Close to 40,000 Palestinians killed by military offensive in Gaza, health ministry says – as it happened
"At least 39,145 Palestinians killed and 90,257 wounded since 7 October, Palestinian health ministry says
Closing summary
The Israeli military has launched a fresh attack on the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people according to medics, after ordering Palestinians to leave several neighbourhoods including areas that had been designated by the military as part of a humanitarian zone. Palestinian civil defence in the territory estimated that 400,000 people sheltering in the city were affected by the order, which included the eastern part of Al-Mawasi, a sandy strip of land without infrastructure where Palestinians have sought shelter in tent encampments in recent months.
Lebanese armed group Hezbollah broadcast drone video on Wednesday that it said showed air defence facilities, planes and fuel storage units at Israel’s Ramat David airbase, nearly 50km (30 miles) into Israeli territory. It was the third in a series of videos released by Hezbollah which the group has said are meant to demonstrate how far its surveillance of Israel has reached. The first video showed the Israeli port city of Haifa and the second the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 39,145 Palestinians and wounded 90,257 since 7 October, the Palestinian health ministry said on Wednesday. A total of 55 Palestinians have been killed and 110 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry said in a statement.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have blocked entrances to the Foreign Office in London in protest at the perceived failure of the new Labour government to do more to change UK policy towards Israel’s offensive in Gaza. As many as 300 people sealed off access to the Foreign Office on Wednesday morning with a large banner saying “Genocide Made in Britain”. Protesters said six demonstrators had been arrested.
British police on Wednesday arrested nine people during a protest against arms exports to Israel that briefly blocked the street outside the foreign ministry, highlighting pressure on the new Labour government over its stance on the Gaza war. Pro-Palestinian protesters in Britain have been campaigning for a government ban on arms sales to Israel following its offensive on Gaza in response to the 7 October attack.
There are also protests in Washington DC over the arrival of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, including a sit-in at a congressional office building that ended with multiple arrests, according to the Associated Press. Some of the demonstrations have condemned Israel but others have expressed support while pressuring Netanyahu to strike a ceasefire deal and bring home the hostages still being held by Hamas.
SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said that his Starlink satellite internet service has been activated in a hospital in Gaza, where many medical facilities have been destroyed by the war, with the help of the United Arab Emirates and Israel. The Gulf Arab state’s foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, thanked the billionaire entrepreneur for supporting the UAE field hospital in Gaza, where many medical facilities have been demolished and medicines are scarce, Reuters reported.
Doctors in the largest hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis yesterday pleaded for supplies from a facility overwhelmed by wounded people, as Israeli airstrikes, artillery fire and fighting on the streets continued. “There’s no space for more patients. There’s no space in the operating theatres. There is a lack of medical supplies, so we cannot save our patients,” Mohammed Zaqout, the director of Nasser hospital, told AFP. The UN’s office for humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said the hospital was facing “a new mass casualty influx, amid a dire lack of blood units, medical supplies and hospital beds”.
The German government has banned a Hamburg-based organization accused of promoting the Iranian leadership’s ideology and supporting Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, as police raided 53 properties around the country. The ban on the Islamic Center Hamburg, or IZH, and five suborganizations around Germany followed searches in November, AP reported. Interior minister Nancy Faeser said evidence gathered in the investigation “confirmed the serious suspicions to such a degree that we ordered the ban today.”
The Palestinian Authority’s budget deficit is projected to surge by 172% in 2024 compared to 2023, according to a statement from the cabinet on Tuesday, Reuters reports. Revenues are also expected to drop by 21% due to the ongoing conflict in Gaza. The announcement followed President Mahmoud Abbas’ approval of the emergency budget for 2024, which includes austerity measures such as reducing salaries, operational and capital expenditures, and maintaining minimal development expenditures.
That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Middle East crisis live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
The Israeli military has launched a fresh attack on the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people according to medics, after ordering Palestinians to leave several neighbourhoods including areas that had been designated by the military as part of a humanitarian zone.
Palestinian civil defence in the territory estimated that 400,000 people sheltering in the city were affected by the order, which included the eastern part of Al-Mawasi, a sandy strip of land without infrastructure where Palestinians have sought shelter in tent encampments in recent months.
