Israel-Hamas war live: Gaza school severely damaged in ‘close proximity strike’, says UN agency; UN secretary general ‘shocked’ by ‘misrepresentations’ of Gaza statements

A doctor at one of Gaza’s biggest hospitals said the situation is “critical” with just hours to go before the facility is forced to close due to a lack of fuel.

Khaled, a doctor in Al-Awda Hospital, the main maternity provider in northern Gaza, said the hospital lacks medicines, especially emergency and anaesthesia drugs. In a statement through ActionAid, he said:

The Israeli army called us six days ago to ask us to evacuate the hospital and evacuate the patients and the staff. They gave us two hours for evacuation. We told them that we would not evacuate the hospital.

We cannot evacuate. We have patients, critical patients. And some of them need special care and close observation. All the hospitals around here are overcrowded. I cannot move any patients.

“We are delivering babies here, during the attacks,” he added.

The organisation warned that many women are giving birth without any pain medication, and children are undergoing intensive surgery with no anaesthetic.

Hamas militants have stopped people from approaching the Rafah crossing, a US state department spokesperson said.

Speaking to CNN, Matthew Miller said the sporadic presence of Hamas at the crossing has made the situation “extremely difficult”.

At times, Hamas has had no one there manning the border station. At other times, we have seen Hamas militants actively there with guns preventing people from approaching the crossing.

He said there has been a problem getting people through Gaza into “the no man’s land” where they can ultimately get across to the Egyptian side. He added:

The Egyptians are — on their side — ready, they say, to accept people, foreign nationals, United States citizens, if they can get to Egyptian processing.

Harriet Sherwood

The prime minister of Qatar has said he hopes there will soon be a breakthrough in negotiations led by the Gulf state to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, although his government has warned that an invasion by Israel could jeopardise those efforts.

“There is some progress and some breakthrough and we remain hopeful,” said Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, who is also the foreign minister, at a press conference in the Qatari capital.

“If they are able to get along between the two parties I think we will see some breakthroughs hopefully soon,” he added.

Officials from Qatar’s foreign ministry have said an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza would complicate efforts to free the hostages.

Majed Al-Ansari, the foreign ministry’s spokesperson, said:

Obviously a land incursion into Gaza would make it difficult to maintain the safety of the hostages, and in our efforts at mediation with both sides we urge all parties in this conflict to de-escalate immediately.

After the release of four hostages in recent days, Qatar is now discussing a larger release of civilians, according to diplomatic sources. The talks do not include Israeli soldiers who are being held hostage.

A school sheltering Palestinians in Gaza sustained “severe collateral damage” due to a “close proximity strike”, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said.

One civilian was killed and 44 more were injured, including nine children, it said in a statement on Wednesday.

The school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip had been sheltering 4,600 internally displaced people, it said. More than 613,000 internally displaced people are sheltering in UNRWA facilities across Gaza, the agency said.

Another three UNRWA staff members have been killed in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 38 staff killed since 7 October, it said.

The agency said last night that it would be forced to halt its operations in Gaza due to a lack of fuel as of Wednesday night.

UNRWA’s commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, had already warned on Sunday that the organisation’s fuel would run out on Wednesday.

Without fuel, there will be no water, no functioning hospitals and bakeries. Without fuel, aid will not reach those in desperate need. Without fuel, there will be no humanitarian assistance. No fuel will further strangle the children, women and people of Gaza.

In response to last night’s warning, Israel’s military posted a picture of what it said were fuel tanks inside Gaza. “They contain more than 500,000 liters of fuel,” it wrote. “Ask Hamas if you can have some.”

A Royal Air Force plane carrying humanitarian supplies for Gaza has landed in Egypt.

Humanitarian aid “must continue to reach those who need it most”, Britain’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, posted on X.

The C-17 aircraft that left RAF Brize Norton on Wednesday morning carried 21 tonnes of humanitarian supplies, including medical equipment and water filters, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said.

The will be distributed by the Egyptian Red Crescent.

Israel has agreed to a US request to get its air defences to the region before an expected ground invasion of Gaza, according to a report.

The Pentagon is working to deploy a dozen air defence systems to the region to protect US troops serving in Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates from missiles and rockets, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing US and Israeli officials.

Israel is also taking into account the effort to supply humanitarian aid to civilians inside the Palestinian territory, as well as diplomatic efforts to free more hostages held by Hamas, it said.

Hello. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong in Washington taking over the live blog. You can reach me at [email protected].

Harriet Sherwood

After Keith and Adrienne (known as Aviva) Siegel were dragged off to Gaza by Hamas gunmen on 7 October, the couple’s four children sat down with their own children, aged three to nine, to try to explain the calamity that had fallen on their grandparents.

“How do you tell children that someone can just come and grab you out of your home, your safe place? It’s every child’s worst nightmare, and this nightmare came true,” said Yuval Baron, the Siegels’ son-in-law and uncle to the five grandchildren.

We try to keep them away from the horrors but still somehow explain to them the situation, and share with them our hope. But it’s very difficult.

The Siegels, aged 64 and 62, woke up to the sound of sirens on the morning of 7 October. Grabbing a phone, they rushed to their safe room in their pyjamas, expecting to be there for 10 minutes or so. The couple have lived at Kfar Aza, a kibbutz close to the frontier with Gaza, for almost 40 years and they were “used to rockets and missiles flying about”, said Baron.

The Siegels kept in touch with their family over WhatsApp, explaining they had been advised in a message on the kibbutz’s WhatsApp group not to speak aloud and warning that their battery was running low. At about 10am, the messages stopped.

