The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that the organisation has lost touch with health personnel at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza after Israeli forces began what they described as a “targeted operation” inside the facility.
“Reports of military incursion into al-Shifa hospital are deeply concerning,” the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, wrote on social media, Reuters reports.
“We’ve lost touch again with health personnel at the hospital. We’re extremely worried for their and their patients’ safety.”
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNWRA, has said that “Our entire operation is now on the verge of collapse,” AFP reports, and that “By the end of today, around 70 percent of the population in Gaza won’t have access to clean water.”
In the last hour or so, the IDF has said warning sirens have sounded within Israel: at Ashkelon, at locations near the Gaza Strip, and in Misgav Am and Mattat in northern Israel. There are no reports of any casualties.
A senior official with Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry says Israeli forces are still operating inside al-Shifa hospital, the territory’s largest, hours after entering it early on Wednesday.
Speaking by phone from the hospital, Munir al-Boursh told AP that Israeli soldiers had ransacked the basement and other buildings, including those housing the emergency and surgery departments.
“They are still here … patients, women and children are terrified,” he said. He added that doctors had vowed to stay with their patients “till the end.”
Al-Boursh called for the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross to secure a safe corridor for patients, medical staff and displaced families trapped in the facility to leave.
Al-Boursh said an Israeli official had spoken with him by phone early on Wednesday and asked him to join the forces searching the facility, but he had refused.
Israel claims its military has delivered medical supplies to the hospital, and alleges that Hamas operates a command centre from the basement of the complex, a charge which Hamas has denied.
Italy has made a statement about their side of the call between prime minister Giorgia Meloni and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Italy said Turkey had a crucial role in efforts to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spreading to the rest of the region, and Meloni called for a rapid de-escalation.
Reuters reports that a statement from Meloni’s office said: “The prime minister called for a rapid de-escalation of the conflict, which must not spread to the rest of the region, and emphasised the crucial role Turkey plays in this context.”
Earlier the Turkish side said that it was expecting Rome to support a ceasefire.
The artist Ai Weiwei has defended the importance of free speech after a London gallery put his show on hold over a tweet about the Israel-Hamas war.
The exhibition of new works by the Chinese dissident, which was due to open at the Lisson gallery this week, was indefinitely put on hold after a tweet posted in response to a follower’s question on X which has since been deleted.
It read: “The sense of guilt around the persecution of the Jewish people has been, at times, transferred to offset the Arab world.”
It is not clear whether Ai’s show will be rescheduled. The artist told the Art Newspaper that his show has “effectively [been] cancelled” – but noted that the decision was taken “to avoid further disputes and for my own wellbeing”.
A spokesperson for the Lisson gallery said there had been extensive conversations with Ai following the comment he posted online.
A statement from the gallery, which represents the artist, said: “We together agreed that now is not the right time to present his new body of work.”
Read more here: London gallery delays Ai Weiwei show over Israel-Hamas tweet
Ahmed Muhanna, director at al-Awda hospital in Jabalia, has spoken to Al Jazeera about the situation in that part of Gaza. It reports he told them:
All the time they are bombing around the hospital and close to the hospital. Today, we have found shrapnel inside the hospital, and the ambulance and cars were damaged. We are working with injured and pregnant women from the northern areas and Gaza City because all the hospitals in Gaza City and the northern area also are out of service.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Gaza and Israel.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, told Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni in a phone call on Wednesday that Ankara expects Rome’s support for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Turkish presidency has told Reuters.
Earlier today, Erdoğan attracted fierce criticism after he called Israel a “terrorist state” and said Hamas was a political party elected by Palestinians and “resistance fighters” trying to protect their lands and people.
The Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said: “We won’t take lessons in morality from President Erdoğan, a man with an appalling human rights record. Israel is defending itself against brutal terrorists from Hamas-Isis, some of whom have been allowed to operate under Erdoğan’s roof.”
In parliament, Erdoğan had said: “Israel is implementing a strategy of total destruction of a city and its people. I say openly that Israel is a terrorist state.”
Qatari mediators were on Wednesday seeking to negotiate a deal between Hamas and Israel that includes the release of about 50 civilian hostages from Gaza in exchange for a three-day ceasefire, an official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters.
The deal would also involve Israel releasing some Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails and increase the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza.
Hamas has to date released four of the estimated 240 hostages seized during its murderous rampage inside Israel’s borders on 7 October.
The officials told Reuters the deal has been coordinated with the US, and Hamas has agreed to the general outline, but Israel has not.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said on multiple occasions that there can be no ceasefire until all the hostages are released. Family and friends of the hostages are taking part in a five-day march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. They say Israel’s government has not done enough to secure the release of their loved ones.
Qatar’s foreign ministry has previously said that efforts to secure the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza required a “period of calm” and leaks from the negotiations were “harmful”, and made it more difficult for mediators to do their jobs.
The Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has addressed Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, on social media, saying Israel would support Trudeau’s nation if it was under attack, and Israel expects the same in return.
Trudeau said on Tuesday that the “killing of women, of children, of babies” in Gaza must end.
In his message, Lapid said:
Prime minister Trudeau, Israel is defending itself in difficult conditions against a brutal terrorist organization while trying to rescue babies, children, women and men who are being held hostage by Hamas-ISIS Responsibility for this terrible situation rests with Hamas-ISIS.
Hamas launched this war, Hamas hides in civilian buildings and Hamas abuses Gazans as human shields. If Canada ever found itself under a sustained and brutal attack like the one we face now, you would find Israel by your side. We expect the same support.
Trudeau had said: “I urge the government of Israel to exercise maximum restraint. The world is watching, on TV, on social media – we’re hearing the testimonies of doctors, family members, survivors, kids who have lost their parents. The world is witnessing this killing of women, of children, of babies. This has to stop.”
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had already issued a rebuke for Trudeau’s comments overnight, saying: “It is not Israel that is deliberately targeting civilians but Hamas that beheaded, burned and massacred civilians in the worst horrors perpetrated on Jews since the Holocaust. While Israel is doing everything to keep civilians out of harm’s way, Hamas is doing everything to keep them in harm’s way.”
More than 11,000 Palestinians are reported to have been killed in the Israeli campaign in the Gaza Strip.
Egypt’s state-run al-Qahera television station reported Wednesday that the first fuel truck to enter the Gaza Strip since the war started on 7 October has crossed the Egyptian gate of the Rafah crossing.
The truck reportedly headed to Kerem Shalom crossing for screening, AP reports. Israel barred fuel shipments after Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October, saying the militant group would divert the supplies for military use.
In Ireland, Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy has condemned the international community’s response to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
“I am ashamed of the international community’s response to what we have seen in Gaza and particularly ashamed by the response of the EU,” he said.
“I think EU leaders have ensured that the European Union no longer has any credibility to be a voice for peace, international law and for the basic rules of humanity for so long as they refuse to take a stand.”
PA Media reports Carthy told minister of state James Browne that the world was “turning a blind eye” and “the EU, worse still, is providing cover”.
He criticised the Irish government’s failure to back the call for economic and diplomatic sanctions against Israel.
“Every single possible action that might help pressure Israel to stop the slaughter of innocent Palestinians is met with pathetic excuses,” he said.
“It’s not good enough, minister. It is well past time that Ireland shows leadership, not to follow the lead of a European Union that clearly isn’t willing or capable of providing the leadership that’s much needed in this instance.”
It has just gone 1.30pm in Gaza City and in Tel Aviv. Here are the latest headlines from the Israel-Hamas war …
Israeli troops entered al-Shifa hospital early on Wednesday, conducting what it called a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area” of the medical complex. Youssef Abu Rish, an official from the health ministry inside the hospital, said he could see tanks inside the complex and “dozens of soldiers and commandos inside the emergency and reception buildings”.
Fighting has raged around the Shifa compound for many days, trapping about 1,200 patients and staff. The hospital, Gaza’s biggest, has become a strategic objective for Israel, which says there is an Hamas command centre in bunkers underneath. Hamas denies this. The Israeli military said it had provided evacuation routes for civilians and delivered medical supplies to the hospital entrance.
The Times of Israel reported that “at least five Hamas gunmen were killed by troops during a gun battle outside the hospital”, and quoted the IDF claiming that “there has been no ‘friction’ between troops and patients and medical staff” and “there is no indication of hostages currently being held” at the location. The IDF said it had sent “medical teams and Arabic speaking soldiers” into the hospital.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that the body has lost touch with health personnel at al-Shifa hospital.
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths aid “Hamas must not, should not, use a place like a hospital as a shield for their presence”, but said the agencies’ chief concern was “protecting the people of Gaza from what’s being visited upon them.”
Thomas White, the director of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), has said that water pumps and sewage treatment in the south of the Gaza Strip have stopped due to lack of fuel.
Gaza’s two main telecommunications companies warned of a “complete telecom blackout in the coming hours” in the Gaza Strip. “Main data centres and switches are gradually shutting down due to fuel depletion,” the companies said in a joint statement.
The UN’s children’s agency says its top official visited children and their families in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the south of the territory. “What I saw and heard was devastating. They have endured repeated bombardment, loss and displacement,” Unicef executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement. “Inside the Strip, there is nowhere safe for Gaza’s 1 million children to turn.”
Israeli minister Benny Gantz has said that Israel will track down and kill Hamas leaders wherever they are in the world, and threatened anti-Israeli forces in Lebanon, saying “what we are doing effectively in the south, can work even better in the north”.
The family and friends of some of the 240 hostages believed to have been seized by Hamas on 7 October from inside Israel have begun the second day of their protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The trip is expected to last five days and will finish at Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. The families have been critical of Netanyahu’s government for not doing enough to secure the release of the hostages.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, told parliament Israel was a “terror state” committing war crimes and violating international law, while repeating his assertion that the Palestinian militant group Hamas was not a terrorist organisation. He said Hamas was a political party that had been elected by Palestinians.
