More Israeli hostages, Palestinian prisoners freed on fifth day of Gaza truce

This blog is now wrapping up. Thanks to all for following along. The New Arab will be back at 7am GMT with all the news from Gaza. 

Earlier we reported that Israeli forces were undertaking a large-scale raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank. Here's what we know about it so far. 
 

• Eight Palestinians, including at least one child, have been injured as the Israeli army stormed the city of Jenin and the refugee camp.
   
• Multiple sources and eyewitnesses have said that Israeli forces inhibited ambulances from reaching the injured, according to Wafa.
   
• The Israeli military force included bulldozers targeting houses and snipers enforcing a curfew on Palestinian residents.
   
• Israeli forces have surrounded the Jenin Government hospital and they have deployed soldiers within the medical complex, searching and detaining medical personnel and other staff. Israeli forces have also cut off access to Jenin's Ibn Sina Hospital.

Israeli media outlets are reporting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has received the list of names of captives to be released tomorrow.

A sixth group of captives is expected to be freed on Wednesday as part of the Gaza truce deal, in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Citing the PM's office, Israel’s Kan public broadcaster also said notices were sent to the families of the captives expected to be released.

A Qatari foreign ministry spokesman said earlier this week that the deal stipulates that for every day the truce is extended, 10 Israeli captives would be released in exchange for 30 Palestinian prisoners. Talks are underway for a possible extension beyond Thursday.

The UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, says while some deliveries reached northern Gaza, most of the assistance were south of Wadi Gaza.

That is “where the vast majority of internally displaced persons are staying”, UN-OCHA said in its daily report on the situation.

Meanwhile, COGAT, the Israeli agency that administers the occupied Palestinian territories, reported that four trucks carrying diesel and four others carrying cooking gas entered Gaza via Egypt on Tuesday.

Two hundred aid trucks from different humanitarian groups also entered the enclave, COGAT said

White House spokesman John Kirby has said that “there’s no indication that Hamas is trying to play some sort of game here in terms of the Americans”.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Kirby also said Washington is hoping that more American captives can be released from Gaza.

The US government believes eight to nine US citizens are still being held in the enclave.

“We want to see all the hostages out. The way to do that is these pauses,” Kirby said

In a video posted on the Israeli military’s English-language X account, spokesman Daniel Hagari has raised the spectre of a return to fighting in Gaza as the Israel-Hamas truce nears its final day.

Israeli military and political leaders have repeatedly said they intend to resume fighting in Gaza when the truce comes to an end, but Israel is under growing international pressure to permanently end the war.

Joe Biden's statement on Tuesday could signal Washington supports a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, even if they won't directly state it. 

"Hamas unleashed a terrorist attack because they fear nothing more than Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace. To continue down the path of terror, violence, killing, and war is to give Hamas what they seek," the US president wrote on X.

Hamas unleashed a terrorist attack because they fear nothing more than Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace.

To continue down the path of terror, violence, killing, and war is to give Hamas what they seek.

We can’t do that.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 28, 2023

Biden's words would appear to suggest that it accepts that Israel's hugely destructive war on Gaza is self-defeating, with over 15,000 Palestinians killed and large swathes of Gaza destroyed. 

However, some have pointed out that Biden's statement makes the error of believing that the Israeli government supports a two-state solution or "Israelis and Palestinians living side by side", as the president wrote. Analysts point out that this is not the case and is one of the reasons that the events of October 7 happened, as Israel continues to eat into the occupied West Bank and indefinitely occupy and siege Palestinian territories.

Foreign ministers of the Group of Seven countries support the further extension of the current pause in fighting in Gaza and future pauses to increase assistance and facilitate the release of all hostages, they said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

"Every effort must be made to ensure humanitarian support for civilians. ... We support the further extension of this pause and future pauses as needed to enable assistance to be scaled up, and to facilitate the release of all hostages," the joint statement added.

The current truce brought Gaza its first respite after seven weeks of bombardment that has reduced much of the coastal strip to rubble and killed more than 15,000 people, according to health officials there.

