Israel-Palestine live: Israel bombs Unrwa building in Gaza

The situation in Nasser hospital is becoming “more and more risky” for medical staff and hundreds of displaced people sheltering there, reports Al Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud in Rafah, southern Gaza.

"The situation in the hospital is becoming more and more risky for the medical staff and for the hundreds of displaced people sheltering there with no safe place to go," said Mahmoud.

"The Israeli military issued sharp evacuation orders. It has already destroyed the northern gate of the hospital and blocked it with a pile of debris and sand. The hospital area has turned into a battle zone with the vast majority of buildings and roads in the vicinity destroyed," he reported.

"Soldiers are shooting at everything in sight – including a doctor and a nurse. There are bodies in the courtyard. Those people were killed after being told to evacuate. This situation is extremely overwhelming for people inside the facility right now," he added.

Mahmoud reports a lack of fuel, medical supplies and oxygen at the hospital. He says this means there are no surgeries taking place. “There’s also a sewage flood as the facility is without electricity,” he adds.

Ireland and Spain have requested the EU Commission "urgently review whether Israel is complying with its obligations to respect human rights".

After laying siege to Nasser hospital for weeks, Israeli forces are now forcing Palestinians sheltering there to leave at gunpoint. 

In 2020, Asma Mustafa, a Palestinian English teacher from Gaza, won the Global Teacher Award after she competed against thousands of teachers from 110 countries. 

Despite living in the blockaded enclave, with limited access to the outside world, Mustafa presented creative ideas to teach English through games and imaginary trips around the world. 

Four years later, Mustafa is forcibly displaced in the Al-Mawasi area in Rafah, yet she remains defiant as the Israeli war continues to take a toll on all aspects of Palestinian life.

Mustafa has been displaced three times so far. The first time, she left her house in the north of Gaza and sought refuge in a school in the south.

Read more: The displaced Palestinian teacher undeterred by Israel’s war

At least 28,576 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since 7 October according to Gaza’s health ministry, including more than 12,300 children and 8,400 women.

The latest toll includes 103 people killed over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said.

The Israeli military has alleged without evidence that “Hamas continues to conduct military activities” in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and “the place was used to hold hostages”.

“We demand the immediate cessation of all military activity in the area of the hospital and the immediate departure of military operatives from it,” the army said in a statement on X.

“We have earlier conveyed that if Hamas does not stop this terrorist activity, the [Israeli military] reserves its right to act against these actions according to international law.”

The Nasser Hospital is the largest health facility in southern Gaza and has been under siege for weeks.

Israeli has regularly alleged that Hamas has operational “command centres” near to or under hospitals, but it has never provided evidence.

One Israeli has died and seven were injured in the northern Israeli city of Safed following a rocket barrage fired from Lebanon, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Wednesday. 

Three of the wounded are in a moderate condition and four were lightly wounded.

Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a prominent pro-Palestinian advocacy group in New York City, had its main Instagram page, backup accounts, and founder’s account shut down on Friday.

“As Zionist forces continue their crackdown on Palestine online and in the streets, Instagram has permanently deleted both WOL & WOL chair Nerdeen Kiswani's main and backup accounts, with no option to appeal or request a review to restore them,” WOL wrote on X.

“But the more they try to silence us, the louder we will be.”

According to New York Jewish Week, a spokesperson for Meta told them that the accounts had been removed because they violated the platform’s community guidelines, including its “Dangerous Organizations & Individuals policy”.

Read more: 'We won't be silenced': Meta removes Instagram accounts of pro-Palestine advocacy group

Demonstrators in Chile waved Palestinian flags and demanded that President Gabriel Boric withdraw the country’s ambassador from Israel as a result of Tel Aviv’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza.

The Biden administration is not planning to punish Israel if it launches a military campaign in Rafah without ensuring civilian safety, the US news outlet Politico has reported. 

The report, which cites three anonymous officials in the Biden administration, states that "no reprimand plans are in the works, meaning Israeli forces could enter the city and harm civilians without facing American consequences".

More than half of the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million population has fled to Rafah. 

According to an Egyptian source talks between Israel and Hamas have been extended for another three days, The New York Times reports. 

According to the US newspaper, the talks will involve lower-level officials, who will continue discussing a new framework for a potential hostage deal.

On Tuesday, the Israeli delegation, led by Mossad chief David Barnea, received approval to leave for Cairo for the four-party summit whose goal is to revive the deadlocked deal negotiations

The Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin offered "clear and unreserved condemnation of what happened on October 7", but called for "Israel’s right to defence to be proportionate".

"It certainly isn’t with 30,000 dead,” Parolin said. “The voice of those asking Israel to stop is a general voice, [saying] that they can’t continue like this and we must find other paths to solve the Gaza problem."

David Saranga, the director of the digital diplomacy bureau at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has lashed out at the UN agency for Palestinian Refugees (Unrwa) which has sounded the alarm over the looming Israeli ground operations in Rafah in southern Gaza.

“After Hamas terrorists break into our homes and slaughter our children, you have absolutely ZERO say in how we respond. After years of aiding and abetting Hamas terrorists, you have absolutely ZERO say in how we respond,” he wrote on X.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers, 

Here are the latest developments from Israel's war on Gaza, which enters its 131 day today: 

• Releasing Palestinian prisoners is now the “main gap” as truce negotiations continue, according to Israeli and US officials who spoke to Israel’s Walla news outlet
• A US funding bill which bans funding to UNRWA  and gives $14.1bn to Israel has been adopted by the US Senate and will now go to a vote in the Congress
• Israeli drones have ordered people to leave Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis but Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) says those sheltering there are afraid to leave after reports people have been shot
• Israeli forces have arrested more than 7,000 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 7, according to new figures released by the Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society

Hello MEE readers. Israeli forces on Tuesday attacked the Nasser Hospital complex in southern Gaza, with snipers killing at least three Palestinians according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The Israeli military has been calling on the hospital to evacuate as many inside fear an Israeli raid on the medical complex. A surgeon told MEE that the situation inside the hospital was horrible, with Israeli forces bombing the building for three straight days.

In one situation, the Israeli military sent a formerly detained Palestinian man to persuade the people inside the hospital to evacuate. The man was then shot dead by an Israeli sniper as he left the hospital.

Meanwhile in the US, the Biden administration appears to be taking some actions to assess a litany of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. The State Department announced that it was conducting an assessment of whether Israel violated international humanitarian law.

It is not clear at what stage that investigation is, or what the results will be. Still, the US administration continues aiding Israel's military campaign, and President Joe Biden on Tuesday called on Congress to pass a funding bill that includes $14bn for Israel.

Here's what else you need to know from today:

• The House Committee on Education and the Workforce announced that Columbia University is under investigation for its handling of antisemitism and “failure to protect Jewish students” on campus. Since October, many pro-Palestinian activities on university campuses have been labelled antisemitic by pro-Israel groups.

• Axios reported that Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is blocking a US-funded flour shipment to Gaza because its recipient is Unrwa.

• South Africa made an urgent request to the ICJ to consider whether Israel's military operations in Rafah required that the court use its power to prevent further breaches of the rights of Palestinians in Gaza.

• The leader of Yemen's Houthi movement said the group had been able to prevent Israeli-linked ships from passing through the Gulf of Aden over the past week. Abdul Malik al-Houthi labelled it a "victory".