Gaza war: 31 premature babies evacuated from Al-Shifa Hospital, death toll surpasses 13,000

This live blog on Israel's war on Gaza has concluded. Make sure to follow us for the latest news on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank.

Mohammed Adel Mohammed Al-Sarahin, 21, was wounded after the Israelis shot towards the vehicle he was inside, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa cited security and local sources as saying.

The incident took place close to Al-Arroub refugee camp in Hebron province.

Medics were not allowed to tend to Al-Sarahin and he has held by Israeli forces until he passed away.

The Red Crescent took the deceased to a hospital.

A second Palestinian in the same vehicle was arrested, witnesses said. His name and condition were both unknown.

China fully supports the call for a two-state solution in Gaza by the recent Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a meeting with ministers from Arab and Islamic countries.

He also said the international community must act now and take effective measures to end the humanitarian disaster.

(Reuters)

Israel claimed on Sunday that a captive soldier had been executed at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

Hamas has claimed 19-year-old Noa Marciano died in an Israeli airstrike and issued a video that appeared to show her corpse, unmarked except for a head wound.

The Israeli military said a forensic examination found she had sustained non-life-threatening injuries from such a strike.

Israeli army chief spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that according to "solid intelligence information", Marciano was "taken by Hamas terrorists inside the walls of Shifa hospital. There, she was murdered by a Hamas terrorist."

He did not elaborate.

Hamas did not immediately comment on Hagari's statements. The Palestinian armed group has previously said it took some hostages to hospitals for treatment.

(Reuters)

Read more: Yemen's Houthi rebels say seized vessel owned by Israeli businessman.

The Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza has reportedly been surrounded by Israeli troops, Al Jazeera cites "some people living near the area" as saying.

"From what we have gathered from witnesses, it looks like the Israeli forces are going to repeat what happened at Al-Shifa Hospital. It looks like there will be an attempt to storm the Indonesian Hospital," the pan-Arab broadcaster says. 

The generator has additionally been stopped.

The Japanese government said Monday that it "strongly condemns" the seizure of a Japanese-operated ship in the Red Sea by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

"Yesterday we received information that car carrier Galaxy Leader, operated by Nippon Yusen, was seized by Houthis when it was navigating down southward in the Red Sea off Yemen… The government strongly condemns such an act," government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said.

Houthi rebels said on Sunday they had seized an Israeli ship but Israel said it was British-owned and that no Israeli nationals were on board.

Nippon Yusen, the Japanese operator of the ship, said earlier on Monday that it was not immediately able to confirm the vessel's ownership.

The Japanese transport ministry said around 25 people were on board including Bulgarians and Filipinos, but no Japanese.

Dozens were dead on arrival at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis after Israeli forces carried out an airstrike around one kilometre away on Saturday, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says.

The humanitarian group says its has teams working at the hospital, where 122 patients arrived "within minutes" of the strike.

"While 70 people were dead upon arrival, dozens of injured, including many children, arrived in critical conditions with severe burns," MSF posts on social media platform X.

MSF project coordinator in southern Gaza Christophe Garnier says the medical needs are "huge" and his organisation is "ready to scale up its activities, but we need basic guarantees of safety and unrestricted access of medical and humanitarian supplies into Gaza".

He adds: "A ceasefire is a must, now more than ever, to stop the bloodshed that is happening."

While 70 people were dead upon arrival, dozens of injured, including many children, arrived in critical conditions with severe burns.

— MSF International (@MSF) November 19, 2023

Israel's military released security camera footage Sunday it said showed hostages being brought into Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on 7 October after being kidnapped during Hamas's surprise attack on southern Israel.

Hamas dismissed the footage. Al-Shifa has become a focal point for Israel's subsequent military operations in the Gaza Strip, with the army repeatedly saying Hamas uses it as a base, a claim the military has been under pressure to back up.

The Palestinian militant group and medical staff have denied that a command centre is under the hospital.

The first clip, which appears to be time-stamped 10:53am on 7 October, shows a man in shorts and a pale blue shirt being dragged through what looks like an entrance hall by five men, at least three of whom are armed.

In the second, seemingly time-stamped 10:55am, an injured man in underwear is wheeled in on a gurney by seven men, at least four of them armed, as several men in blue hospital scrubs look on.

AFP was not immediately able to verify the footage.

"Here you can see Hamas taking a hostage inside... they're taking him inside the hospital," military spokesman Daniel Hagari said, describing the two men as hostages from Nepal and Thailand.