The G7 statement also welcomed the release of some of the hostages, though didn't mention Palestinian prisoners, mostly women and children, released.

Hamas freed 12 more hostages and Israel released 30 Palestinian prisoners.

"We, as the G7, urge the release of all hostages immediately and unconditionally," the G7 statement said.

It emphasized "Israel's right to defend itself and its people" but underscored the importance of "protecting civilians and compliance with international law." It also said the G7 was committed to a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution.

The G7 foreign ministers cautioned against further escalation of the conflict. They urged Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis to cease threats to international shipping lanes and commercial vessels and release the Galaxy Leader commercial ship and its crew seized on Nov. 19.

Christos Christou, the international president of Doctors Without Borders, says he was at Khalil Suleiman Hospital in Jenin when Israeli forces launched the raid on the city in the north of the occupied West Bank.

“It has been already two-and-a-half hours that we are trapped in our hospital here in Jenin,” Christou said in a video posted on social media. “There is no way for any of the injured patients to reach the hospital and there is no way for us to reach these people.”

Christou said Israeli military vehicles blocked the entrance to the hospital and prevented ambulances from leaving. “Two Palestinians died of wounds while ambulances could not reach them,” he said.

Citing the director of al-Razi Hospital, the Palestinian news agency Wafa also reported that two young men and a child were among those injured and were brought to the hospital for treatment.

At least five people have been injured so far and Israeli forces have also arrested dozens of Palestinians in Jenin and the Jenin refugee camp.

I’m in #Jenin, the West Bank, #Palestine, where I was just visiting the @MSF team at the Khalil Suleiman hospital. While we were there, the Israeli army conducted an incursion on Jenin refugee camp. pic.twitter.com/RNF8JGdf8I

— Christos Christou (@DrChristou) November 28, 2023

The U.S. military has paused its flights of surveillance drones over Gaza during the truce between Israel and Hamas, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

"In compliance with the agreement reached between Israel and Hamas, we are not currently conducting those ISR flights. And so those have been paused for now," Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told a press conference, using an acronym for drones.

The U.S. military had been carrying out drone flights to aid with the search for American hostages taken by Hamas.

The Palestinian Red Crescent (PRCS) says Israeli forces detained an injured person from inside one of its ambulances at the entrance of Jenin Governmental Hospital.

The arrest took place shortly after the PRCS said that its ambulance, which was carrying the injured individual, was prevented from reaching the hospital by Israeli soldiers raiding Jenin.

The injured person had sustained a gunshot wound in the leg, the PRCS earlier said.

Urgent Update: 🚨IOF arrested the injured person from inside a PRCS ambulance 🚑at the entrance of Jenin Governmental Hospital.

🚨 اعتقال المصاب من داخل سيارة اسعاف الهلال الأحمر على مدخل مستشفى جنين الحكومي.#جنين#لست_هدفا#Jenin#IHL#NotATarget pic.twitter.com/3AhTatLkEY

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 28, 2023

The United States on Tuesday sent the first of three military planes to Egypt to bring vital humanitarian aid for Gaza, promising to assist Palestinians during a truce between Hamas and US ally Israel.

The relief flights carrying food, medical supplies and winter gear are the first by the US military since the Israeli attack on Gaza began.

The flights start a day after President Joe Biden said he would use an extension of the truce to get more aid into Gaza, and as international efforts continue to further prolong the pause.

"The humanitarian needs in Gaza demand that the international community do much more. The United States is committed to this effort," Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security advisor, said in a statement.

Sullivan said Biden would work to "rally the international community to urgently increase support" to a UN appeal for Gaza.

The first Air Force C-17 aircraft landed Tuesday in Egypt with 24.5 metric tons (54,000 pounds) of medical supplies and ready-to-eat food, the US Agency for International Development said.

The United Nations will take the aid from Egypt's North Sinai region, which borders the Gaza Strip, into the stricken Palestinian territory itself, US officials said.

"These UN supplies will save lives and alleviate the suffering of thousands in Gaza," Sullivan said.

Two further planeloads will arrive in the coming days, officials said.

