Israel-Hamas war updates: WHO urges fuel, healthcare deliveries to Gaza

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For the latest live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, follow along here.

You can read a personal essay about the situation in Gaza here and an on-the-ground report about a 10-day-old baby at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital who has been described as a symbol of “victory against ugly Israeli aggression” here.

We are going to bring our live coverage to an end soon. Here’s a summary of today’s main events:

• Israel has bombed in the vicinity of the Palestine Red Crescent headquarters and Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, the Palestinian health society says.
• The Palestine Red Crescent says eight trucks of humanitarian aid have entered Gaza via the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
• About 50 people have been killed across the Gaza Strip in the past few hours, says Ashraf al-Qedra, the Palestinian health ministry spokesperson.
• The World Health Organization has called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” to allow for the passage of fuel and healthcare supplies to Gaza, warning that thousands of vulnerable patients will be at risk otherwise.
• More than 700 Palestinians have been killed in overnight Israeli air raids on Gaza – the highest 24-hour death toll since Israel began bombarding the besieged enclave this month.
• The Israeli military says it repelled a sea attack north of Gaza, adding that its navy attacked fighters as they “tried to penetrate into Israeli territory in the Zikim area”.
• World leaders have spoken during a meeting at the United Nations Security Council, where several countries – including Jordan and Egypt – called for a humanitarian pause.
• The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it is important to recognise that Hamas’s October 7 attack “did not happen in a vacuum”.
• Speaking in Tel Aviv, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that the Western coalition fighting ISIL (ISIS) could be widened to fight Hamas in Gaza.

Israeli military forces are conducting a raid on Jenin, where they have fought with armed Palestinians in the northern occupied West Bank city.

Jenin, and particularly its refugee camp, is a base for Palestinian armed resistance to the Israeli occupation, who regularly battle Israeli forces during the latter’s raids.

We’ll have more on this as we get it.

Speaking at the UN Security Council debate, Iran’s ambassador says the US has sought to “wrongly place the blame on Iran” for the region’s surging insecurity.

“The United States’s unwavering support for the [Israeli] occupation and aggression has rendered it an active part of the problem,” Saeed Iravani said.

“The US has further exacerbated the conflict by … aligning itself with the aggressor at the expense of the innocent Palestinian population,” he said, referring to Israel.

“The rapid provision of military and logistical support to the oppressive occupying regime has made the US complicit in the brutal massacre of innocent Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”

Blinken had earlier told the council that Iran and its proxies were destabilising the region, with the US secretary of state adding that Washington would respond if its personnel were harmed.

NBC News has reported that more US military personnel were wounded in attacks on bases in Iraq and Syria than previously disclosed.

Citing US Central Command (CENTCOM), the news outlet said that 20 US military personnel sustained injuries during an attack on the al-Tanf base in Syria on October 18.

That same day, four others were wounded in an attack on Ain al-Asad in Iraq, NBC reported, adding that all the injuries were minor.

The report comes after a Pentagon spokesman said earlier today that there had been 10 attacks on bases housing US personnel in Iraq and three attacks in Syria between October 17 and 24.

Blinken, the top US diplomat, also said today that Washington would respond if its personnel in the region were harmed.

XEn News has reached out to CENTCOM for confirmation. We’ll bring you more information when we get it.

Qatar’s UN representative has said the Gulf country will “increase” its diplomatic efforts after it helped secure the release of several captives held in Gaza in recent days.

“We will continue to increase our efforts with our friendly states and international partners,” said Sheikha Alya Ahmed Saif Al Thani.

“The State of Qatar really believes in mediation and dialogue for a peaceful resolution of conflicts,” she also told the Security Council earlier.

Qatar’s UN representative has called for a “complete ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip, the release of all captives held in the territory and the delivery of critical humanitarian supplies to Palestinians.

Sheikha Alya Ahmed Saif Al Thani told the UN Security Council that Qatar has been following the developments in Gaza with “extreme concern”.

“We reaffirm our condemnation of all forms of attacks against civilians, particularly against children and women,” she said.

She added that Qatar also “categorically rejects” the Israeli blockade on Gaza, which has deprived millions of Palestinians of basic needs.

Washington has been sending military assets to the region for “deterrence purposes”.

Refugee camps, hospitals, apartment blocks – nowhere in Gaza is safe during Israel’s bombardment.

The humanitarian needs are dire and growing by the minute. Yet, Israel’s biggest ally – the US – is still not calling for a ceasefire.

Instead, it is sending more military assets to the region. Washington says the aircraft carriers and naval support vessels will serve as a deterrence.

But could American troops join the war? And what would this mean for the Middle East?

The food parcels were distributed in Central Gaza as well as Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, the Red Crescent said in a social media post.

The post included photos showing people in PRCS vests taking boxes off flatbed trucks.

Ashraf al-Qedra, the Palestinian Health Ministry spokesperson, has called for the “immediate flow” of much-needed medical supplies and fuel into the Gaza Strip.

