Israel accused of deliberately striking near Gaza hospital sheltering 14,000 people
The Palestinian Red Crescent has accused the Israeli military of deliberately striking an area close to the al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip
229 hostages are being held in Gaza, the Israeli ministry reports. Four have been released.
The Palestinian death toll has passed 8,000 (most of them women and children) according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.
More than 1,400 people died in Israel during attacks by Hamas, including at least 310 soldiers, according to the Israeli government.
The Palestinian Red Crescent has accused the Israeli military of deliberately striking an area close to a hospital in Gaza where around 14,000 people are sheltering.
The group said it received warnings from Israeli authorities to immediately evacuate the al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip on Sunday.
The Israeli military has not yet commented on the hospital evacuation order, but say they are targeting networks of Hamas tunnels that lie underneath hospitals, schools and mosques in Gaza.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said the hospital's intensive care unit is predominantly occupied by children injured in the latest airstrikes.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it's impossible to evacuate patients without endangering their lives.
Overnight thousands of people broke into Gaza aid warehouses to take food and other "basic survival items," the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said.
Thomas White, the agency’s director in Gaza, said that the break-in was “a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down” after three weeks of war between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
As the death toll from the conflict soars, Save the Children said the number of children killed in the blockaded Gaza Strip since 7 October has exceeded the number of children killed in armed conflict every year globally since 2019.
In a statement, the charity cited numbers from the Gaza Health Ministry of at least 3,195 children killed in the conflict this month. It also mentioned the deaths of 33 children in the occupied West Bank and 29 children killed in Israel.
Tanks and infantry continued to push into Gaza over the weekend as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a "second stage" in the conflict.
Israel’s military, which has said repeatedly that it is not at war with civilians in Gaza but with Hamas, dropped leaflets on the Gaza Strip on Sunday asking civilians to "surrender."
Written in Arabic, the leaflets told civilians to lay down all their weapons, put their hands up, wave white flags and follow instructions from the Israeli military.
"Hamas leaders are exploiting you," the flyers read: "They and their families are in safe places, while you die in vain."
The widening ground offensive comes as Israel hits Gaza from air, land and sea.
The bombardment - described by Gaza residents as the most intense of the war - knocked out most communications on Friday, cutting off the 2.3 million people living there from the world.
For more than 24 hours, people in the besieged Gaza Strip were not able to communicate with each other or seek help.
Communications were restored to many people in Gaza early Sunday, according to local telecoms companies, Internet-access advocacy group NetBlocks.org and confirmation on the ground.
Many residents, especially in the northern half of the strip, were not able to call ambulances to transfer injured people to hospitals or to seek help for those trapped under the rubble of bombed houses.
An aid worker in norther Gaza said they witnessed "the most vicious attacks" by Israel during the communication blackout.
"There were aerial bombardments, naval fire, and mortar fire altogether. I have no idea what the type of bombs that were used," said Mahmoud Shalabi, senior program manager with Medical Aid for Palestinians, who lives in Beit Lahia.
Israeli airstrikes have hit areas around Gaza’s largest hospital, residents say, destroying roads leading to the facility, which is a major shelter for Palestinians fleeing Israeli bombardment.
The Israeli military has renewed allegations that top Hamas leaders and operatives have built underground bunkers below Shifa hospital and accused the militant group of using civilians as human shields.
Israel has not presented evidence, and Hamas denies the claims.
“Reaching the hospital has become increasingly difficult,” Mahmoud al-Sawah, who was sheltering in the hospital, said over the phone on Sunday. “It seems they want to cut off the area.”
Rachel Townsend reports from Tel Aviv as the Palestinian Red Crescent say that the Al-Quds hospital has received calls demanding its evacuation
The Israeli military struck targets in Lebanon and Syria on Sunday after projectiles were fired into Israel.
Clashes have been taking place across Israel's tense border with Lebanon since the onset of the Hamas-Israel conflict, mostly contained to several border towns.
But on Sunday, rockets were fired from Syria as well, falling into open Israeli territory, the military said. It fired back at the site where the rockets were launched.
Israel's military also provided video of multiple strikes inside Lebanon, showing explosions erupting among trees and missiles hitting a building on a hillside. The military said it shot down a drone and killed a militant who tried to approach the border fence.
On Sunday evening, Hamas said its forces in Lebanon had fired 16 missiles at the northern Israeli town of Nahariya. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, also announced it had fired missiles at several sites across the border Sunday afternoon, including one that it said had hit an Israeli infantry unit near the town of Birket Risha and caused “confirmed injuries.”
UK government has not set 'red lines' in Israel's fight against Hamas
A Cabinet minister said the UK government had not set any so-called “red lines” in Israel’s fight back against Hamas in Gaza.
Science Secretary Michelle Donelan said: “I don’t think we need to do that because there are already structures in place, there is international law that is well established.”
Asked whether the UK government had told Israel that it had pledged its support “come what may”, Ms Donelan said: “That is categorically not what we’ve said."
Speaking on Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme, she said: “The prime minister has stood there and said he backs Israel’s right to defend itself, just like we would expect our own right to defend ourselves were the shoe to be on the other foot, but that must be done within international law.
“And the protection of civilians must be a priority. We’ve seen Israel telling the Gazan people to go to the south, we’ve also seen Hamas telling them not to move.”
Ms Donelan said Hamas has been using the Palestinian people as “human shields”, adding: “It is very difficult to get to Hamas without hurting innocent civilians.
“We of course though have said that the priority is to try and avoid doing that because we don’t want to see any loss of life.”
Labour will "continue engaging" with shadow cabinet members rebelling over the party's position on the Israel-Hamas conflict rather than sacking them, Peter Kyle suggested.
Asked about the debate within the party, the shadow science secretary said: "I think the fact that we have a vigorous debate within our party, as we are doing as a country, and as we are doing actually as a globe right now, reflects a strength, because we have a leader that has channelled that and turned it into a policy that is in step with all of our international partners.
"So it is a strength of our leadership, certainly not a weakness of our party."
He added: "People are calling for a ceasefire. We are calling for a pause. We can dance on the head of a pin about what the nature of a ceasefire is..."
Want a quick and expert briefing on the biggest news stories? Listen to our latest podcasts to find out What You Need To Know...