The Financial Times reports that a top CIA official posted a pro-Palestine image on her private social media account. The British daily did not name the official due to concerns for her safety, saying only that she was the CIA’s associate deputy director for analysis.

 On October 21, the official changed her Facebook cover photo to an image of a man holding a Palestinian flag, the news outlet reported, adding that “posting an overtly political image on a public platform is a very unusual move for a senior intelligence official”.

In a statement to the Financial Times, the CIA said its officers “are committed to analytic objectivity, which is at the core of what we do as an agency. CIA officers may have personal views, but this does not lessen their — or CIA’s — commitment to unbiased analysis”.

The Biden administration has faced internal criticism over its staunch support for Israel amid the war in Gaza. Hundreds of USAID staff members signed a letter calling for a ceasefire and one State Department official resigned over the US president’s handling of the situation.

The Red Crescent says that for over 40 minutes, one of its emergency medical teams has been stopped by Israeli soldiers raiding Jenin from transferring a Palestinian man who was shot in the leg to the hospital.

🚨 For over 40 minutes, IOF have detained the PRCS emergency medical services team 🚑in front of Jenin Government Hospital, preventing them from transferring a gunshot wound in the leg to the hospital.#Jenin#NotATarget #IHL pic.twitter.com/V2Yu9v0RUA

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 28, 2023

Two Palestinian teenagers were killed Tuesday during Israeli army raids in the occupied West Bank, where violence has surged in tandem with the Israel's war on Gaza, the Palestinian health ministry said.

According to the ministry, Amir Wahdan, 14, was killed in Tubas in the northern West Bank, where the army said troops had gone in to arrest "two wanted suspects".

Witnesses told AFP that clashes broke out with young people throwing stones at Israeli army vehicles and soldiers responding with fire.

According to the army, "several gunmen opened fire at the security forces, who responded with live fire".

Near Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority, 17-year-old Malik Deghreh was killed by Israeli fire, the Palestinian ministry said.

Clashes erupted after the Israeli army entered a village to carry out searches, witnesses said, adding that the teenager who died was hit by four bullets.

Read the full report here.

There are once again widespread fears that the home of 14-year-old Ahmad Saleimi, who has been freed tonight as part of the latest Palestinian prisoner release, could be raided by Israeli forces, according to Al Jazeera.

The boy’s relatives, friends and journalists had been huddling in the living room in Ras al-Amoud, a neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, in silence as Israeli security forces were outside.

“There is a lot of concern that this home could be raided at any moment,” Al Jazeera's correspondent said before Saleimi returned home.

Israeli forces have raided several homes of released Palestinian prisoners, with the authorities warning Palestinians not to celebrate the release of their loved ones.

The spokesman for the Qatari ministry of foreign affairs says that the captives are 10 Israelis, comprised of a child and nine women, as well as two Thai citizens.

Three of the Israelis are dual citizens – one from the Philippines and two from Argentina.

Update: hostages released from Gaza today are 12, 10 Israelis, a minor and 9 women, including a Filipina citizen, & 2 from Argentina. In addition, to 2 Thai citizens.

— د. ماجد محمد الأنصاري Dr. Majed Al Ansari (@majedalansari) November 28, 2023

After Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad released 12 civilian captives earlier, Israel has now released 30 Palestinian prisoners. Details of the prisoners are not yet known. 

Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta provided “eye witness evidence in relation to alleged war crimes in Gaza” to officers of the British police unit, lawyer Tayab Ali said in a post on X.

Abu Sitta had worked in Gaza hospitals, including al-Shifa Hospital and Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, during the war.

He provided frequent updates on social media about the horrific scenes he witnessed as Israel assaulted the hospitals.

Award winning surgeon Professor Ghassan and I met with officers from Scotland Yard’s War Crimes Unit this afternoon to provide them with his eye witness evidence in relation to alleged war crimes in Gaza.@ICJPalestine pic.twitter.com/Rl29rfPnxJ

— Tayab Ali (@tayab_ali_) November 28, 2023

The 12 captives released by Hamas from Gaza have now exited Egypt and are "inside Israeli territory", according to Reuters quoting the Israeli military.

