Morning update: Day 184 of Israel's war on Gaza

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

It's just after 11am in Palestine and Israel as the war on Gaza enters its sixth month. 

For 184 days, the world has looked on as heavy Israeli bombardment and a ground invasion have reduced vast areas of Gaza to a ruined wasteland.

The decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalated on 7 October when Palestinian fighters led by Hamas burst into southern Israel following Israeli provocations at the third-holiest site in Islam, Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque.

After the high-tech border fence that surrounds the besieged Gaza Strip was overwhelmed, more than 1,100 people were killed in the attacks, the majority of them civilians, according to an MEE tally based on official figures.

Israel responded by dropping more bombs on Gaza than the weight and power of the three nuclear bombs dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima by the Americans in World War Two.

Crowded urban areas have been pancaked and more than half of all buildings across Gaza have been destroyed.

So far, nearly 33,000 Palestinians, more than two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed.

Israel has faced mounting international pressure to end its war but has been largely been shielded by US diplomatic and military support.

Here are some key developments from the last few hours:

• Intense fighting has been reported in and around Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip
• The military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, claims it has killed at least 14 Israeli soldiers during clashes
• WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said Al-Shifa Hospital is 'an empty shell with human graves after the latest siege'
• Israeli forces have arrested 45 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including worshippers leaving the Al-Aqsa Mosque