"We have not yet located both of these hostages," he added. "We do not know where they are."

The military and intelligence services said in a statement: "These findings prove that the Hamas terrorist organisation used the Shifa hospital complex on the day of the massacre as terrorist infrastructure."

Hamas dismissed the footage. It had repeatedly said it had taken several captives to hospital for treatment, "particularly because some had been wounded in airstrikes" by Israel, senior political bureau member Izzat al-Rishq said in a statement.

"We have released images of all that and the army spokesman is acting as if he has discovered something incredible."

The UK's opposition Labour Party said on Sunday its shadow foreign secretary David Lammy was visiting Israel and the occupied West Bank and meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and the Palestinian Authority's Deputy Foreign Minister Amal Jadu.

Lammy will also meet Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, opposition leader Yair Lapid and leader of the Israeli Labor Party Merav Michaeli, the statement said.

Britain's Labour has been divided over its position on the Gaza war, with nearly a third of the party's lawmakers defying leader Keir Starmer on Wednesday to back calls for a ceasefire. Several of his frontbench team quit over the vote.

Starmer, like Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the United States and the European Union, has called for "humanitarian pauses" to help aid reach Gaza rather than a ceasefire which, they maintain, would allow Hamas to regroup after its surprise 7 October attack.

Lammy said, if elected to government, Labour would be "tirelessly committed" to diplomacy required to help deliver "a real, not rhetorical, path to two-state solution".

Labour is far ahead in opinion polls before a general election expected next year.

"The ultimate end to conflict we all want to see won't happen simply by affirming that we want it to happen," Lammy said in a statement from Israel.

"Hard diplomacy is required with all governments in the region to deliver a longer pause immediately to respond to the shocking humanitarian emergency in Gaza, secure the release of hostages so cruelly taken by Hamas and as a necessary step to an enduring cessation of violence."

(Reuters)

Read more about how 31 premature babies were evacuated from Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital.

Here are some photos showcasing the death, destruction, and displacement befalling the Gaza Strip.

Images: Getty

A Qatari plane headed to Egypt today with 41 tons of food and shelter supplies to be transferred to Gaza, Doha's foreign ministry says in a statement.

The plane belongs to Qatar's armed forces and the supplies were provided by the Qatar Fund for Development, Qatar Red Crescent Society, and Qatar Charity.

"The aid is part of the State of Qatar's full support to the brotherly Palestinian people amid the difficult humanitarian conditions due to the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip," Doha's foreign ministry says.

The plane was headed to Al-Arish. The city is located in Sinai Peninsula, which borders Gaza.

The Israeli military published video on Sunday of what it claimed was a tunnel, running 55 metres in length and dug by Palestinians 10 metres under Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital compound.

While acknowledging that it has a network of hundreds of kilometres of secret tunnels, bunkers, and access shafts throughout the Palestinian enclave, Hamas has denied that these are located in civilian infrastructure like hospitals.

The video showed a narrow passage with arched concrete roofing, ending at what the military, in a statement, described as a blast-proof door.

The statement did not say what might be beyond the door. It claimed the tunnel had been accessed through a shaft discovered in a shed within the Al-Shifa compound that contained munitions. A second video showed an outdoor shaft-opening in the compound.

Mounir El Barsh, the Gaza health ministry director, dismissed the Israeli statement on the tunnel as a "pure lie".

"They have been at the hospital for eight days... and yet they haven't found anything," he told Al Jazeera television.

Israeli forces raided Al-Shifa earlier this week. The site has become a focal point for Israeli operations, with the army claiming Hamas uses it as a base. The Palestinian militant group and medical staff at the hospital have denied the accusations.

(Reuters, AFP)

France is preparing to send its Dixmude helicopter carrier to the eastern Mediterranean to offer medical assistance in war-torn Gaza, the office of the French president said Sunday.

The Dixmude will set sail "at the start of the week and arrive in Egypt in the coming days", President Emmanuel Macron's office said.

A charter flight carrying more than 10 tonnes of medical supplies is also planned for the start of the week.

"France will also contribute to the European effort with medical equipment on board European flights on November 23 and 30," the presidential office said.

It added that "France is mobilising all its available means to contribute to the evacuation of wounded and sick children requiring emergency care from the Gaza Strip to its hospitals".

Macron said later on X, formerly Twitter, that up to 50 children could be flown for treatment in hospitals in France "if useful and necessary".

French President Emmanuel Macron told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu there were "too many civilian losses" in Gaza, his office said on Sunday.