A French warship sent to Egypt to treat wounded from the Gaza Strip has received its first patients, a French minister said on Tuesday.

The Dixmude arrived on Monday in the Egyptian town of El-Arish near the border with Gaza and on Tuesday received the patients, said Sebastien Lecornu, France's army minister. The vessel is equipped with two operating blocs, 40 beds and 80 medical personnel, he said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Tuesday it had successfully facilitated the release and transfer of 12 hostages held in Gaza by Hamas.

Those released include 10 Israelis and two non-Israelis. 

The neutral, Swiss-based organisation is tasked with the release of Gaza-based hostages and Palestinians in Israeli prisons under the terms of a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas.

Our teams have successfully facilitated the release and transfer of 12 hostages held in Gaza.

We have been able to carry out this operation thanks to our neutral intermediary role.

— ICRC in Israel & OT (@ICRC_ilot) November 28, 2023

In a post on X, the far-right Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir has said that stopping the war in Gaza would mean the dissolution of the coalition headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu.

"Stop the war = dissolution of the government, ", the far-right firebrand wrote.

Just hours ago, Ben-Gvir wrote another post on the same platform calling on Netanyahu to allow Israeli soldiers to return to fighting in Gaza in order to “crush Hamas". 

Ben-Gvir and other far-right members of the Netanyahu government opposed the ceasefire and hostage exchange.

עצירת המלחמה = פירוק הממשלה

— איתמר בן גביר (@itamarbengvir) November 28, 2023

A Hamas senior official invited US billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday to visit the Gaza strip to see the extent of destruction caused by the Israeli bombardment.

"We invite him to visit Gaza to see the extent of the massacres and destruction committed against the people of Gaza, in compliance with the standards of objectivity and credibility," Hamas' senior official Osama Hamdan said in a press conference in Beirut.

On Monday, Musk, the social media mogul assailed for his endorsement of an anti-Jewish post, toured the site of the Hamas assault on Israel and declared his commitment to do whatever was necessary to stop the spread of hatred.

NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg, responding to accusations of Western double standards, said on Tuesday that international law had to apply in all conflicts but the wars in Ukraine and Gaza were very different.

Arab leaders have accused Western countries of failing to apply the same standards to Israel's war in Gaza, launched in response to the deadly Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas, as they have applied to Russia's war in Ukraine.

Asked about the issue, Stoltenberg said: "My message is that international law, humanitarian law, has to be respected in all conflicts and civilian lives have always to be protected."

Speaking at a press conference at the transatlantic military alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Stoltenberg said it was also "important to recognise that the situation in Gaza and the situation in Ukraine is different in many ways".

"Ukraine never posed a threat to Russia, Ukraine never attacked Russia," he said.

"The Russian invasion of Ukraine was an unprovoked invasion, a full-scale invasion, of another country," he added. "So, of course, Ukraine has the right to self-defence against an unprovoked attack and to uphold territorial integrity."

Analysts have pointed out that Israel aggressively and illegally occupies Palestinian land and has done so for almost 60 years,

Additionally, its almost two decade-long blockade of the Gaza strip is considered by human rights groups, international legal bodies and the UN as collective punishment, which is a war crime and and a contravention of the Fourth Geneva convention.  

(Reuters contributed to this report)

A Palestinian official familiar with truce talks told Reuters on Tuesday that Hamas has begun handing Israeli hostages over to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

According to the Palestinian Prisoner's Club, 30 Palestinian detainees are also expected to be released on Tuesday in a fifth exchange of prisoners between Israel and Hamas, including 15 women and 15 men.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that the Israeli army prevented the entry of a fuel truck that was sent to the northern Gaza Strip.

"The [Israeli] occupation forces [are] preventing the entry of the fuel truck, which was supposed to cross a short while ago into the northern Gaza Strip," the association said in a brief statement Tuesday evening.

The Gaza Strip’s government said Tuesday that 160 bodies were pulled from under the rubble in the past 24 hours.

