting.”
“Warring parties must always respect and allow unhindered access to medical facilities and their surroundings, and protect medical staff and patients,” said MSF.
Updated
World leaders urge Israel to avoid ’catastrophic’ Rafah operation
Israel’s vow to push ahead with a “powerful” operation in Gaza’s Rafah was met with a growing chorus of international condemnation on Thursday, with leaders warning against catastrophic consequences for the 1.5 million Palestinians trapped there, reports news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Australia, Canada and New Zealand warned Israel “not to go down this path”, issuing a rare joint statement in the latest urgent appeal seeking to avert further mass civilian casualties. “An expanded military operation would be devastating,” they said. “There is simply nowhere else for civilians to go.”
Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have been driven into Gaza’s southernmost city by Israel’s relentless military campaign, seeking shelter in a sprawling makeshift encampment near the Egypt border.
Despite pressure from foreign governments and aid agencies not to invade, Israel insists it must push into Rafah and eliminate Hamas battalions.
“We will fight until complete victory and this includes a powerful action also in Rafah after we allow the civilian population to leave the battle zones,” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on Wednesday.
His threats of an imminent incursion come as mediators race for a truce in the four-month-old war, which has flattened vast swathes of Gaza, displaced most of the territory’s population and pushed people to the brink of starvation.
Should the Israeli assault on Rafah go ahead, the risk of atrocities is “serious, real and high”, the UN’s special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, said on Wednesday.
Opening summary
It has just gone 9am in Gaza and Tel Aviv and this is our latest Guardian blog on the Middle East crisis.
Canada, Australia and New Zealand – three members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – have warned Israel against a carrying out a “devastating” and “catastrophic” ground offensive on Rafah in southern Gaza, saying “there is simply nowhere else for civilians to go”.
The prime ministers of the three countries said in a joint statement on Thursday that Israel “must listen to its friends”. Justin Trudeau, Anthony Albanese and Christopher Luxon also said an immediate humanitarian ceasefire was “urgently needed”.
The statement appears aimed at ratcheting up pressure on Israel to rethink plans for a ground assault on Rafah, where about 1.5 million Palestinians are taking refuge.
Here’s a summary of the latest developments:
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that Gaza’s hospitals are ‘completely overwhelmed’ and accused Israel of impeding its aid-delivery missions in Gaza. Speaking to reporters in Geneva via video link from Rafah in southern Gaza, Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative for the occupied Palestinian territories said that fewer than half of its requested aid-delivery missions in Gaza have been approved by Israel.
“Military operations in Rafah could lead to a slaughter in Gaza” and a “humanitarian operation at death’s door”, warned the UN. Martin Griffiths, the UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said the scenario “we have long dreaded is unraveling at alarming speed” and “our humanitarian response is in tatters”.
Eight people, all but one of them civilians, have been killed in Israeli strikes on south Lebanon, official sources said, while the Israeli army said it lost a soldier in cross-border rocket fire, Agence France-Presse has reported. The exchanges of fire – and the worst single-day civilian death toll in Lebanon since cross-border hostilities began in October – raised fears of a broader conflict between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah.
Israeli intelligence chief David Barnea met CIA director William Burns in Cairo on Tuesday for talks on a Qatari-brokered plan to halt fighting in Gaza. The negotiations, which also involved Qatar’s prime minister and Egyptian officials, are part of an intensifying effort to secure a ceasefire before Israel proceeds with a ground incursion into the southern city of Rafah, where more than half of the territory’s population has fled.
A Hamas source told news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) that a delegation was heading to Cairo to meet Egyptian and Qatari mediators, after Israeli negotiators held talks with the mediators on Tuesday.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, an outspoken critic of Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war, was also due in Cairo on Wednesday for talks with president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, says AFP.
Ireland and Spain’s prime ministers have written and implored EU chiefs to take action over the “deteriorating” situation in Gaza a day after the taoiseach claimed Israel had become “blinded by rage”. In a highly unusual move, Leo Varadkar and Pedro Sánchez wrote to the European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. They asked the commission to “urgently review whether Israel is complying with its obligations to respect human rights in Gaza”.
Israel is in breach of international law as the occupying power if it fails to provide food and water to the people of Gaza, the UK foreign secretary, Lord Cameron, told peers on Tuesday in his clearest warning yet over Israel’s conduct. He also said it was simply not possible for people in Rafah to leave as proposed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), remarks that suggest the UK would not endorse any Israeli plan to mount a full-scale attack on the area.
WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said that he is “alarmed by what is reportedly happening at Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza”. “Nasser is the backbone of the health system in southern Gaza. It must be protected. Humanitarian access must be allowed,” he said.
Displaced Palestinians have begun evacuating Nasser hospital complex in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis after weeks of being isolated by fighting. Videos seen by the Associated Press showed dozens of Palestinians carrying sacks of their belongings and making their way out of the Nasser hospital complex, while a doctor wearing green hospital scrubs walked ahead of the crowd, some of whom were carrying white flags.
Nasser hospital and the surrounding are has ‘turned into a battle zone’, reports Al Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud in Rafah, southern Gaza. In an update on Wednesday morning, Mahmoud said the situation in Nasser hospital was becoming “more and more risky” for medical staff and hundreds of displaced people sheltering there. He reported a lack of fuel, medical supplies and oxygen at the hospital, plus “a sewage flood as the facility is without electricity”.
“There is sometimes even no space to walk” in Rafah, Médecins Sans Frontières project coordinator in Gaza, Lisa Macheiner said describing the unfolding situation and attacks in the area. Macheiner also spoke of the “lack of access to food … water … sanitation … healthcare” and said “there is a huge need for primary healthcare for follow up of patients, who had surgeries, multiple surgeries” and of people suffering with infected wounds. The medical humanitarian organisation has called on the government of Israel to halt any offensive on Rafah.
Israeli air attacks have been reported across Gaza, including in the southern part of the strip, by Al Jazeera correspondents. They said artillery shelling had hit the centre of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza and Israeli warplanes had carried out repeated raids on the southern neighbourhoods of Gaza City.
About 100 representatives of hostages flew to The Hague on Wednesday to file a “crimes against humanity” complaint at the international criminal court (ICC) against Hamas, reports AFP. The ICC is the world’s only independent court set up to probe the gravest offences including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
103 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes and 145 were injured in the past 24 hours, said the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
An Israeli woman was killed and eight others were injured in a suspected Hezbollah attack, according to Israeli military and medical officials reports The Times of Israel. Safed’s municipality also said rockets hit the base, as well as the city’s industrial zone and an area near Ziv hospital. There has been no immediate claim for the attack.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres said he was ‘deeply troubled’ by the number of journalists killed in the Gaza conflict. Reporting on an Israeli drone attack in Muraj, north of Rafah that allegedly targeted two journalists, Al Jazeera said the attack had resulted in its Arabic correspondent Ismail Abu Omar having to have his leg amputated, and had also seriously injured photojournalist Ahmed Matar. Guterres condemned the attack.
At least 18 Palestinians were arrested overnight in the occupied West Bank, including two women from Jericho, reports Al Jazeera. It cites the Palestinian Prisoners Society and the Palestinian commission of detainees and ex-detainees affairs which said detentions also took place in Hebron, Qalqilya, Nablus, East Jerusalem and Ramallah. It put the total number of arrests after 7 October at 7,020 and called it “one of the most prominent tools of collective punishment”.
Militants from the Islamic State (IS) group attacked military barracks in central Syria this week, killing nine soldiers, an opposition war monitor said. The Syrian army and officials have not confirmed the attack, reports AP. IS claimed responsibility for the attack on Monday near the town of Al-Sukhna, saying its fighters also seized weapons abandoned by fleeing soldiers and set fire to the barracks. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three Syrian troops were wounded in addition to the nine killed in Al-Sukhna.
US Central Command (Centcom) said its forces launched a strike on Tuesday on a missile in a Houthi-controlled part of Yemen. It said the cruise missile was about to be fired at ships in the Red Sea.
Protesters denouncing Israel’s offensive in Gaza disrupted a foreign policy debate in Sweden’s parliament on Wednesday, as the country’s foreign minister reiterated support for Israel’s right to self-defence against Hamas. Security guards escorted a woman out of the public gallery after she shouted that Israel “was committing genocide”, as foreign minister Tobias Billstrom presented the government’s foreign policy declaration to parliament.
A leading British rabbi has publicly opposed an Israeli military offensive in Rafah, saying it is “impossible to remain silent”. Jonathan Wittenberg, the senior rabbi of Britain’s Masorti community, said in a statement “The calculated barbarity and strategic cruelty of Hamas’s military, and the presence of its forces in tunnels beneath Rafah, are beyond doubt … But over a million Palestinian civilians, many already in flight from the north of Gaza, are now trapped with nowhere to go. In countless references, Judaism has, throughout its history, stressed our duty to refugees and the helpless. How can we be unmoved by their grief and unbearable suffering?”
