Nasser hospital has run out of food, anaesthetics and painkillers, says Gaza health ministry
According to Al Jazeera, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has confirmed that Nasser hospital in Khan Younis has run out of food, anaesthetics and painkillers.
“The health and humanitarian situation in the hospital is extremely catastrophic due to the siege by the Israeli occupation forces,” the ministry said.
We will update this post with more information as it comes in.
Key events
An Israeli government spokesperson has said they expect the international court of justice (ICJ) to throw out the “spurious” genocide allegations on Friday, Reuters reports.
The remarks come as the ICJ will deliver its highly anticipated verdict on South Africa’s request for an interim ruling in its genocide case against Israel on Friday.
The ruling, if granted, would probably take the form of an order to Israel to announce a ceasefire in Gaza and allow more UN humanitarian aid into the country.
Read more on the interim ruling here:
People were seen fleeing near an aid distribution point in the Zeitoun district of Gaza City on Wednesday as gunfire was heard in the background.
The video, shared on social media, showed crowds jostling and rushing, some with animal carts. Many people were seen carrying aid as they ran.
On Tuesday, the World Food Programme said very little food aid had made it beyond southern Gaza since the start of the conflict with Israel, and pockets of the Palestinian enclave remained at risk of famine. An Israeli government spokesperson said there were “no limitations on the admission of humanitarian aid”.
Israel military looking into claims its forces opened fire on Palestinians queueing for aid, reports Al Jazeera
Israel’s military says it is looking into allegations that its forces opened fire on crowds of Palestinians queueing for aid in northern Gaza City, reports Al Jazeera.
At least 20 people were killed and 150 injured in the attack, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry. A spokesperson for the health ministry said an attack had been carried out on “hungry mouths”.
“The Israeli occupation committed a new massacre against thousands of hungry mouths who were waiting for aid,” Ashraf al-Qudra said, reports Al Jazeera citing a statement on Telegram.
He said the attack occurred at the Kuwait roundabout in Gaza City and that the number of dead was likely to rise because of serious injuries suffered by dozens of the injured. The victims were being treated at al-Shifa hospital, which is out of medical supplies and only has a few doctors working, Qudra said.
Air raid alarms were sounded in Israel on Thursday, marking the first time in almost four days that projectiles were apparently launched from the Gaza Strip towards the country, reports the Times of Israel.
The publication said sirens were activated in the evacuated border community of Netiv Ha’asara, with no reports of injuries or damage. The previous alerts near Gaza had sounded on Sunday afternoon.
Situation in Khan Younis ‘underscores a consistent failure’ to uphold international humanitarian law, says UNRWA director
Thomas White, the director of affairs in Gaza for the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), said on Thursday that the “persistent attacks on civilian sites” in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, are “utterly unacceptable and must stop immediately”.
In a statement published on the UNRWA website, White writes:
Persistent attacks on civilian sites in Khan Younis are utterly unacceptable and must stop immediately. People are being killed and injured. As fighting intensifies around hospitals and shelters hosting the displaced, people are trapped inside and lifesaving operations are impeded.”
As fighting intensified over recent days in the area, White said 12 people had been confirmed dead and 75 people had been injured, 15 of whom are in a critical condition. The UNRWA training centre, which was hosting thousands of people, was hit yesterday by two shells and caught fire, he said.
A number of missions to assess the situation were denied, added White, describing how on Wednesday evening the UN finally managed to reach the affected areas to treat trauma patients, bring medical supplies and evacuate injured patients to Rafah.
White said:
Heavy fighting near the remaining hospitals in Khan Younis, including Nasser and al-Amal has effectively encircled these facilities, leaving terrified staff, patients and displaced people trapped inside. Al Khair hospital has shut down after patients, including women who had just undergone C-section surgeries, were evacuated in the middle of the night.
The situation in Khan Younis underscores a consistent failure to uphold the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law: distinction, proportionality and precautions in carrying out attacks. This is unacceptable and abhorrent and must stop.
He concluded: “Every measure must be taken to protect civilians. I remind all parties that protection of hospitals, clinics, medical personnel and UN premises is explicitly enshrined within international law.”
Here are some of the latest images coming out of Gaza and Israel on the news wires today:
Antisemitic acts on the rise in Belgium since Israel-Gaza war began, says report
The number of antisemitic acts registered in Belgium rose sharply since the Hamas attack against Israel that triggered a war in Gaza, according to figures released on Thursday by an independent public body fighting discrimination.
