Gaza Offensive
Live Reporting
WHO demands access to Nasser Hospital to provide ‘life-saving services’
The World Health Organization is trying to get access to Nasser Hospital as Israeli troops continue to raid the facility with thousands of trapped civilians.
“There are still critically injured and sick patients that are inside the hospital,” WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said.
“There is an urgent need to deliver fuel to ensure the continuation of the provision of life-saving services… We are trying to get access because people who are still in Nasser medical complex need assistance.”
Israel’s military has called the raid on Nasser Hospital “precise and limited”, adding it detained dozens of “terrorists”, without providing any evidence.
‘We stand helpless’: Nasser Hospital director
Dr Nahed Abu Taima, director of Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, tells Al Jazeera that the situation at the hospital is “catastrophic”.
“We were forced to transfer all the patients and the wounded to the hospital’s old building,” he said, adding that Israeli forces were rounding up patients and civilians taking shelter in the hospital.
“Electric power was cut off from the entire medical complex. Many patients in ICUs and those on oxygen supply and also those on dialysis are left fighting for their lives since 3am [02:00 GMT],” Taima said.
“We stand helpless, unable to provide any form of medical assistance to the patients inside the hospital or the victims flooding into the hospital every single minute.”
Fate of MSF staffer unknown after deadly Israeli attacks on Nasser Hospital
Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) is calling for an end to Israeli attacks on Nasser Hospital, which have killed a number of dead and wounded.
“After the bombing yesterday morning, our cadres reported an atmosphere of chaos, with an unknown number of dead and wounded. The fate of one of our colleagues remains unknown since the attack,” the organisation said on X.
MSF said its staff has been forced to flee and leave behind patients in the hospital, with complications arising even as they tried to evacuate.
“The Israeli forces set up a checkpoint for people as they left the compound, and one of our colleagues was arrested at this checkpoint. We call for preserving his safety and protecting his dignity,” it added
“We call on it to immediately stop this attack, as it threatens the medical staff and patients trapped inside the facility.”
Egypt setting up area at Gaza border which could be used to shelter Palestinians, sources say
(Reuters) – Egypt is preparing an area at the Gaza border which could accommodate Palestinians in case an Israeli offensive into Rafah prompts an exodus across the frontier, four sources said, in what they described as a contingency move by Cairo.
Egypt, which denied making any such preparations, has repeatedly raised the alarm over the possibility that Israel's devastating Gaza offensive could displace Palestinians into Sinai – something Cairo says would be completely unacceptable – echoing warnings from Arab states such as Jordan.
The United States has repeatedly said it would oppose any displacement of Palestinians out of Gaza.
Israeli forces storm maternity unit of Nasser Hospital
We are receiving more lines on the situation at the Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis.
The Israeli forces have stormed the maternity unit of the hospital, as it continues its raid on the largest functioning medical facility in enclave, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
In a statement on Telegram, the ministry said that troops forced women and children to leave the unit without any luggage.
It also said soldiers also stormed the administrative building of the complex.
‘New series of lies’: Hamas rejects Israeli claims for hospital attack
Hamas denies any presence inside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis after Israel’s army said fighters and weapons were found there.
“We have repeatedly said the policy of our Palestinian resistance is and remains to distance public and civilian institutions and the health sector from any military activity,” Hamas said in a statement.
“We have asked the United Nations and relevant organisations on several occasions to bring an international committee to examine the hospitals and prove that Israel’s narrative is a lie. But our demands have not been heard.”
Israel’s destruction of universities ‘perpetuates crime of genocide’
The Israeli army’s “systematic and widespread” targeting of universities is eliminating the “last manifestations of life in the Gaza Strip”. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory added such attacks “perpetuate the crime of genocide”.
The ongoing Israeli assault on the besieged strip has led to a “complete disruption” of the educational system, the rights organisation said in a statement.
Since Israel’s bombing began, three university presidents and more than 95 university deans and professors have been killed, according to Euro-Med. Some 88,000 students have been deprived of completing their university education
At least five universities are partially or completely destroyed.
“The Euro-Mediterranean Observatory stressed the crimes pursued by Israel – including the widespread and deliberate destruction of buildings designated for educational, artistic, scientific and religious purposes and historical monuments – constitute in themselves grave violations and war crimes in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
Israel announces death of paratrooper in Gaza
The Israeli military announced the death of another soldier during fighting in southern Gaza.
The 20-year-old was a member of Israel’s Paratroopers Brigade 202nd Battalion. Several more members of the battalion were injured in the same battle.