It said Israel’s bombing of the enclave had completely destroyed 50,000 housing units and partially destroyed around 250,000 others.

The Palestinian Prisoner's Club said on Tuesday the total number of arrests in the occupied West bank since October 7 had risen to more than 3,290 Palestinians, including 125 women and 145 minors.

At least six detainees have died in Israeli prisons since the war started, its statement added, saying that during the duration of the temporary truce alone, Israeli forces also arrested 168 Palestinians.

Jordan's King Abdullah said on Tuesday Israel's military campaigns in Gaza and army operations in the West Bank "negate human values and the right of life."

In remarks carried on state media, the monarch who again called for an end to the war, said the Israeli siege on the enclave that prevented for weeks the entry of medicine, food and fuel and cut electricity supplies, amounted to war crimes.

"These are war crimes.. we cannot stay silent," the monarch said.

UN aid chief Martin Griffiths will travel to the Jordanian capital Amman on Wednesday for talks on the possibility of opening the Kerem Shalom crossing to allow for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza from Israel.

Located at the intersection of Israel, the Gaza Strip and Egypt, the Kerem Shalom crossing was used to carry more than 60% of the truckloads going into Gaza before the current war.

"We have said from start we need more than one crossing," Griffiths told a briefing of member states at the United Nations in Geneva on Tuesday.

"The opportunity to use Kerem Shalom should be explored, and that will be topic in Amman. It would hugely add scope (to the response)."

A Western diplomat said there was no prospect of opening the Kerem Shalom crossing for the moment. The diplomat said that Israel does not want to open the crossing because their troops are located in the area. There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Aid currently being allowed into Gaza comes through the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border, which was designed for pedestrian crossings and not trucks.

Fighters in Hamas' armed wing targeted Israeli military vehicles with three explosive devices in northern Gaza on Tuesday, after Israeli tanks targeted civilians this morning, sources told The New Arab's sister site, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

The sources from the Izz al-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades said Israeli tanks opened fire on civilians near their homes, wounding at least five people, which prompted the group to respond by detonating explosives.

The Israeli army’s chief of general staff Herzi Halevi said his military was taking advantage of the truce to develop combat plans in order to resume fighting Hamas in Gaza.

Commenting on Hamas' surprise attack on October 7, Halevi said: "The army and the intelligence division failed."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday told United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres that Israel must be held accountable in international courts for the war crimes it committed in Gaza, the Turkish presidency said.

In a phone call ahead of a U.N. Security Council meeting on Gaza planned for Wednesday, Erdogan told Guterres that "Israel continues to shamelessly trample on international law, laws of war, and international humanitarian law by looking in the eyes of the international community," his office said.

The population of Gaza, especially women and children, risk famine if humanitarian food supplies do not continue, the UN's World Food Programme warned Tuesday.

The WFP said it had delivered food to 121,161 people in Gaza since Friday, when a four-day truce between Israel and Hamas began.

The truce was extended by two days on Tuesday.

"Thanks to the pause, our teams have been in action on the ground, going into areas we haven't reached for a long time. What we see is catastrophic," said WFP's director for the Middle East, Corinne Fleischer.

WFP estimated that it was "highly likely that the population of Gaza, especially women and children, are at high risk of famine if WFP is not able to provide continued access to food".

The agency said that six days was "not enough to make any meaningful impact," calling for "uninterrupted and regular supplies" of food into Gaza.

At least four Palestinians were wounded when Israeli soldiers fired at them in Gaza City on Tuesday.

Israeli forces fired live bullets towards people as they tried returning to their neighbourhoods in Al-Nasr and Sheikh Radwan, taking advantage of the current truce, Palestinian News Agency WAFA said.

The injured were transferred to Al-Ahli Arab (Baptist) hospital for treatment. One was reportedly in critical condition.

The directors of Israel's Mossad and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency are meeting with Qatar's prime minister in Doha to "build on progress" of the 48-hour extension to the truce announced between Israel and Hamas, a source briefed on the visit told Reuters on Tuesday.

Egyptian officials were also in attendance, the source said adding the Doha meeting would also broach the next phase of a potential deal.