Norway said 51 of its citizens have been allowed to leave Gaza on Wednesday, with the foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, saying that those remaining “are in a very demanding situation”.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Micheál Martin, has expressed confidence that a significant number of Irish citizens will be able to leave Gaza on Wednesday via the Rafah crossing.
The UN humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, has issued a further statement about hospitals in Gaza, after Israel launched what it called a “targeted operation” against al-Shifa hospital, the largest in Gaza.
In a video statement, AFP reports Griffiths said:
Hamas must not, should not, use a place like a hospital as a shield for their presence That is as strong a statement under humanitarian law, as is the statement that the hospitals should not become a war zone.
I understand the Israelis’ concern for trying to find the leadership of Hamas. That’s not our problem. Our problem is protecting the people of Gaza from what’s being visited upon them.
Griffiths added that his agency’s main concern was “for the welfare of the patients of that hospital, which is, of course, in great peril at the moment”.
“We have no fuel to run it. The babies have no incubators, newly born. Some are dead already. We can’t move them out. It’s too dangerous,” he said.
“Our concern is for the patients of a hospital that doesn’t function.”
The Israeli minister Benny Gantz has said that Israel will track down and kill Hamas leaders wherever they are in the world, and threatened anti-Israeli forces in Lebanon, saying “what we are doing effectively in the south, can work even better in the north”.
The Times of Israel quotes Gantz, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s national unity war cabinet, saying:
There will be no sanctuary cities, no sanctuary houses. We will go wherever we need to in order to eradicate child murderers – above and below ground. In Gaza and around the world. We will reach the heads of government just as we reached the centres of government.
Addressing today’s military action, Gantz said: “IDF soldiers continue to operate deep inside Gaza City against those who have turned hospitals into command centres, from which war crimes are committed.”
Israel has repeatedly claimed that Hamas uses hospitals as bases, a charge that Hamas has denied.
Thomas White, the director of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), has said that water pumps and sewage treatment in the south of the Gaza Strip have stopped due to lack of fuel.
About an hour ago White posted to social media:
In Rafah all (10) water wells have stopped pumping – the only source of water in the city – why? – no fuel. The Khan Younis desalination plant has stopped working – supplies drinking water for 100,000s of people – why? – no fuel. No sewage pumping in Rafah all (3) sewage pumps have stopped working – simply because they ran out of fuel.
In the last few minutes he posted an additional statement, saying:
Just received 23,027 litres of fuel from Egypt (half a tanker) – but its use has been restricted by Israeli authorities – only for transporting aid from Rafah. No fuel for water or hospitals. This is only 9% of what we need daily to sustain lifesaving activities.
Gaza’s two main telecommunications companies Paltel and Jawwal warned on Wednesday of a “complete telecom blackout in the coming hours” in the Gaza Strip.
“Main data centers and switches in the Gaza Strip are gradually shutting down due to fuel depletion,” Reuters reports the companies said in a joint statement.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said on Wednesday Israel was a “terror state” committing war crimes and violating international law in Gaza, while repeating his assertion that the Palestinian militant group Hamas was not a terrorist organisation.
He said Hamas was a political party that had been elected by Palestinians.
Speaking to lawmakers in parliament, Reuters reports Erdoğan also called on Benjamin Netanyahu to announce whether Israel had nuclear bombs or not, adding that the Israeli leader was finished in his post.
Erdoğan went on to say that Turkey would work on the international stage to ensure that Israeli settlers are recognised as terrorists.
Turkey has withdrawn diplomats from Israel in the wake of Israel’s response to the 7 October Hamas attack.
Israel has never disclosed in public whether it possesses nuclear weapons, although earlier in the war against Hamas a junior minister in Netanyahu’s government stated that dropping a nuclear weapon on the Gaza Strip was an option.
The Turkish health minister, Fahrettin Koca, is in Cairo on Wednesday, meeting his Egyptian counterpart, Khalid Abdel Ghaffar, to discuss aid supply to Gaza, and the transfer of some patients to Turkey.
The IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari has issued an update on what Israel has called its “targeted operation” at al-Shifa hospital.
He said:
IDF forces continue to operate in a targeted manner in a part of the Shifa hospital area where they are scanning for infrastructure and terrorist means of the terrorist organization Hamas.
Hagari’s post claimed that “the forces delivered humanitarian equipment and placed it at the entrance to the hospital”, accompanied by an image of an Israeli soldier next to some boxes labelled “medical supplies” in English.
Earlier a doctor inside the hospital told Al Jazeera it had been six days since water and food had been able to get into the hospital, and the World Health Organization said it had lost contact with health professionals within the hospital complex.
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2023-11-15 13:45:00Z
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