Israel has instructed all 1.1 million Palestinians in north Gaza to?leave, including those in hospitals. That figure?is around half the strip's population
No decision on a ground offensive has yet been announced -?although Israel has been massing troops along the Gaza border
The UN warns Israel's evacuation plan would have "devastating humanitarian consequences"
The war has claimed at least 3,200 lives since Hamas launched an incursion on 7 October
Gaza hospitals are reportedly overwhelmed - and say 60% of casualties women and children
Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of using white phosphorus munitions in its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warns this is 'just the beginning'?
People are scrambling to evacuate northern Gaza even as Hamas told Palestinians to stay home
An Israeli shell landed in a gathering of international journalists covering clashes on the border in southern Lebanon on Friday, killing one and wounding six
United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has assured Israel: “We have your back”
10:57The Israeli army announced on Sunday that it will?close access to the border area with Lebanon to civilians, after shots from both sides left one person dead in Israel.
After "the assessment of the situation and the recent shooting in northern Israel, a four-kilometer zone from the northern border with Lebanon was closed," the army said in a statement.
10:56Israel's military has announced that at least 279 of its soldiers have been killed since Hamas launched its attack over a week ago.
It also added that the?number of hostages in Gaza currently stands at 126.
Over 1,300 Israelis have reportedly been killed in the initial Hamas assault and in rocket attacks from Gaza.
10:53In Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza’s second largest hospital, the ICU rooms are packed full of wounded patients, most of them children below the age of 3. Hundreds of people with blast injuries have come to the hospital in the past eight days and many risk death as fuel is expected to run out by Monday, said Dr. Mohammed Qandeel, a consultant at the critical care complex of the hospital.
Many patients have severe and complex injuries and need intensive care, he said. “The difference with this escalation is we don’t have medical aid coming in from outside, the border is closed, electricity is off and this constitutes a high danger for our patients,” he said.
He added?there are 35 patients in the ICU unit who depend on ventilators to stay alive. A further 60 patients are on dialysis. If fuel runs out, “it means the whole health system will be shut down, the services will be off,” he said. “We are talking about another catastrophe, another war crime, a historical tragedy.”
“All these patients are in danger of death if the electricity is cut off,” he said.
Further north, In the Kamal Alwan Hospital, the head of pediatrics Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya said the hospital did not evacuate despite the Israeli order to move south because there was no way to move patients without risking their lives.
“They have asked us to evacuate the hospital but we did not answer that order because evacuating the hospitals means death to all the children and patients under our care. We shall not evacuate the hospital even if it costs us our lives,” he said, adding that there are seven newborns in the ICU hooked up to ventilators.
One of the injured outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza on Saturday (Photo by Belal Khaled/Anadolu via Getty Images)
10:36Cross-border fire erupted between Israel and Lebanon early on Sunday, killing at least one person on the Israeli side of the border.
Both the Israeli military and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah acknowledged the fighting.
Hezbollah said it shelled Israeli military positions in the northern border town of Shtula. The group said in a statement the attack was in retaliation for Israeli shelling that killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah on Friday and two Lebanese civilians on Saturday.
Israel has responded by targeting the outskirts of the town of Ait el-Shaab, the Israeli military said.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said a 40-year-old man was killed in the attack from Lebanon, without elaborating or giving his nationality
As Israel wages its war against Hamas over last week’s unprecedented attack by the Gaza Strip militant group, there’s been concern that Hezbollah could enter the war as well as Israel moves toward launching a ground offensive in Gaza.
(AP)
10:34Humanitarian aid arriving from several countries continued to pile?up on Sunday in Egyptian Sinai, bordering the Gaza Strip bombed and besieged by Israel, without however reaching Palestinian territory, witnesses told AFP.
The border crossing to Egypt has been closed following?three Israeli bombings in less than 24 hours on Monday and Tuesday.
Already, shipments of Jordanian, Turkish and Emirati aid have landed at El-Arich airport, capital of North Sinai, as well as medical equipment covering the needs of 300,000 people in the Gaza Strip sent by the World Health Organization (WHO).?Egypt sent a convoy of around a hundred trucks carrying 1,000 tonnes of aid.
(AFP)
10:31A Palestinian Hamas commander responsible for an attack on an Israeli kibbutz adjacent to the Gaza Strip last week was killed in a strike, the Israeli military reported Sunday.
Billal al Kedra, commander of Hamas forces in the Khan Younes sector (south of the Gaza Strip) and responsible for the attack on Kibbutz Nirim, "was killed yesterday evening (Saturday)" by Israeli aircraft, indicates a military press release.
According to Israeli media, at least five people were killed in Nirim, where residents experienced a nine-hour siege before the intervention of Israeli forces who confronted fighters from the Islamist Hamas.
The Israeli army also indicated on Sunday that it had targeted other members of the Palestinian Islamist movement, command centers, military and missile launch sites and observation posts, believing that it had "affected the capabilities of the terrorist organisation".
Strikes also targeted members and the headquarters of Islamic Jihad, another Islamist organisation present in Gaza, which was destroyed, an Israeli army spokesperson said in a statement.
(AFP)
10:27Israel?has said?it will?strike Lebanon after shots targeting its soil, in a context of violence in the Middle East.
The Israeli army reported fire coming from Lebanon towards the town of Shtula, on the border and a military position.?“In response, the army is striking Lebanese soil,” it annouced.?
10:15The Gaza Health Ministry says 2,329 Palestinians have been killed since the latest fighting erupted, making this the deadliest of the five Gaza wars for Palestinians.
The death toll on Sunday surpassed that of the third war between Israel and Hamas, in the summer of 2014, when 2,251 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians, were killed, according to UN figures.
That war lasted six weeks, and 74 people were killed on the Israeli side, including six civilians.
The current war erupted a week ago when Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel in a shocking surprise attack. More than 1,300 Israelis have been killed in the initial, wide-ranging assault and in rocket attacks from Gaza. The overwhelming majority were civilians.
For Israel, this is the deadliest war since the 1973 conflict with Egypt and Syria.
(AP)
10:14The Rafah crossing point between Egypt and Gaza remained closed on Sunday morning, as Egyptian authorities continued negotiations with Israel, the U.S. and Palestinian militant groups over allowing aid to flow into the besieged strip and letting Americans and other foreigners and wounded Palestinians cross into Egypt, two Egyptian officials said.
Convoys of humanitarian aid, including shipments from Turkey and Jordan, have been waiting near the crossing point for delivery to Gaza, they said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief media.
(AP)
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