Israel-Palestine live: Israel and Palestinians agree to truce, hostage deal

Israel's military has targeted the vicinity of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza with air strikes, according to several local media reports. 

A video posted just minutes ago by Quds News Network shows a Palestinian journalist speaking to the camera near the hospital, when a huge explosion is seen in the background. 

Another video posted by Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed al-Zanin showed a different angle of Israeli air strikes landing close to the hospital in northern Gaza. 

The Israeli military has launched relentless air strikes, artillery fire and gunfire for nearly three hours near the al-Shifa hospital on Friday.

Much of the bombardment is targeting al-Shati refugee camp and Nasser Street, according to local media reports.

The two locations are just metres away from al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza. 

Palestinian health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said on Friday evening that the front gate of the hospital had been attacked by Israeli forces.

The Israeli military has also fired a huge amount of what appears to be white phosphorous in the vicinity. 

A Palestinian doctor speaking from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said the situation now feels like a war zone.

Dr Ahmad al-Mukhlallati, speaking to Al Jazeera, said the Israeli bombardment is the heaviest felt by people at the hospital since the start of the war. 

A local journalist at the scene said shelling had been ongoing for over two hours in areas within 500 metres of the hospital. 

The Israeli death toll from Hamas' attack on southern Israeli communities on 7 October has been revised to around 1,200, down from a previous official figure of around 1,400.

"Around 1,200 is the official number of victims of the October 7 massacre," Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat said in a statement on Friday.

Intense Israeli aerial and artillery shelling fighting were heard near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City late on Friday.

Street battles are ongoing within 500 metres of the hospital, a local journalist at the scene told Middle East Eye.

Ashraf al-Qudra, the spokesperson of the Palestinian health ministry said: "The Israeli occupation is focusing its bombing in the areas surrounding Al-Shifa and other hospitals in Gaza City and northern Gaza." 

He added that ambulances aren't able to leave the hospital due to the heavy bombardment.

Israeli forces bombed the hospital's maternity ward and outpatient clinic on Friday morning, killing and wounding scores of people.

They then forcibly expelled tens of thousands of people from northern Gaza, including many who were inside Al-Shifa. 

However, al-Qudra said up to 30,000 people remain at the hospital as of Friday night, including many doctors, patients and others taking shelter.

Across Gaza City and northern Gaza, hundreds of thousands of other civilians have refused to leave, due to what they say is a lack of any guarantee of safety or return by the Israeli military. 

Columbia University in New York City has suspended two pro-Palestinian groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, as official student groups until at least the end of the current academic term. 

Gerald Rosberg, senior executive vice president of the university, said in a statement on Friday that the decision was made because the two groups "repeatedly violated" university policies, including by holding an unauthorised event on Thursday. 

"Suspension means the two groups will not be eligible to hold events on campus or receive university funding," Rosberg said. 

"Lifting the suspension will be contingent on the two groups demonstrating a commitment to compliance with university policies and engaging in consultations at a group leadership level with university officials."

You can read the full statement here. 

Over 100,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have fled southwards in the last two days, according to Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari.

Hagari said during a press conference on Friday that Israel was working to release captives held in the enclave.

"We are working all the time and with initiative on a range of efforts to return the hostages. These efforts are complex, they are not final. They take time, they are going to take time," he said.

Anam, 90, is among the 1.1 million Palestinians who have been forcibly ejected from their homes in northern Gaza. 

She experienced the Nakba (catastrophe) in 1948, when 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes to make way for the newly created state of Israel. 

In a video first posted by Palestinian journalist Bilal Khaled on Instagram on Friday, the elderly Anam was seen walking among the crowds of civilians making their way to southern Gaza. 

Palestinians in Gaza - more than 60 percent of whom are already refugees from other parts of Palestine - are all too familiar with Israeli wars leading to their displacement. 

Electricity, water and communication have been completely cut from the Indonesian Hopsital in northern Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

The ministry posted a video on its Telegram channel showing the medical facility in total darkness. 

On Thursday night, scores of civilians were killed and wounded after Israeli bombardment that targeted the vicinity of the Indonesian Hopsital. 

Major trade unions in India have called on their government to scrap an agreement with Israel that will allow tens of thousands of Indian workers to replace Palestinian construction workers whose work permits have been revoked since the Israeli war on Gaza started.

The statement, released on behalf of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), the BJP-affiliated Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS), and several other Indian union organisations, called for India's trade union movements to show solidarity with Palestinian workers by refusing to replace them. 

“Nothing could be more immoral and disastrous for India than the said 'export' of workers to Israel,” the group said in an open letter published on 9 November.

“That India is even considering 'exporting' workers shows the manner in which it has dehumanised and commodified Indian workers.

"Such [a] step will amount to complicity on India's part with Israel's ongoing genocidal war against Palestinians and will naturally have adverse implications for Indian workers in the entire region.”

Read more: Indian unions call for end to labour deal with Israel

In his latest analysis piece for Middle East Eye, Israeli journalist Meron Rapoport writes that Palestinian academics and doctors, as well as dissenting Jewish Israelis, have been caught up in an escalating wave of repression. 

He writes: "There are times I seriously wonder what country I am living in. More importantly, I wonder what sort of country it could become the day after this terrible war ends.

On Monday, I logged into a Zoom meeting of the High Follow Up Committee for the Arab Citizens of Israel, an organisation representing Palestinian citizens, which includes politicians, academics, and activists among its members.

Was this an act of treason? It might have been.

By Thursday Mohammed Baraka, the head of the committee and a former leader of the leftist Hadash party, who served as a member of the Knesset for 16 years, had been arrested.

Two more senior political figures, Sami Abu Shehadeh, the leader of the Balad party and a former member of Balad MK, and Haneen Zoabi, another former member, were also arrested."

You can read the full piece below. 

Analysis: Israelis in fear and denial as society slides towards fascism

Qatar's Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has met with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on Friday to discuss the Israel-Palestine war.

"The leaders met in the presence of ministers and other senior officials from both countries to focus on efforts to stop Israel's aggression against Gaza, the allowance of aid and other ways to support security and stability in the region," the Qatari emir's office said in a statement on Friday.

Three Palestinian human rights groups have asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Israel for war crimes, including genocide.

The three organisations - Al Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestine Human Rights Campaign - urged the ICC to look into Israeli air strikes on densely populated civilian areas in Gaza, the siege of the enclave and the mass forcible displacement of its population.

"These actions amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and incitement to genocide," they said in a joint statement.

The ICC said it had received communication from the groups and would assess the information. 

Israel is not a member of court, based in the Hague, and does not recognise its jurisdiction.

However, the ICC can investigate nationals of non-member states in some circumstances, including when alleged crimes are  committed in the territories of member states. Occupied Palestine is a member of the ICC.

Last week, families of Israeli victims of Hamas' surprise attack on 7 October filed papers at the ICC urging the court to look into Hamas crimes.