Israel-Palestine live: Biden urges Egypt, Qatar to press Hamas for hostage deal

Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza reported that the Israeli army is warning the displaced people in Gaza City's al-Shifa Medical Complex to evacuate immediately "or it would be bombed".

He claims the entire hospital might be bombed.

Al Jazeera Arabic's correspondent in Gaza City said one building in the hospital has already been blown up by the Israeli army.

In a video released on Thursday, the Iran-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq said one of its drones targeted a power plant in Tel Aviv at dawn.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates:

• Israeli forces are still conducting operations in Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital
• Two Palestinians were killed by an Israeli drone strike on the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank
• Israeli authorities reportedly ordered 25 patients who had been receiving treatment in occupied East Jerusalem and Israel to be returned to Gaza, but were blocked by the country's High Court of Justice
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the "gaps are narrowing" between Israel and Hamas, and that a truce agreement is "very much possible".

Good evening readers of Middle East Eye,

Gaza's health ministry said the Palestinian death toll from Israel's war on Gaza has reached 31,923 with over 104 Palestinians killed in the last 24 hours.

The Israeli army said it killed dozens of "terrorists" and apprehended around 300 people in its latest raid on al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. 

In other developments:

• US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is due to make another trip to the Middle East in a new push to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
• The World Health Organisation said it has recorded 410 attacks on healthcare facilities in the Gaza Strip since 7 October.
• The Gaza government's media office said that over 100 aid workers and seekers were killed by Israeli forces over the course of one week.
• Nine women shaved their heads outside the UK's parliament on Tuesday, as an act of protest against Britain's role in the war on Gaza. 
• Israeli air strikes have targeted two vehicles in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, Palestinian media reported on Wednesday. 
• Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that efforts are in progress for an incursion into Rafah in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, but noted that this operation "will take some time".
• Arab foreign ministers and a senior Palestinian official are set to meet with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Cairo on Thursday.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group in the US, criticised the Biden administration on Wednesday for its role in the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

This condemnation comes after the UN reported that the Israeli government is employing starvation as a "weapon of war."

“Innocent civilians in Gaza are being starved to death as part of the Israeli government’s genocidal campaign. This atrocity has been enabled by the Biden administration’s utter inability to stand up to what it claims is our nation’s ‘greatest ally,'" Cair national executive director Nihad Awad said.

"We urge the Biden administration to immediately change course and demand an end to Israel’s siege and an immediate ceasefire.

”Yesterday, the UN said that Israel's prevention of aid into the heavily damaged Gaza, along with its military actions, might constitute the use of starvation as a "weapon of war", which could be classified as a "war crime".

"The condition of hunger, starvation, and famine stems from Israel's broad limitations on the influx and circulation of humanitarian aid and commercial commodities," UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk said on Tuesday.

Arab foreign ministers and a senior Palestinian official are set to meet with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Cairo on Thursday.

This meeting is part of Blinken's efforts to secure a ceasefire in the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, during his current trip across the region.

According to a note from the Egyptian foreign ministry, Blinken is scheduled to hold meetings with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan, in addition to the Emirati minister of international cooperation and the secretary general of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.

The note did not specify the agenda for the meeting. However, Egyptian security sources mentioned that Arab countries would introduce proposals for a political resolution to the Israel-Palestine war.

US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer turned down a request from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address the Senate Democratic Caucus, according to a report by Punchbowl News on Wednesday.

Punchbowl News reported that Schumer said such discussions should not occur "in a partisan manner".

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that efforts are in progress for an incursion into Rafah in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, but noted that this operation "will take some time".

In the announcement on Wednesday, Netanyahu said he would shortly authorise a strategy for moving Palestinian civilians away from conflict zones, following his approval of the military's tactical plans for Rafah.

Israeli air strikes have targeted two vehicles in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, Palestinian media reported on Wednesday. 

At least two people were killed, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. 

British MPs have called on the UK government to say whether it has updated its assessment of Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law in light of a worsening situation in Gaza, which a UN-backed assessment has found as being in a state of imminent famine. 

