Middle East crisis live: ‘There will be no ceasefire’, Israel says; Houthis order US and British NGO workers to leave Yemen | Israel

Ahmed Al-Mandhari, the World Health Organization’s regional director for the eastern Mediterranean, has said Israel continues to target health institutions in Gaza, reports Al Jazeera citing comments made during a press conference on Wednesday about the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip.

He said attacks on health institutions are a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and highlighted the fact that 660 attacks were recorded on health institutions, about half of them in northern Gaza. He also spoke of the cutting off of medical supplies and fuel, as well as the WHO’s challenges in accessing hospitals in northern Gaza.

Mandhari also said that the situation in the Gaza Strip is catastrophic and that the number of workers in medical institutions has decreased to just 5%. He said that patients are dying due to lack of medicines and the WHO’s pleas are going unanswered.

An Israeli government spokesperson has ruled out a Gaza ceasefire on Wednesday, despite reports that negotiations on hostage releases were progressing and repeated international calls for Israel to cease its months-long bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Ilana Stein said in a briefing:

Commenting on reported ceasefire agreements, Israel will not give up on the destruction of Hamas, the return of all the hostages, and there will be no security threat from Gaza towards Israel. There will be no ceasefire. In the past there were pauses for humanitarian purposes. That agreement was breached by Hamas.

Thomas White, the director of UNRWA in Gaza, has reported mass casualties and a building ablaze after a training centre was hit in Khan Younis.

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An armed drone has targeted a base housing US forces near northern Iraq’s Erbil airport on Wednesday, two sources have told Reuters.

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Yemen’s Houthi authorities have ordered US and British staff of the UN and Sana’a-based humanitarian organisations to leave the country within a month, Reuters reports.

“The ministry … would like to stress that you must inform officials and workers with US and British citizenships to prepare to leave the country within 30 days,” said a letter sent by the Houthi foreign ministry to the UN’s acting humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, Peter Hawkins.

The letter also ordered foreign organisations to not hire American or British citizens for Yemen’s operations. Houthi top negotiator Mohammed Abdulsalam confirmed the letter’s authenticity to Reuters.

The office of Hawkins, who is himself a British national, did not respond to a request for comment. The US and British embassies in Yemen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The decision follows the US and Britain – with support from other nations – striking military targets of the Iran-aligned group after Houthi attacks on vessels in the Red Sea. Yesterday the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said that his country would be bringing forward sanctions against the Houthis.

An incident 50 nautical miles south of al-Mukha in Yemen has been reported by the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) organisation.

In an advisory note, reported by Reuters, the UKMTO said the master reported an explosion approximately 100m from the vessel. The vessel and crew were safe and no injuries or damage was reported, it added.

There is no further information at present but we will update as any news comes in.

The Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is open “24/7” but the procedures by Israel to allow the entry of aid are obstructing the process, the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, said on Wednesday.

According to Reuters, Sisi said: “This is part of how they exert pressure on the issue of releasing the hostages.”

Accusing Israel of holding up aid deliveries from the Rafah border crossing by pursuing procedures that halt movements, Sisi said: “This is a form of pressure on the Gaza Strip and its people over the conflict and the release of hostages. They are using this as a pressure tool on the people of the Strip.”

“We used to send Gaza 600 trucks a day. But for the past two to three days, we are not delivering more than 200 to 200 trucks (of aid) a day. How are these people (in Gaza) living?” he asked a gathering of military officers and state officials.

“Egypt’s Rafah crossing is open 24/7 every day of the month. But the procedures taking place on the Israeli side for us to send in the aid without it being blocked by anyone, they are the reason [for holdups],” Sisi said.

Israel has previously denied holding up aid to Gaza via the Rafah crossing.

Discharged patients are refusing to leave because “they don’t have anywhere to go”, says a health officer working at the European Gaza hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

Raneen Wafi, a health officer with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), says it is one of “our main challenges” and that “there is no space” for patients waiting for a bed.

In a video posted by the Red Cross on X, Wafi says:

One of our main challenges is that there is a lot of patients out here that need to be taken care of, but there is no space. A lot of discharged patients refuse to go out because they don’t have anywhere to go. And there are a lot of patients waiting for that bed to be emptied.

So here, we are seeing more IDPs (internally displaced persons) in the hospital, more patients are coming with all the continous bombardement around. There is a lot of patients that are waiting to be taken care of here and this is the desperate thing to think of.”

The latest figures from the Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas, said 210 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes and nearly 400 were injured in the past 24 hours.

According to the statement, at least 25,700 Palestinians have been killed and 63,740 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October.

The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

People fleeing the vicinity of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis have been shot at by Israeli tanks as well as attack drones, says Al Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud reporting from Rafah, southern Gaza.

“Entire families are being surrounded by Israeli military tanks and armoured vehicles. They are ordered to evacuate from their homes and to get outside. Women are separated from the men with their hands on top of their heads,” writes Mahmoud. He adds that civil defence crews “are trying to collect the bodies and identify the dead”.

Al Jazeera is one of the few news organisations with a functioning bureau in Gaza

Mahmoud also reports that there has been a “surge” in aerial attacks and artillery shelling in the western part of Khan Younis, while the compound of al-Aqsa University, where thousands of people have been sheltering, is “effectively under military siege”.

“No one can get out of that area,” writes Mahmoud. “Anyone who tries to leave risks losing their life as there is constant shelling and attacks by land and by air.”