“After the complete collapse of the healthcare system, we need an immediate flow of medical aid and fuel to restore work in our life-saving departments,” he wrote on X.

His remarks come as the WHO warned that without “vital fuel and additional health supplies”, thousands of vulnerable patients in Gaza will be at risk.

A sea attack by Hamas shows that the group is exploring “another way to accomplish their objectives”, according to Lawrence Korb, a former US assistant defence secretary.

“I think it does show how clever they are,” Korb told XEn News.

But it is also likely a reflection that Hamas is straining under the Israeli bombardment, he added.

“A lot of their ground forces have been decimated by the Israeli air strikes that have been getting more and more intense every day since October 7,” Korb said.

“I don’t know if they planned on this going on so long or if they thought the Israelis wouldn’t respond, but it seems to me there was only so much that they could stockpile that will enable them to keep fighting at the pace Israel is, because Israel is not only a top class military, but they’re getting a lot of military aid from the United States.”

A group of Middle East and North Africa experts have signed an open letter to several Western governments, including the US and UK, calling on them to push for a de-escalation in the Israel-Hamas conflict and arguing that war crimes have been committed by both parties.

The letter called into question the policies pushed forward by the Western governments it addresses, saying they had not emphasised the “moral and strategic obligation to ensure that Israel’s self-defence is characterised by international humanitarian law and leads to an end to the occupation”.

The signatories, who are associated with institutions such as the International Crisis Group, Chatham House and Cambridge University, say they are advocating “for an immediate ceasefire, the provision of humanitarian aid to all in need, and the return to political processes that can facilitate just and fair resolutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.

Hundreds of people have taken to the streets in Tel Aviv to demand that the Israeli government secure the release of captives seized by Hamas in its October 7 attack on southern Israel.

The demonstrators in Tel Aviv sang songs and held placards with pictures of those missing and feared kidnapped with the words “Bring them home now”.

See photos from the rally here.

The Israeli military has given more details on coastal fighting near the boundary between southern Israel and the northern Gaza Strip.

The military earlier said it had propelled an attack. It now says that Hamas fighters had come out “through a tunnel shaft” and that at least 10 were killed.

“Fighter jets and naval forces attacked … the shaft from which the terrorists came out and the warehouse of weapons used by the terrorists,” the military said.

Hamas’s armed wing earlier said its fighters had managed to “infiltrate” the Zikim area by sea.

International calls are growing louder for Israel to allow fuel into the Gaza Strip as healthcare facilities in the besieged enclave are collapsing.

In recent days, top UN agencies and officials have outlined just how much fuel is needed across the Gaza Strip:

• The World Health Organization says 34,000 litres of fuel delivered to four major hospitals is only enough to keep ambulances and critical hospital functions running for a little more than 24 hours.
• A UN official tells the Security Council that 400,000 litres would meet overall fuel needs in the Palestinian territory for approximately 2.5 days.

Bishara says the Israeli prime minister “is trying to prove something” with his country’s offensive in Gaza “because he has demonstrated to be a major failure”.

Here’s more from XEn News’s senior analyst:

“The fact that this [October 7 attack by Hamas] happened under his watch … [Netanyahu is] trying to move [away] from political failure and liability, to be a wartime leader.

“I think the more bloody the war, the more prolonged the war, the more the possibility he wishes that he could come out of it as some sort of a ‘war hero’ at the expense of Palestinian bloodshed.

“I think he would, because he’s proven to be quite the opportunist, you know, quite the political animal that would sacrifice anything for its own legacy.”

Israel has bombed in the vicinity of the Palestine Red Crescent headquarters and al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis, the Palestinian health society says.

The Red Crescent said the air raid in Khan Younis caused injuries and extensive damage.

More than 4,000 displaced Palestinians are seeking shelter at the hospital, it added.

XEn News’s senior analyst Marwan Bishara speaks about the purported rift in Israeli politics:

“There is some fire going on in the war cabinet and in the government in general, and they’ve been blaming each other as to why the land invasion has been delayed.

“Now, of course, for the military, it could be because they are preparing for the various war scenarios that are very complicated … and [Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu has his own issues, of course with various political pressures, especially from [US] President Biden, who wants to hear more details about the end game here, and what is the strategy of Israel in Gaza and beyond.

“My sense is that the vision will probably happen as the bombardment of Gaza achieves its goals of crippling the Palestinian society, economy, and even livelihood within the Strip, making it easier for an invading army to be able to fight the ground war.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said, “If President Biden wanted to force the Israeli government to allow Americans trapped in Gaza to evacuate, he could do so today”.

It added, “Our nation is instead actively enabling the Israeli government’s mass bombing of men, women and children in Gaza, including both American citizens who cannot evacuate because of the blockade and American citizens reportedly held hostage.”

The statement comes just hours after Kirby, a White House spokesman, told reporters that a ceasefire “only benefits Hamas” but that humanitarian pauses “ought to be considered”.

The Palestine Red Crescent says five of the trucks are carrying water, two are transporting food, and one is bringing medicine into the enclave.