Macron reminded Netanyahu of the "absolute necessity to distinguish terrorists from the population" and condemned violence against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank in a conversation with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the French presidency said.

An Israeli minister said Sunday the international community should not fund rebuilding of the war-devastated Gaza Strip and instead promote the "voluntary resettlement" of Palestinians from the territory around the globe.

Any suggestion of Palestinians leaving their homeland is highly controversial because some 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed alongside the 1948 creation of the Israeli state in an event known as the Nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic).

Israel's indiscriminate war on the Gaza Strip has caused widespread devastation, with residential buildings, hospitals, schools and ambulances coming under attack.

Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel said one "option" after the war would be "to promote the voluntary resettlement of Palestinians in Gaza, for humanitarian reasons, outside of the Strip".

Writing in The Jerusalem Post, she said that "instead of funnelling money to rebuild Gaza or to the failed UNRWA, the international community can assist in the costs of resettlement, helping the people of Gaza build new lives in their new host countries".

UNRWA is the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.

Palestinians are deeply wedded to their land and are determined to remain at all costs, raising doubts as to how many would want to leave Gaza.

"Gaza has long been thought of as a problem without an answer," Gamliel wrote. "We must try something new, and we call on the international community to help make it a reality."

"It could be a win-win solution: a win for those civilians of Gaza who seek a better life and a win for Israel after this devastating tragedy."

The Gaza Strip is already populated mostly by Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA says more than 1.6 million people have been displaced by the current fighting.

It has evoked memories of the Nakba, and some Israeli politicians have proposed pushing Palestinians into neighbouring Egypt, an idea which Cairo rejects.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that "people should be able to stay in Gaza, their home".

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned Blinken that driving out Gaza's people would amount to a "second Nakba".

Russia and Iran's foreign ministers on Sunday called for a ceasefire in Gaza and said that urgent assistance must be given to the civilian population there.

Russia said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke to Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian at the request of Tehran.

"During the conversation, main attention was focused on the current situation in the zone of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," Russia's foreign ministry said.

"General concern was expressed about the ongoing armed confrontation in the Gaza Strip," it said. "The need for an early ceasefire and urgent assistance to the affected civilian population was stressed."

Palestinians make up the vast majority of journalists killed since the start of the Gaza war on 7 October, data from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) shows.

According to the CPJ, at least 48 journalists and media workers have been killed – 43 Palestinians, four Israelis, and one Lebanese.

Nine journalists have been reported injured, three reported missing, and 13 reported arrested, the CPJ said.

"CPJ emphasises that journalists are civilians doing important work during times of crisis and must not be targeted by warring parties," said CPJ Middle East programme coordinator Sherif Mansour.

"Journalists across the region are making great sacrifices to cover this heart-breaking conflict.

"Those in Gaza, in particular, have paid, and continue to pay, an unprecedented toll and face exponential threats.

"Many have lost colleagues, families, and media facilities, and have fled seeking safety when there is no safe haven or exit."

The Gaza health ministry on Sunday said 41 members of one family were killed in an Israeli strike on their home in Gaza City.

The ministry released a list of names of 41 members of the Malka family it said were killed by the strike at dawn in the city's Zeytoun district.

Fierce fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants occurred in the neighbourhood in the morning, according to an AFP journalist.

Officials in Gaza said on Sunday that Israeli strikes and violence in the territory have killed 13,000 since 7 October.

More than 5,500 children were among the dead, alongside 3,500 women, with 30,000 more people wounded. Its health ministry has previously said it can no longer give exact tolls as intense fighting has prevented bodies from being recovered.

32 Palestinian civilians were killed on Sunday evening after Israeli warplanes bombed two houses in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, the Palestinian official news agency Wafa reported.

14 peeople were killed and others were injured after the occupation aircraft bombed the homes of Mukhaymar and Al-Harazin families near the Khaled bin Al-Walid School in the Nuseirat Camp, Wafa said, citing medical sources.

18 others, all of them women and children, were killed after Israeli warplanes bombed the Al-Harthani family’s home in Jabalia Al-Balad, north of the Gaza Strip.

Journalists and relatives mourned Sari Mansour and Hassouneh Salim, who were killed while carrying out their journalistic duties as Israeli forces struck the camps of Nusseirat and Bureij in Gaza on Saturday.

42 journalists have been killed so far during the war, most of whom were Palestinian.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Sunday that he was "deeply shocked" that two UN schools were struck in less than 24 hours in the Gaza Strip, killing and injuring dozens of people – many women and children – "as they were seeking safety in United Nations premises."

"Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians are seeking shelter at United Nations facilities throughout Gaza due to the intensified fighting. I reaffirm that our premises are inviolable," Guterres said in a statement.

He said the war Israel's war in Gaza was causing a "staggering and unacceptable number of civilian casualties" and again called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.

Further missions are being planned to urgently transport remaining patients and health staff out of Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital, pending guarantees of safe passage by parties to the conflict, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says.

Earlier today, the World Health Organization (WHO) led a second evacuation mission with the Palestine Red Crescent to evacuate 31 babies, six health workers, among others.

Dr Tedros said the organisation is very "grateful for the collaboration with Palestine Red Crescent, UN, and other partners."

Yemen's Houthi rebels seized a cargo ship in the southern Red Sea as it was sailing from Turkey to India,  the Israeli military said.

The army called the move "a very grave incident on a global level".

In a social media post, the military added that the vessel, which it did not name, was not Israeli-owned and had no Israelis among its crew.

(Reuters)

The level of violence ravaging Gaza in recent days is unfathomable, the UN rights chief said Sunday, with attacks on schools sheltering displaced people and a hospital turned into a "death zone".

"The horrendous events of the past 48 hours in Gaza beggar belief," United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement.

He spoke as the World Health Organization scrambled to evacuate the last remaining patients and staff from the Al-Shifa hospital, with UN officials describing the Palestinian territory's largest health facility, raided last week by Israeli troops, as a "death zone".

"The killing of so many people at schools turned shelters, hundreds fleeing for their lives from Al-Shifa Hospital, amid continuing displacement of hundreds of thousands in southern Gaza, are actions which fly in the face of the basic protections civilians must be afforded under international law," Turk said.

He described the images purportedly taken in the aftermath of the reported Israeli strike on the UN-run Al-Fakhura school as "horrifying", and "clearly showing large numbers of women, children and men severely wounded or killed".

Israel is "hopeful" that a significant number of hostages could be released by Hamas "in coming days," Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog said in an interview on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday.

"I'm hopeful we can have a deal in the coming days," Herzog said..

Qatari mediators have been seeking a deal between Israel and Hamas to exchange 50 hostages in return for a three-day ceasefire, citing an official briefed on the talks. At the time, the official said general outlines had been agreed but Israel had still been negotiating details, Reuters reported earlier.

(Reuters)

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday Israel has suffered a "defeat" in its war against Hamas, and that it was "a fact".

In a speech at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps aerospace force centre in the capital Tehran, Khamenei said "the defeat of the Zionist regime (Israel) in Gaza is a fact."

"Advancing and entering hospitals or people's homes is not a victory, because victory means defeating the other side," he said.

Khamenei charged that Israel "has so far failed" in achieving its declared goal of destroying Hamas "despite the massive bombings" of Gaza.

"This incapacity reflects the inability of the United States and Western countries" which back Israel, he added.

Iran, which supports Hamas financially and militarily, has hailed the October 7 attacks a "success" but denied any direct involvement.

Tehran has made support for the Palestinian cause a centrepiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The UN's health agency says 31 babies have been safely evacuated from Shifa Hospital and moved to another in southern Gaza.

According Al-Jazeera, the babies were transported via six ambulances to the southern part of Gaza, and will reportedly be distributed between the European and Nasser hospitals.

France will send more medical supplies and a second hospital ship to Gaza, President Emmanuel Macron's office said in a statement on Sunday.

France will send an airplane with more than 10 tonnes of medical supplies at the start of the week, and will contribute to European Union medical aid flights on November 23 and 30.

France is also preparing a second hospital ship, the helicopter-carrier Dixmude, which will arrive in Egypt in coming days.

A first French helicopter carrier - the Tonnerre, which has about 60 beds and two operating blocs - has already been deployed in the region.

France will also deploy civil and military planes to evacuate sick or injured children from Gaza, the statement added.

Earlier this month, French planes delivered 54 tonnes of aid for Gaza via Egypt.

(Reuters)

Veteran US senator Bernie Sanders has said that Washington should halt its generous aid to Israel until there is "fundamental change in their military and political positions".

"The Netanyahu government, or hopefully a new Israeli government, must understand that not one penny will be coming to Israel from the US unless there is a fundamental change in their military and political positions," he said.

Read more here.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appealed to Muslim states with political ties with Israel to at least cut them for "a limited time", state media reported on Sunday, weeks after he called for an Islamic oil and food embargo on Israel.