The Israeli military says 234 soldiers have been killed and 1,361 wounded in Gaza since the beginning of its ground operation.
‘Save patients and staff’: 3 die at Nasser Hospital during blackout
Three patients died in the intensive care unit of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis as a result of the power outage and restriction of oxygen supplies.
“We hold the Israeli occupation forces responsible for the lives of patients and staff, considering that the complex is now under their full control,” Gaza’s Health Ministry said in a statement.
“We appeal to all international institutions to quickly intervene to save patients and staff at Nasser Medical Complex before it is too late.”
Two women gave birth in “inhumane” conditions without electricity, water and heating, it added.
Israel has been attacking hospitals throughout Gaza, claiming Hamas activity, with the latest being Nasser Hospital. Critics say, however, that the systematic targeting of medical centres aims to render the territory unlivable.
Dozens of men arrested in Silat ad-Dhahr in West Bank
The Israeli military has carried out an “arrest campaign” in the town of Silat ad-Dhahr, south of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency reports.
Israeli forces raided more than 15 homes and “arrested dozens of young men” in the town, reports Wafa.
Elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have arrested a man from the town of Anabta, east of Tulkarem, while a man has also been arrested in the city of Qalqilya.
Raids have also been reported in the following locations:
The Jalazoun camp, north of Ramallah
The town of Aqaba, north of Tubas
The town of Silat ad-Dhahr, south of Jenin camp
We will bring you further updates on events in the occupied West Bank when we have them.
Biden officials meet on rising anti-Semitism, Islamaphobia, with Jewish and Muslim youth
Officials from the administration of United States President Joe Biden have met with Jewish, Arab and Muslim-American youth to discuss rising anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attacks and Israel’s war in Gaza.
The meeting on Thursday was attended by Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, US Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain, according to US officials.
The officials described “efforts to seek peace, security, and dignity for both the Palestinian people and the Israeli people” and address the “recent increase in hate-fueled rhetoric and violence,” the United States Mission to the UN said in a statement.
“They emphasized the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to bringing communities together and fostering interfaith dialogue to form solutions and forge paths forward. The officials also reiterated the United States’ commitment to working with partners and allies to advance human rights and protect fundamental freedoms,” the statement said.
99 journalists killed in 2023, 77 in Gaza war: report
NEW YORK (AFP) – Seventy-seven of the 99 journalists killed in 2023 were killed in the Israel-Hamas war, making the last 12 months the deadliest for the media in almost a decade, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Thursday.
Killings of reporters would have dropped globally year-on-year had it not been for the deaths in that conflict, the CPJ said, although fatalities were stable in Somalia and the Philippines.
Brazil's Lula, in Egypt, denounces Gaza war
CAIRO (AFP) – Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva denounced Israel's war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip Thursday as "collective punishment" after meeting his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo.
On his second trip to Egypt and his first during his current term, Lula spoke to an Arab League meeting discussing the situation in the Palestinian territory which has been devastated by more than four months of war.
Israel sends troops into 'besieged' Gaza hospital
GAZA (AFP) - Israel sent troops into a hospital in war-torn Gaza on Thursday (Feb 15) where it said hostages may have been held, as medics warned the key medical facility was operating in "near impossible" conditions.
The raid came after days of intense fighting between troops and Hamas militants around the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis - one of the largest medical sites in southern Gaza, and one of the territory's few hospitals that are still operational.
Israel, which has accused Hamas militants of using hospitals for military purposes, said it was carrying out a "precise and limited operation" at the facility with "no obligation" for patients or staff to evacuate.
Hezbollah fires rockets at northern Israel in reprisal for deadly day
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hezbollah said on Thursday (Feb 15) that it fired dozens of rockets at a northern Israeli town in a "preliminary response" to the killing of 10 civilians in southern Lebanon, the deadliest day for Lebanese civilians in four months of cross-border hostilities.
The United Nations urged a halt to what it called a "dangerous escalation" of the conflict, which has played out in parallel to the Gaza war and fuelled concerns of a wider confrontation between the Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel.
Wartime medicine shortage deepens Gazan suffering
RAFAH (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Mohammed Khader goes from one pharmacy to another in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, desperately searching for his relatives' medicines amid a deepening shortage after months of war.
"This is the fifth pharmacy I've looked in," said the young man who was displaced from Jabalia refugee camp to Rafah.
He is just one of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians driven into the territory's southernmost city by Israel's relentless military campaign against the militant group Hamas.