The Associated Press (AP) cited a report by Unia that said it received 91 reports related to the Israel-Gaza conflict between 7 October and 7 December last year, compared with 57 reports for the whole of 2022. Remarks or acts considered as antisemitic, including cases of Holocaust denial made up most of the reports, it said. In 66 cases, a clear reference was made to the Jewish origin of the person or people targeted.
Most of the cases involved hate messages, more than half of them online, but there were also comments made in public areas. Unia is also collaborating with the public prosecutor’s office and Belgian police in nine cases of assault and damage, it said.
Belgium has a Jewish population of about 29,000, according to the World Jewish Congress. Many European countries have also registered a rise in reported antisemitic acts and comments since the outbreak of the war.
The Unia report cited cases of beatings, graffiti and the desecration of dozens of graves in the Jewish section of a cemetery close to the city of Charleroi.
By way of comparison, Unia said it received four to five reports a month relating to antisemitism in 2022.
Unia said it also received eight reports of discrimination or hate speech linked to the Palestinian origin, Arab origin or the Muslim belief of the people targeted between 7 October and 7 December.
Nasser hospital has run out of food, anaesthetics and painkillers, says Gaza health ministry
According to Al Jazeera, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has confirmed that Nasser hospital in Khan Younis has run out of food, anaesthetics and painkillers.
“The health and humanitarian situation in the hospital is extremely catastrophic due to the siege by the Israeli occupation forces,” the ministry said.
We will update this post with more information as it comes in.
Qatar ‘will not be involved one bit’ in what happens in Gaza after the war, says Israeli minister
Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday accused Qatar, a key mediator in efforts to free its hostages, of being “largely responsible” for the 7 October Hamas attack, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
His comments came after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was recorded allegedly telling hostages’ families this week that Qatar’s mediation was “problematic” when it came to resolving the hostage crisis.
Qatar is the “patron of Hamas and is largely responsible for the massacre committed by Hamas of Israeli citizens”, Smotrich said on X. He wrote: “Qatar is a country that supports terrorism and finances terrorism.”
AFP reports that Smotrich accused western governments of being “hypocritical” in maintaining close relations with Doha. “The west can and should exert much stronger leverage on it and bring about the release of the hostages immediately,” he said.
“One thing is clear: “largely what happens in Gaza the day after the war.”
Qatar and Egypt have acted as mediators in the conflict since it erupted after the Hamas attack. In November, they helped broker a week-long truce that saw the release of 105 hostages, the Israelis among them in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas condemned the comments from Smotrich and Netanyahu, saying they were “targeting the sisterly State of Qatar”.
“We affirm that Qatar is playing an active political role in order to stop the aggression against our people,” Taher al-Nono, a senior Hamas figure said in a statement seen by AFP, adding that such remarks were hindering progress on the “prisoner exchange file”.
Smotrich’s remarks come as US President Joe Biden’s Middle East envoy Brett McGurk was in the region for talks aimed at brokering a new deal to free the remaining captives in exchange for a pause in fighting.
A Palestinian source familiar with the talks told AFP that a Hamas delegation had travelled to Cairo on Tuesday to meet Egypt’s intelligence chief and discuss new ceasefire proposals.
On Wednesday, Qatar said it was “appalled” by the remarks attributed to Netanyahu.
Samah Khalid Naji is 18, and along with six other members of her family, is living in the bombed-out remains of their house in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. It was destroyed in October by an Israeli missile strike.
The Guardian spent two days with Samah and her family in December to see the remains of their house and how they are surviving the war. She told the film-maker Majdi Fathi about why they decided this was the safest place for them to be. You can view the video here:
UK foreign secretary calls for an end to Israeli ‘bottlenecks’ preventing aid reaching Gaza
Patrick Wintour
My colleague Patrick Wintour has written on the latest from the UK foreign secretary David Cameron’s visit to the Middle East, where he is meeting Israeli leaders and Qatari mediators:
Lord Cameron, the UK foreign secretary, who is in the Middle East for talks with Israeli leaders and Qatari mediators, has called for an end to the Israeli bottlenecks preventing aid reaching Gaza and backed an immediate pause in the fighting.