Israeli restrictions on fuel supplies to Gaza are hampering aid deliveries and humanitarian access required under an UN resolution, an EU commissioner, Janez Lenarcic, said Tuesday.

"We are calling for the increase of fuel supplies to the (Gaza) strip," Lenarcic told journalists in Brussels.

"The humanitarian access should be based on the needs and not on some restrictions," he said.

Lenarcic said aid deliveries to Gaza were encountering two bottlenecks.

One is that trucks needing to enter Gaza via the Rafah crossing with Egypt - the only entry not giving onto Israeli territory - had to undergo screening at a point 90 minutes' drive away.

The other is that Israel is allowing only restricted amounts of fuel to go into Gaza which are "still not sufficient for the needs" of the territory.

At today's #UfMRegForum in Barcelona I conveyed the following key message:

➡️ There is a need for continued and sustained access of humanitarian aid into and throughout #Gaza.

➡️ All parties are bound to facilitate this under International Humanitarian Law, #IHL. pic.twitter.com/SoDkvKJYVe

— Janez Lenarčič (@JanezLenarcic) November 27, 2023

The EU commissioner said Brussels is calling for increased truck screening capacity, and for more fuel to be allowed in.

The fuel, he noted, was essential for humanitarian operations, hospitals, water stations, desalination plants, water pumps and bakeries.

"The quantities that are for the moment entering daily are not enough for all this," he said.

Lenarcic stressed that a UN Security Council resolution adopted November 16 was binding on all parties, requiring them to allow "unimpeded access" for food, water, medicine, fuel and other necessary items to reach Gaza.

He also said international humanitarian law was not being respected by Hamas or, it appeared, Israel.

Qatar is focused on further extending a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel beyond Wednesday based on the Palestinian group's ability to continue releasing 10 hostages per day, the foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said in a press briefing on Tuesday.

Qatar cannot validate the number of remaining hostages beyond the 20 to be released by Hamas on Tuesday and Wednesday, he added, in an extension to a truce brokered by the Gulf country alongside Egypt and the United States.

A source close to Hamas said 10 Israeli hostages held in Gaza were to be released on Tuesday in exchange for 30 Palestinian prisoners under an extended truce deal.

"Lists of the 10 Israeli hostages and 30 Palestinian prisoners for the fifth day of the truce were exchanged without objections," the source told AFP.

"Some foreign workers held in Gaza will also be released."

There is a risk that more people could die from diseases than from bombings in Gaza if the enclave's health system is not put back on its feet quickly, a World Health Organization spokesperson said on Tuesday.

"Eventually we will see more people dying from disease than from bombardment if we are not able to put back together this health system," said the WHO's Margaret Harris.

She described the collapse of Al Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza as a "tragedy" and voiced concern about the detention of some of its medical staff by Israeli forces.

The United States is sending three military aircraft to Egypt from Tuesday to bring vital humanitarian aid for Gaza, senior US officials said.

The relief flights carrying food, medical supplies and winter gear are the first by the US military since the Gaza war began on October 7.

"We are very glad to announce we will have the first of three relief flights that are facilitated by the unique capabilities of the US military that will be arriving in North Sinai in Egypt" on Tuesday, one of the US officials said.

"This will be to bring a series of items - medical items, food aid, winter items, given that winter's coming in Gaza - for the civilian population," the official said in an embargoed call on Monday.

The United Nations will then take the aid from Egypt's North Sinai region into the stricken Palestinian territory itself, they said.

Two further planeloads will arrive "in coming days," they said.

The Palestinian Prisoners' Club confirmed that 60 Palestinian female prisoners remained in Israeli detention, following the prisoner swap deal with Hamas.

Of those 60, 56 of them were arrested after October 7, and were among 3,260 Palestinians detained in an Israeli crackdown following Hamas' attack.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Monday that the events in Gaza were within the realm of the legal definition of genocide.

Safadi made the comments in a news conference at the Union for the Mediterranean summit held in Barcelona.