During a heated parliamentary debate which unfolded over two hours on Tuesday, foreign office minister Andrew Mitchell was repeatedly asked by members of his own Conservative Party and opposition parties whether the government believed Israel was committing a war crime by starving Palestinians.

The debate came a day after a UN-backed report found that 300,000 Palestinians trapped in northern Gaza are facing famine with another 1.1 million starving.

“As we debate this topic, children are starving to death in Gaza. Babies are so malnourished that Unicef says that they do not have the energy to cry,” said Labour's Zarah Sultana.

“Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war to collectively punish the Palestinian people… will the minister finally admit that officials have warned him that Israel is breaking international humanitarian law?”

Read more: MPs call on UK government to say if Israel is committing war crimes

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suggested that the new US-built makeshift port off Gaza, which was installed to help ship aid to the besieged enclave, could be used to deport Palestinians.

Earlier this month, Washington announced plans for the military to construct a "temporary" floating dock on Gaza's coast to allow aid to enter more easily.

“A temporary pier will enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day,” US President Joe Biden said.

However, speaking at a private meeting of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, Netanyahu suggested the port could also facilitate the removal of Palestinians from Gaza.

Netanyahu said there was "no obstacle" to the Palestinians leaving the Gaza Strip apart from the unwillingness of other countries to accept them, according to Kan News.

Read more: Netanyahu suggests new US-built port could help deport Palestinians

A senior Hamas official has said that Israel's response to its latest ceasefire proposal was negative, following talks with mediators.

"On Tuesday evening, our brothers, the mediators, informed us of the occupation’s position on the proposal… it is a negative response in general and does not respond to the demands… In fact, it retracts the approvals it previously provided to the mediators," Osama Hamdan said during a press conference in Beirut on Wednesday.

He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government were responsible for failing to negotiate an exchange deal involving Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners.

Talks have taken place all this week in Qatar, but have failed to produce an agreement to stop the fighting.

The government media office in Gaza has denied Israeli claims that scores of Hamas fighters were killed at al-Shifa hospital.

Israel's military said that 90 "terrorists" were killed at the medical complex, "while preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams, and medical equipment". Two Israeli soldiers were also killed during the raid. 

Ismail al-Thawabta, director of Gaza's government media office, said those killed were wounded patients and displaced people. 

"The Israeli occupation army practises lying and deception in spreading its narrative as part of justifying its continuous and law-breaking crimes, which violate international law, international humanitarian law," he told Reuters.

Eleven women shaved their heads outside the UK's parliament on Tuesday, as an act of protest against Britain's role in the war on Gaza. 

The organisers said the action was inspired by a Middle East Eye story, in which we reported on Palestinian women in Gaza being forced to shave their heads because of a lack of water to wash their hair. 

According to a statement, the protest was "against the UK government’s refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, failure to demand an end to the unlawful blockade of food, water and humanitarian aid, and continued profiting from UK-based production and sale of arms to Israel". 

Staff working at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) in the occupied West Bank have been subject to sustained harassment and obstruction by Israeli forces since the war on Gaza began five months ago, according to a report seen by The Guardian.

An internal Unrwa document recorded hundreds of incidents where staff were beaten at military checkpoints and the Israeli army used the agency's facilities to launch violent raids on Palestinian refugee camps. 

In one incident, two Unrwa staff were forcefully made to leave their marked UN vehicle at gunpoint at a checkpoint near Bethlehem, while the vehicle was searched by Israeli officers who made "reference to the staff belonging to Hamas".

They were then made to kneel down, and were blindfolded, handcuffed with cable ties and beaten, before a senior officer intervened. 

In an example of obstruction, a shipment of medicine earmarked for Unrwa health centres was held up by Israeli customs in Jordan for over two months. It was only cleared on Sunday, hours after The Guardian contacted Israeli authorities. A customs spokesperson denied there had been a delay.

Read more: Unrwa staff 'harassed and obstructed' by Israel in West Bank