He said: “It’s vital that we can get it [aid] into Gaza. Then once it’s in, get it around Gaza. What I was saying to the Israelis. They have got to deal with the bottlenecks. Make sure the crossing points are open more often. Checking more quickly. Crucially give the visas to the UN staff to get the aid around Gaza. I think they understand that. There are bottlenecks in the system. They have got to move faster.”
Cameron was in Qatar after visiting Israel, where he met the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and differed with the Israelis over the flow of aid, a two state solution and the need for an immediate end to the fighting.
He said: “We need an immediate pause in the fighting because we’ve got to not only get the aid in, but crucially we’ve got to get those hostages out. And what I think we can do now is plan for how you turn that pause into a permanent, sustainable ceasefire without a return to fighting. That’s what I was pushing on him. And that’s what I’ll be talking about here today.
“For that to happen, a lot of things would have to happen. You’d have to see the Hamas leadership leave Gaza, you’d have to see the instruments of terrorism being dismantled in Gaza, but you’ve also got to see a political perspective so that Palestinian people can see that there is a route to having a Palestinian state, to having a new future. So it’s all those things together that need to form part of a proper plan.”
The UK last week altered the emphasis of its approach to peace talks saying it wanted to focus on securing an immediate humanitarian pause to get all the hostages out and aid in. During that indefinite pause negotiations could be held to secure a “sustainable ceasefire” without a return to further fighting.
‘Everyone in Gaza is hungry’ says UN secretary general
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said the humanitarian situation in Gaza is “appalling”, with a quarter of the population grappling with catastrophic levels of food insecurity, as he renewed the UN’s plea for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”.
In remarks given at a meeting of the security council focused on the Middle East on Wednesday, Guterres said:
The humanitarian situation in Gaza is appalling. With winter bearing down, 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza face inhumane, squalid conditions, struggling to simply make it through another day without proper shelter, heating, sanitary facilities, food, and drinking water.
Everyone in Gaza is hungry – with a quarter of Gaza’s population – more than half a million people – grappling with catastrophic levels of food insecurity.”
He also spoke about disease spreading in Gaza “as the health system collapses”, stating that only 16 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were “even partly functional”.
“That means the people of Gaza not only risk being killed or injured by relentless bombardments; they also run a growing chance of contracting infectious diseases like hepatitis A, dysentery, cholera,” said Guterres. “Without functioning hospitals, and with minimal opportunities for patients to exit Gaza, thousands suffering from chronic diseases like cancer and kidney failure are at risk of dying.”
He called for a functioning medical evacuation system, describing it as “urgently needed”.
Guterres opened his speech by condemning “the horrific terror attacks launched by Hamas against Israel, with over 250 people taken hostage”. He added: “Nothing can justify deliberate killing, injuring, kidnapping of civilians, the use of sexual violence against them – or the indiscriminate launching of rockets towards civilian targets.” Guterres demanded the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
The UN secretary general then spoke about the situation in Gaza for Palestinian civilians: “More than 25,000 people, mainly women and children, have reportedly been killed in operations launched by Israeli forces. More than 60,000 others have been reportedly injured.”
Guterres referred to the escalating attacks in Khan Younis in recent days. He said: “The entire population of Gaza is enduring destruction at a scale and speed without parallel in recent history.”
“Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people” he said.
He described the deaths of his 153 UN colleagues in the region as a “a source of bottomless grief for us all”.
At least 50 Palestinians killed in Khan Younis in the last 24 hours, says health ministry
Israeli strikes have killed at least 50 Palestinians in Khan Younis in the last 24 hours, says Ashraf al-Qidra, a spokesperson for the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
Al Jazeera reports that at least three people including two children have been killed by Israeli shelling of the al-Satar al-Gharbi area of Khan Younis.
ICJ to deliver interim ruling on genocide case against Israel on Friday
Patrick Wintour
My colleague, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour, has written on the international court of justice’s highly anticipated ruling due tomorrow:
South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, is flying to The Hague to be present on Friday when the ICJ delivers its verdict on South Africa’s request for an interim ruling in its genocide case against Israel.
The ruling, if granted, would probably take the form of an order to Israel to announce a ceasefire in Gaza and allow more UN humanitarian aid into the country.
The announcement of Pandor’s travel plans does not necessarily mean South Africa knows the verdict will be in its favour, but does reflect a confidence in Pretoria that its request is going to be met at least partially.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
