Middle East crisis live: Israel orders closure of one of last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza
Head of Kamal Adwan hospital says it is ‘next to impossible’ to obey shut down order due to lack of ambulances to evacuate patients
Hello, and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and developments in the Middle East more widely.
Israel late last night ordered the closure and evacuation of one of the last hospitals still partly functioning in northern Gaza.
We currently have nearly 400 civilians inside the hospital, including babies in the neonatal unit, whose lives depend on oxygen and incubators. We cannot evacuate these patients safely without assistance, equipment, and time.
We are sending this message under heavy bombardment and direct targeting of the fuel tanks, which if hit will cause a large explosion and mass casualties of the civilians inside.
Israeli forces have carried out three consecutive attacks overnight on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 11 Palestinians, according to Al Jazeera, which said the military killed four people in two separate air raids in the so-called designated “safe zone” of al-Mawasi. Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting that four Palestinian people were killed and three others injured after Israel bombed the new camp area northwest of the al-Nuseirat refugee camp.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), Phillipe Lazzarani, said there has been in “escalation” in attacks over the past day, with more civlians reported killed and injured. In a post on X, he wrote: “Attacks on schools and hospitals have been commonplace. The world must not become numb.”
Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi is due to meet with Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, and “several Syrian officials”, later today in Damascus, Jordan’s foreign ministry said. Al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, led the Sunni Islamist rebels who swept into the Syrian capital earlier this month and forced Bashar-al Assad from power.
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