"Some Islamic governments have condemned Israeli crimes in assemblies while some have not. This is unacceptable," Khamenei said before reiterating that the main task of Islamic governments should be to cut off Israel from energy and goods.

"Islamic governments should at least cut off political ties to Israel for a limited time," Khamenei added.

During a joint summit between members of the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League in Saudi Arabia's capital on November 11, Muslim states did not agree to impose wide-ranging sanctions on Israel, as requested by Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi.

Khamenei made his latest comments while attending an exhibition showcasing the "latest achievements" of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Aerospace Force, including the Fattah 2, a new version of what is said to be Iran's first hypersonic missile.

(Reuters)

A pro-Palestinian demonstrator ran onto the pitch of a cricket World Cup match between India and Australia on Sunday in the city of Ahmedabad, stopping play and briefly hugging star batsman Virat Kohli.

The individual was seen wearing a face mask bearing the colours of the Palestinian flag, as well as a t-shirt which read "Stop Bombing Palestine."

good shit pic.twitter.com/pqXBB5SG5V

— manoj mehta (@notmanoj_) November 19, 2023

In a press conference on Sunday, Qatar’s prime minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said he is confident a deal can be reached on hostages held in Gaza, adding that challenges to finalising an agreement remain "very minor".

"The challenges that remain in the negotiations are very minor compared to the bigger challenges, they are more logistical, they are more practical," he said.

"The deal is going through ups and downs from time to time throughout the last few weeks," the premier said.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Sunday the UN Security Council resolution on humanitarian pauses in Gaza must be implemented.

"The decisions of the Security Council are not just words. They have to be implemented," Borrel said at a joint press conference with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani in Doha.

Jordan's King Abdullah said on Sunday the international community should push for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to stop a humanitarian catastrophe caused by what he described as Israel's "ugly war against civilians".

In remarks made during a meeting with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, the monarch said global powers should force Israel to comply with international law to protect civilians and ensure Israel heeds calls to allow uninterrupted flow of aid into the enclave.

(Reuters)

The health ministry in Gaza said on Sunday that 30 premature babies have been evacuated from  the flashpoint Al-Shifa hospital, the largest medical facility in the enclave which has been under a heavy Israeli siege.

Yemen's Houthi rebels said the group will target all ships owned or operated by Israeli companies or carrying the Israeli flag, according to the group’s Telegram channel.

The spokesperson for the Iran-backed group, Yahya Sarea, called on all countries to withdraw their citizens working on the crews of any such ships.

The Israeli army killed two Palestinians in incursions in the occupied West Bank early on Sunday, the Palestinian news agency WAFA said.

Israeli forces shot dead Issam Al-Fayed, a disabled 46-year-old, at the entrance of the Jenin refugee camp, the agency said.

Earlier in the night, Israeli forces, accompanied by a military D9 bulldozer, launched a large-scale attack in Jenin, deploying in various neighbourhoods and positioning snipers on the rooftops of several homes and buildings.

During the incursion, Israeli occupation forces arrested nine young men and an elderly woman, who was detained for several hours before being released a few hours later.

Another man, Omar Laham, 20, was killed by a gunshot to the head in clashes with Israeli forces in Dheisheh refugee camp south of Bethlehem, it added.

The 20-year-old Palestinian was shot in the head after an overnight Israeli raid on the camp, WAFA said.

Medics were denied by Israeli forces from approaching Lahham, according to WAFA, before he succumbed to his wounds.

Ministers from Arab and Muslim-majority countries will visit China on Monday on the first stop of a tour aims at ending Israel's war on Gaza, Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said.

The tour will be the first step in carrying out decisions reached at a joint Arab and Islamic summit held in Riyadh this month, Prince Faisal said on the sidelines of a conference in Bahrain in comments posted by his ministry on the social media platform X on Friday.

"The first stop will be in China, then we will move to other capitals to convey a clear message that a ceasefire must be announced immediately, and let in aid," the minister said.

"We have to work on ending this crisis and the war on Gaza as soon as possible."

(Reuters)

New Zealand's Prime Minister Chris Hipkins called for an "urgent" ceasefire in war-hit Gaza on Sunday.

Hipkins, the leader of the country's Labour Party, recognised that the Israel army's attacks were "disproportionate and indiscriminate".

Hipkins, the outgoing minister, said that him and his party can "no longer" stand by in the face of the horrific scenes "without calling for ceasefire."