The military claimed Hamas militants in Khan Younis and part of Al-Mawasi were using the area to launch rockets at Israel.
“We were displaced from the eastern regions, they called us to evacuate, we took our children and left,” Osama Qudeih told the Associated Press (AP). “There was no safe place left in the Gaza Strip … We went out walking in the streets, not knowing where to go.”
Another woman collapsed in exhaustion after saying it was her seventh or eighth displacement. “Every day we are displaced,” Kholoud al-Dadas told AP as she clutched her children. “Where are the countries? Where is the world, where are the presidents, where are they? Come and see how we are, our children, and what is happening to us.”
Nine arrests during London protest against Israel arms exports
British police on Wednesday arrested nine people during a protest against arms exports to Israel that briefly blocked the street outside the foreign ministry, highlighting pressure on the new Labour government over its stance on the Gaza war.
Pro-Palestinian protesters in Britain have been campaigning for a government ban on arms sales to Israel following its offensive on Gaza in response to the 7 October attack.
On the afternoon of 7 October, Nour Shahtout was busy doing her homework, when she received a text message from school, telling students not to come in the next day. She hasn’t been back since. “At the time, I thought I had the day off and could hang out with my friends,” says the 18-year-old. “Little did I know, everything was about to change.”
Two weeks later, Shahtout’s family home in Tel al-Hawa, a neighbourhood in the south of Gaza City, was bombed in an Israeli airstrike. “We had only 10 minutes to evacuate,” she recalls. “I grabbed my laptop, charger and as many books as I could fit into my bag.” Shahtout, a high-achieving student, had plans to study ICT and business at Al-Azhar University. “But the following month, the IDF destroyed that too,” she says.
The family evacuated to Khan Younis but the bombs followed. Over the next few months, they moved from one tent to the next, fled one city to the next, until they realised there was no safe place left in the Gaza Strip. After selling everything they owned to pay for their passage out, the family crossed into Egypt in March, like some 100,000 other Palestinians who have been able to get out of Gaza since the start of the conflict.
“I don’t like it here, I miss my friends and I want to go home,” says Shahtout, sitting cross-legged on a worn, blue rug in the one-bedroom apartment shared by two families. “I am stuck in this one room all day, where there is no space or privacy,” she adds. “I want to study and complete my degree but life has come to a standstill.”
The small living room serves as a bedroom for Shahtout, her parents and two brothers, with two large sofas, a table and a battered mattress leaning against one of the walls; Shahtout’s school books are piled in one corner.
In the United States, more than 30 House and Senate Democrats are not planning to attend Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech today to Congress, NBC News is reporting.
Netanyahu is scheduled to address a joint meeting on Congress this afternoon at 2pm ET.
To continue following Netanyahu’s speech today to Congress, please follow our US live blog here.
Lebanese armed group Hezbollah broadcast drone video on Wednesday that it said showed air defence facilities, planes and fuel storage units at Israel’s Ramat David airbase, nearly 50km (30 miles) into Israeli territory.
It was the third in a series of videos released by Hezbollah which the group has said are meant to demonstrate how far its surveillance of Israel has reached. The first video showed the Israeli port city of Haifa and the second the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
A spokesman for the Israeli military said in a statement on X that the video was filmed by a surveillance drone and the base’s operations were not affected, Reuters reported.
The latest video was more than eight minutes long and, Hezbollah said, mostly shot on Tuesday.
US president Joe Biden will host Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Thursday to discuss progress towards a ceasefire in Gaza and a hostage release, the White House said.
Vice-president Kamala Harris will meet separately with Netanyahu, it said on Wednesday. The Israeli leader is addressing the US Congress later on Wednesday amid protests and discontent among some US lawmakers over the conduct of the war in Gaza.
Here are some of the latest images from photographers on the ground in Gaza:
A far-right Israeli minister says he has prayed at Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound, yet again defying longstanding rules that allow Jews to visit but not to pray, the Reuters news agency reports.
The mosque compound is Islam’s third holiest site and a symbol of Palestinian national identity but it is also revered by Jews as the site of their ancient temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
National security minister Itamar Ben Gvir told a symposium in the Israeli parliament.
I’m the political leadership and the political leadership authorises prayers on the Temple Mount.
