Israel-Palestine live: Thousands in state of panic as Israel continues to strike hospitals

Israel’s early morning raid on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin has killed at least eight people and wounded 14 others, the Palestinian Ministry of Health stated. 

According to Al Jazeera Arabic, there is a near-total communications blackout now, while video footage showed dark plumes of smoke rising from buildings. 
 

Around 50 United Nations staff, including Palestinians, have signed a letter addressed to the UN's Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, condemning a statement she issued on 16 October. 

In the letter, the staff say they are “deeply disturbed and personally traumatised by the bombardment and recent escalation of the collective punishment in Gaza. We are equally disturbed and concerned over the active threat to the lives of thousands of our colleagues and to millions of Palestinians residing in Gaza.”

The letter adds: “while we join you in condemning the intentional attacks and abduction of Israeli civilians by Hamas, we expected that your statement regarding Israel’s attacks on and collective punishment of Palestinian civilians would have been equally clear and unequivocal.”

The letter states that the statement makes no mention of the 16-year blockade on Gaza and the collective punishment imposed on Gaza’s population, as well as the withholding of water, medicine, electricity, fuel and other basic humanitarian needs.

“The 16 October public statement seemed to ignore the illegal and inhumane order issued by Israel, which demanded that the UN and 1.1 million Palestinian civilians transfer themselves from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip, even as Israel was relentlessly bombing. 

The letter lists numerous instances where Israeli officials have used dehumanising and threatening language aimed at Palestinians.

Early morning Israeli raids on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin have killed nine people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. 

The ministry also said the number of those wounded has climbed to 13. Some of those wounded are in critical condition.
 

The chief of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Thursday that there are now no safe zones left in Gaza and that around 30 percent of people killed in the besieged enclave have been killed in the south. 

Israel has repeatedly called on people in north Gaza to leave their homes and head to the south, where it is reportedly safe for them. However, indiscriminate bombings have continued all over Gaza, including the targeting of people leaving the north for the south. 

The Palestinian Red Crescent said that a paramedic was wounded with live fire in the back, during an Israeli raid on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin. The organisation said that an ambulance was targeted in the raid. 

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that five Palestinians have been killed in the raid. 
 

Early morning Israeli raids on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin have killed seven people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. 

The ministry also said that six others have been wounded, with some in a serious condition. 
 

Martin Griffiths, the UN aid chief, said on Thursday that allowing the current situation to continue in Gaza would be a "travesty". 

His comments come after the United Nations agency Unrwa's commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said that aid coming in through Rafah was "inadequate" and that all crossings into Gaza should be opened. 

One Palestinian has been killed while four others have been wounded in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, following Israeli raids, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. 

The ministry said that one of those wounded is in a serious condition and has been transferred to the Ibn Sina Hospital. 
 

Turkey has announced that it is prepared to take in and treat children from Gaza who have cancer. 

Turkey’s health minister, Fahrettin Koca, said he had a phone call with his Israeli counterpart Uriel Menachem, where he said that the only hospital in Gaza providing cancer treatment was no longer operational.

“I emphasised that we are prepared for victims, particularly children, to be taken to Egypt by ambulances and then to Turkey by air ambulance. We will begin transporting cancer patients to Turkey as soon as possible,” he said. 
 

Belgium's deputy prime minister called on the Belgian government on Wednesday to adopt sanctions against Israel and investigate the bombings of hospitals and refugee camps in Gaza.

Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter told Nieuwsblad newspaper that: “It is time for sanctions against Israel. The rain of bombs is inhumane. It is clear that Israel does not care about the international demands for a ceasefire.”

The minister also said the European Union should immediately suspend its association agreement with Israel, which aims at better economic and political cooperation.

Israeli forces stormed and raided the al-Amari refugee camp in the occupied West Bank early on Thursday morning.
 
According to local media, at least two Palestinians were arrested and five others were wounded. One of them was hit by live ammunition to the chest and is currently undergoing an emergency operation.
 

Israeli police arrested Mohammed Baraka, the head of the High Follow-up Committee, an umbrella group representing Israel's Palestinian citizens, on Thursday.

According to local news reports, he was arrested in Nazareth while taking part in planning a protest against the war in Gaza and calling for a ceasefire. 

Earlier this month, leading voices amongst Palestinian citizens of Israel denounced what they called "punitive policies" by authorities enforced against them in the aftermath of the war in Gaza. 

MPs and members of the High Follow-Up Committee accused police of silencing dissenting voices against Israel's bombing of Gaza.

At the time Baraka explained that the committee had established an emergency department to provide services for people in 13 different areas, including legal help, arbitrary arrests and detained protesters. 
 

The UK Foreign Office has been criticised after a British consultant cardiologist based in Swansea has said he is being “handed a death sentence” after being forced to return to Gaza over the border from Egypt at the Rafah crossing on Wednesday.

According to a report in The Guardian, doctor Ahmed Sabra said: “I am making a desperate appeal to the public that hold British values to help us. We are being handed a death sentence. Gaza is the most dangerous place in the world.

“The staff from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office that are supposed to help us at the Rafah crossing have vanished,” he added. 

The doctor said he was being forced back over the border in a bus after he had been visiting Gaza with his wife and three children. Palestinian officials in Gaza allowed him to cross with his family, but after three days on the Egyptian side waiting for the process to be complete, he was ordered back.

His family has been allowed to enter Egypt but say that the British embassy had not followed the clear process to put him on the approved list. 

Geraint Davies, the independent MP for Swansea West, has been battling to get Sabra and his family out of Gaza for more than two weeks.

He said: “This is more than a grotesque failure by the FCDO, who are directly complicit, according to the Egyptians, in him being sent back to danger."
 

Hospitals in Gaza are now at breaking point, doctor Munir al-Barsh, the general manager for the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said, speaking live on Al Jazeera Arabic from al-Shifa Hospital.

“There are dead bodies laying on the ground and birds eating from their flesh as they are left to rot,” he explained, saying that hospitals are overwhelmed and unable to cope with the volume of casualties. 

The doctor added that ongoing air strikes have hit very close to the al-Shifa hospital, where 40,000 Palestinians are taking refuge. 

Fresh Israeli air strikes, which have been ongoing since the start of the war on 7 October, have levelled more residential blocks in Gaza's Khan Younis. 

MEE's contributor on the ground, Hind Khoudary, said on Thursday that Israeli air strikes are also striking already bombed areas.