“We were getting more information about what was going on – there were terrorists on the kibbutz slaughtering people. But we had no idea about Keith and Aviva; we were in the dark,” said Baron.

When the Israeli military finally regained control of the kibbutz after about 30 hours, there was no trace of the Siegels. “We started thinking we had two very bad options – either they were kidnapped or killed.”

Later, the Israeli authorities confirmed to the family that the couple were among 220 people being held hostage in Gaza.

“That was 18 days ago, and since then nothing, zero, nada,” said Baron, who lives in the north of Israel.

We don’t know if they are together or if they have their medication. We are running out of tears, running out of hope.

Read the full story here.

Here’s a clip from the UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, saying that he was “shocked” by misinterpretations of his statement to the UN security council in which he described Israel’s bombardment and blockade of the Gaza Strip as the “collective punishment of the Palestinian people” and “clear violations of international humanitarian law”.

Israel on Wednesday rejected Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s assertion that the Palestinian militant group Hamas was “not a terrorist organisation”.

“Israel wholeheartedly rejects the Turkish president’s harsh words about the terrorist organisation Hamas,” the foreign ministry spokesperson, Lior Haiat, wrote on social media.

“Even the Turkish president’s attempt to defend the terrorist organisation and his inciting words will not change the horrors that the whole world has seen,” Haiat wrote.

Speaking earlier to a group of his party’s MPs, Erdoğan said Israel “can view Hamas as a terrorist organisation along with the west. The west owes you a lot. But Turkey does not owe you anything. Hamas is not a terrorist organisation, it is a liberation group, mujahideen, defending their lands.”

He urged Israel to heed calls for peace and said it must stop attacks on Gaza, saying that Israel’s action in Gaza was one of the “bloodiest, most disgusting and most savage attacks in history”.

Erdoğan also announced he had cancelled a planned trip to Israel, saying the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had “misused our goodwill”.

Italy’s deputy prime minister has also condemned Erdoğan’s words, suggesting that the Italian foreign ministry should summon Turkey’s ambassador to Rome to lodge a protest.

Here are some of the latest images sent to us from Gaza, Israel and Egypt.

The Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, have made a joint appearance in Cairo in which the pair said they had agreed to work to contain the crisis in Gaza, introduce aid and seek to prevent other parties from entering the conflict.

Reuters reports Sisi said Macron understood that any displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip towards Egyptian territory would be “extremely dangerous”.

“We condemn all actions that affect all civilians and this should be addressed with one standard,” Sisi added.

Macron said it was essential to get fuel supplies to hospitals, adding that a French navy ship would arrive soon to help bring support to Gaza hospitals and a plane will arrive in Egypt with key supplies.

The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, has said he has been shocked by misinterpretations of his statement to the UN security council. Israel has called for his resignation over the speech.

“I am shocked by the misrepresentations by some of my statement … as if I was justifying acts of terror by Hamas. This is false. It was the opposite,” Reuters reports. “I believe it’s necessary to set the record straight – especially out of respect for the victims and their families.”

On Tuesday in New York, having said no injustice to the Palestinians could justify the appalling attacks by Hamas, the UN chief continued: “It is important to … recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”

The UN secretary general had created fury in Israel and among some Republicans in the US by describing Israel’s bombardment and blockade of the Gaza Strip as the “collective punishment of the Palestinian people” and “clear violations of international humanitarian law”.

The acting prime minister of Spain – which now holds the EU presidency – has also offered his support to António Guterres.

“I add my voice to all those – particularly the secretary general of the UN – calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza so that the necessary aid can reach the Palestinian population,” Pedro Sánchez wrote on social media.

“All my support to António Guterres. We have to find a diplomatic way out of this conflict.”

In comments to reporters, Sánchez added: “I’d like to offer the Spanish government’s full support – and doubtless the support of the majority of Spaniards – to our UN secretary general, Portugal’s António Guterres.

“I think what he’s doing is speaking out on behalf of the great majority of societies around the world who want a humanitarian pause and humanitarian aid, who want this humanitarian disaster to end, and who want this indiscriminate death to end.

“They want a diplomatic route that will lead to a solution to this grave crisis, whose clear origin was Hamas’s attack on Israeli soil, which deserves the full condemnation of Spanish society, the Spanish government and of the international community.”

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has accused the US of “directing” Israel’s attack on Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

It quotes him speaking in Tehran, saying: “America is a definite accomplice of criminals. The US is in some way directing the crime that is being committed in Gaza.”

He added that the US was “tainted with the blood of the oppressed, children, patients, women and others”.

Guterres, a former Portuguese prime minister who was for 10 years the UN high commissioner for refugees before becoming secretary general six years ago, said Hamas’s “appalling attacks” could not justify the “collective punishment of the Palestinian people” who, he added, “have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation”.

His words drew a furious response from Israel’s ambassador to the UN, who called for Guterres to resign, saying his words “constitute a justification for terrorism and murder”.

Gomes Cravinho told Lusa: “We fully understand and share the position of António Guterres, who was unequivocal when he condemned Hamas terrorism, which is absolutely unacceptable. He was absolutely crystal clear in his analysis.”

The minister added that there was “no way it could be said that António Guterres is in any way excusing terrorism”. Any such assertion, Gomes Cravinho said, “is an absolute error that cannot be allowed to go unnoticed”.

Portugal’s prime minister, António Costa, also backed his predecessor. A source within his administration told Lusa that the prime minister had sent Guterres a message of solidarity, adding that the secretary general had been “exemplary” in his defence of international law in the face of the “humanitarian tragedy”.