He reiterated a call for an extension for the current ceasefire in Gaza that was made by other participants to the summit and expressed regret that "some among us" refused to support that call.

Gaza’s health ministry announced Monday that it managed to restart the dialysis department at Al-Shifa medical complex, amid a dire humanitarian situation in northern Gaza with hospitals shutting down.

"Despite the massive destruction caused by the [Israeli] occupation to the infrastructure during the brutal attack on Al-Shifa Medical Complex, the hospital was able…to restart the dialysis department with exceptional efforts," the health ministry said in a statement.

The ministry called on patients whose cases require dialysis from the northern part of the Gaza Strip to head to the hospital on Tuesday to receive the required healthcare.

في ما يشبه التحدّي أو الإصرار على النهوض.. وزارة صحة غزة تعيد تشغيل قسم غسل الكلى في مجمّع الشفاء الطبي وتدعو المرضى الذين تستوجب حالاتهم غسل كلى في محافظتَي غزة وشمال غزة، الواقعتَين إلى التوجّه غداً الثلاثاء إلى المجمّع لتلقّي الخدمة التي يحتاجون إليها.

تفاصيل أكثر عبر… pic.twitter.com/6nvKrk92MX

— العربي الجديد (@alaraby_ar) November 27, 2023

Lebanese media reported that an Israeli shell struck the outskirts of a village in south Lebanon on Tuesday, despite the truce between Hamas and Israel.

A spokesperson for the Israeli army said it was "currently not aware of such an incident".

Lebanon's state-owned National News Agency and the Lebanese broadcaster Al Jadeed reported an Israeli shell had struck the outskirts of the village of Aita al-Shaab on Tuesday morning. Both outlets cited their correspondents as the source.

A spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon said it was looking into the reports. 

The Biden administration has told Israel that it must work to avoid "significant further displacement" of Palestinian civilians in southern Gaza if it renews its ground campaign, which Israel says is aimed at ending Hamas, senior US officials said.

The administration, seeking to avoid more large-scale civilian casualties or mass displacement like that seen before the current truce, underscored to the Israelis that they must operate with far greater precision in southern Gaza than they did in the north, the officials said, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.

Has Biden's support for Israel lost him the Arab American vote? https://t.co/e2Az7Q2UOA

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) November 14, 2023

Amid mounting international and domestic pressure about the rising Palestinian death toll, the White House has begun to put greater pressure on Israel that the manner of the coming campaign must be "carefully thought through," according to one of the officials.

The Israelis have been receptive when administration officials have raised these concerns, the official claimed, despite more than 15,000 people being killed in Gaza.

The French helicopter carrier Dixmude has docked in Egypt and could start treating wounded children from Gaza later this week, Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Tuesday, as Western powers look to ramp up efforts to aid the enclave.

It is the first Western military ship to dock in Egypt since the conflict started and moored on Monday at al-Arish 50 km (31 miles) west of Gaza, now a hub for international aid for Gaza.

BIG BREAKING: France’s helicopter carrier Dixmude has docked in Egypt.

It could start to be used for treating wounded children from Gaza.#france #French #Gaza #GazaGenocide #macron pic.twitter.com/NYAC2tFXBK

— Aditya Rathore (@imAdityaRathore) November 28, 2023

"We have this ship, which has been transformed into a hospital and which arrived yesterday. It has 40 beds," Lecornu told Europe 1 radio, adding he hoped it could start receiving patients this week.

The Dixmude's medical capacities have been adapted to create a military-civilian medical force, notably in paediatrics. With two operating theatres and 40 beds, it could treat those with light injuries before they are moved to hospitals on the ground.

Paris has made available, if necessary, 50 beds in France for gravely wounded and sick children in Gaza, which could include cancer patients.

Once treated on the Dixmude, the children will need to be moved to larger hospitals in Egypt or field hospitals in Gaza so that more patients may be tended to.

The Israeli government has received a list of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza who are expected to be released on Tuesday under an extended truce deal with the militant group, Israel's Army Radio reported, citing the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.

The Axios news website reported the list contained 10 hostages.

There was no immediate comment from the prime minister's office.