“I prayed on the Temple Mount last week and Jews pray on the Temple Mount... There is no reason why parts of the Temple Mount should be off-limits for Jews.
While Jews and other non-Muslims are allowed to visit the mosque compound in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem during specific hours, they are not permitted to pray or display religious symbols.
In recent years, the restrictions have been increasingly flouted by hardline religious nationalists like Ben Gvir, prompting a sometimes violent reaction from Palestinians.
The day so far
Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 39,145 Palestinians and wounded 90,257 since 7 October, the Palestinian health ministry said on Wednesday. A total of 55 Palestinians have been killed and 110 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry said in a statement.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have blocked entrances to the Foreign Office in London in protest at the perceived failure of the new Labour government to do more to change UK policy towards Israel’s offensive in Gaza. As many as 300 people sealed off access to the Foreign Office on Wednesday morning with a large banner saying “Genocide Made in Britain”. Protesters said six demonstrators had been arrested.
At least six protesters have been arrested as hundreds of demonstrators shut down access to the foreign, commonwealth and development (FCDO) headquarters in central London on Wednesday morning, demanding the government halts all arms exports to Israel. Organisers, Workers For a Free Palestine, said at least six protestors were arrested while blocking access to the foreign office at the Whitehall and St James’ Park entrances.
There are also protests in Washington DC over the arrival of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, including a sit-in at a congressional office building that ended with multiple arrests, according to the Associated Press. Some of the demonstrations have condemned Israel but others have expressed support while pressuring Netanyahu to strike a ceasefire deal and bring home the hostages still being held by Hamas.
SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said that his Starlink satellite internet service has been activated in a hospital in Gaza, where many medical facilities have been destroyed by the war, with the help of the United Arab Emirates and Israel. The Gulf Arab state’s foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, thanked the billionaire entrepreneur for supporting the UAE field hospital in Gaza, where many medical facilities have been demolished and medicines are scarce, Reuters reported.
Doctors in the largest hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis yesterday pleaded for supplies from a facility overwhelmed by wounded people, as Israeli airstrikes, artillery fire and fighting on the streets continued. “There’s no space for more patients. There’s no space in the operating theatres. There is a lack of medical supplies, so we cannot save our patients,” Mohammed Zaqout, the director of Nasser hospital, told AFP. The UN’s office for humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said the hospital was facing “a new mass casualty influx, amid a dire lack of blood units, medical supplies and hospital beds”.
The German government has banned a Hamburg-based organization accused of promoting the Iranian leadership’s ideology and supporting Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, as police raided 53 properties around the country. The ban on the Islamic Center Hamburg, or IZH, and five suborganizations around Germany followed searches in November, AP reported. Interior minister Nancy Faeser said evidence gathered in the investigation “confirmed the serious suspicions to such a degree that we ordered the ban today.”
The Palestinian Authority’s budget deficit is projected to surge by 172% in 2024 compared to 2023, according to a statement from the cabinet on Tuesday, Reuters reports. Revenues are also expected to drop by 21% due to the ongoing conflict in Gaza. The announcement followed President Mahmoud Abbas’ approval of the emergency budget for 2024, which includes austerity measures such as reducing salaries, operational and capital expenditures, and maintaining minimal development expenditures.
Netanyahu has landed in Washington DC. Netanyahu’s first 24 hours have seen a series of small meetings with the families of hostages kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October, in which he said that progress was being made on negotiating a prisoner exchange of the remaining 120 hostages as part of a ceasefire deal but defended delaying for better terms.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will host the Israeli prime minister on Friday at his resort in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump said on Tuesday.“Looking forward to welcoming Bibi Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida,” the former US president said in a post on Truth Social, using Netanyahu’s nickname. The meeting will be their first since the end of Trump’s presidency, during which the two forged close ties, and comes at a time of strains also between Netanyahu and Biden over Israel’s war against Hamas militants in Gaza.
Leaders from Hamas, Fatah and other Palestinian factions have agreed after three days of talks in Beijing to form a national unity government at an unspecified point in the future, in a move that has bolstered China’s status as a global mediator, particularly in the Middle East.
Vandals ransacked an Israeli-Palestinian restaurant in Berlin, smashing wine glasses and defiling the space with “disgusting acts” a week after it hosted a queer Jewish-Muslim brunch, its owners have said."
