Four Gaza patients dead as oxygen cut off during Israel raid on Nasser hospital, doctors say - latest
Rafah in southern Gaza was also hit by Israeli airstrikes ahead of a planned ground invasion into the city
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Your support makes all the difference.At least four patients in intensive care died because their oxygen supply was cut off when Israeli troops stormed Gaza’s main hospital, according to the doctors.
Israeli special forces have stormed the last major hospital in southern Gaza, with the military saying it is a limited operation to seeking the remains of hostages taken by Hamas.
The raid came a day after the army sought to evacuate thousands of displaced people who had taken shelter at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
The southern city has been the main target of Israel's offensive against Hamas in recent weeks. The military said it had "credible intelligence" that Hamas had held hostages at the hospital and that the remains of hostages might still be inside.
This comes after the UN warned that an Israeli ground invasion into Rafah could lead to slaughter as more tha one million Palestinians shelter there.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned offensive could leave an “already fragile humanitarian operation at death’s door.”
Why Israel’s assault on Rafah could mean the worst is yet to come: ‘We have nowhere left to go’
Mapped: Where is Rafah and why is Israel invading it?- Biden says Israeli attack on Rafah should not take place without a ‘credible’ plan to protect civilians
Airstrike from Israeli hostage rescue wipes out entire Palestinian family in Gaza border town
‘Nobody is doing anything to help us’: Eyewitness recounts Israeli attack
Hussein Badir, a neighbor of the Berjawi family that was killed in the strike, said he and other neighbours had rushed to the street to dig through the rubble. He said the family was “decent and respectable” and “not involved in anything.”
For Badir, the strike brought back memories of Israeli bombardment during its 2006 war with Hezbollah and also during a 1996 offensive.
“Nobody is doing anything to help us,” he said. “It’s our right to defend ourselves in our country in Lebanon.”
Netanyahu vows to continue offensive until Hamas destroyed stalling cease fire talks
Negotiations over a cease-fire in Gaza appear to have stalled, and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the offensive until Hamas is destroyed and scores of hostages are returned.
The number of Palestinians killed during the war in Gaza has surpassed 28,000 people, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. A quarter of Gaza’s residents are starving.
About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and around 250 abducted in Hamas’ attack on Israel on 7 October.
Arab League warns against Rafah offensive
The head of the Arab League today warned that an Israeli ground offensive into Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah would lead to “a humanitarian disaster” and threaten stability in the region.
“We are calling on all parties that understand the gravity of the situation to act immediately in order to stop these crazy plans,” Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said in a statement. Over half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have sought refuge in Rafah after fleeing elsewhere in the coastal enclave.
“What is the meaning of justice and international organizations if they remain unable to enforce a cease-fire and to put an end to these daily gruesome massacres?” he said.
The statement came a day after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his negotiating team to pull out of talks in Cairo to broker a cease-fire with Hamas. Mr Netanyahu had accused Hamas of making “delusional demands”.
Israel complains to Vatican
Israel has formally complained after the Vatican No 2 spoke of the “carnage” in Gaza by what he termed a disproportionate Israeli military operation following 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 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 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-defense by inflicting “carnage” on Gaza.
“Israel’s right to self-defense 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 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 on the rise in antisemitic acts against Jews around the world.
Canada, Australia and New Zealand warn Israel of 'Rafah catastrophe'
Canada, Australia and New Zealand are warning Israel that a ground offensive in the Gaza border city of Rafah would be catastrophic.
“We are gravely concerned by indications that Israel is planning a ground offensive into Rafah. A military operation into Rafah would be catastrophic,” the prime ministers of the three nations said in a joint statement on Thursday.
With 1.5 million Palestinians taking refuge in the area where there was an already dire humanitarian situation, the impacts on Palestinian civilians from an expanded military operation would be devastating, they said.
“There is growing international consensus. Israel must listen to its friends and it must listen to the international community,” the statement said.
Arab nations urge UN Security Council to demand Gaza cease-fire
The 22 Arab countries at the United Nations are urging the UN Security Council to demand an immediate cease-fire 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 some 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 cease-fire and unhindered humanitarian access, as well as rejecting the forced displacement of Palestinian civilians, which has been the subject of intense discussions.
Scenes of panic in Nasser Hospital ward
Nasser Hospital 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.
Video of the aftermath of the strike overnight showed medics scrambling to wheel patients on stretchers through a corridor filled with smoke or dust. A medic used a cellphone flashlight to illuminate a darkened room where a wounded man screamed out in pain as gunfire echoed outside. The Associated Press could not authenticate the videos but they were consistent with its reporting.
Dr Khaled Alserr, one of the remaining surgeons at Nasser Hospital, told the AP that the seven patients hit early today 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.
“The situation is escalating every hour and every minute,” he said.
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.
“People have been forced into an impossible situation,” said Lisa Macheiner of the aid group Doctors Without Borders, which has staff in the hospital.
“Stay at Nasser Hospital against the Israeli military’s orders and become a potential target, or exit the compound into an apocalyptic landscape where bombings and evacuation orders are a part of daily life.”
South Korea raises concern over Israeli actions in Rafah
South Korea expressed deep concern over recent Israeli military operations in the Gaza city of Rafah and plans for further actions. It also urged for the protection of civilians under international laws, the foreign ministry added in a statement.
‘28,663 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza’
At least 28,663 Palestinians have been killed and 68,395 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the enclave’s health ministry said in a statement today.
In the last 24 hours, 87 Palestinians were killed and 104 injured by Israeli strikes, the ministry added.
Increasingly isolated Netanyahu is set on an assault of Gaza’s Rafah – whatever the cost
Countries are lining up to tell the Israeli prime minister of the dire humanitarian consequences of going into the border city where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering, writes Bel Trew. And the political price will be heavy too
Increasingly isolated Netanyahu is set on an assault of Rafah – whatever the cost
Countries are lining up to tell the Israeli prime minister of the dire humanitarian consequences of going into the border city where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering, writes Bel Trew. And the political price will be heavy too
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