US President Biden says Al-Shifa hospital "must be protected" as fighting rages close to the facility in Gaza City
- His comments came as UK PM Rishi Sunak urged Israel to do everything possible to protect civilians in Gaza and called for an urgent humanitarian pause
- Israel has accused Hamas of running a command centre under Al-Shifa - which the hospital and Hamas deny
- The hospital, Gaza's biggest, is "nearly a cemetery", the World Health Organization has warned, with bodies piling up inside and outside.
- Dozens of premature babies and 45 kidney patients needing dialysis can't be treated properly due to a lack of power, says the UN
- The Israeli military says it's in the process of "coordinating the transfer of incubators from a hospital in Israel to Gaza"
- Israel began striking Gaza after the Hamas attacks on 7 October, in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage
- The Hamas-run health ministry says more than 11,000 people have been killed in Gaza since - of whom more than 4,500 were children.
In the last hour I've spoken to some of the last remaining journalists inside Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital.
One told me the hospital is preparing a mass grave for about 170 bodies in a small courtyard of the hospital. He witnessed around 30 bodies being put into the grave.
He says moving from one building to another at the hospital is a risk, and even burying the bodies is risky because tanks surround the facility.
As I reported earlier, tanks were yesterday on three sides of the hospital complex - but as of overnight, they're now close to the main gate.
My source says the hospital is not dealing directly with Israeli officials because that’s considered too risky. Staff want a third party to intervene, he says, and deal with negotiations for the fuel to power the hospital.
The Israeli military says it is once again encouraging Palestinians in northern Gaza to move south via its designated "safe road", the Salah al-Din highway. The evacuation route first opened on 5 November.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been telling people to move south for weeks, to avoid the heavier fighting in the north.
Following the announcement last week that Israel would begin enforcing daily four-hour military pauses, the IDF told people to "take advantage" of this in specific neighbourhoods so they can reach the designated road to move south.
The UN estimates around 200,000 people have, so far, moved to southern Gaza using the Salah al-Din route. Hundreds of thousands of people, who are either unwilling or unable to move to the south, remain in the north.
Seven Palestinians were killed in the West Bank’s Tulkarem refugee camp this morning in clashes with the Israeli military, the head of the local hospital confirmed to the BBC.
Three were killed by live ammunition and four by shrapnel injuries from a blast, said Dr Amin Khader, who is also a surgeon at Thabet Thabet hospital.
He said 12 people were wounded, four critically, and some were still in the operating theatre.
The Israeli army and police said in a statement that their forces came under fire and killed several Palestinian gunmen in return fire.
A local journalist at the scene told me that the clashes were still going on, roughly 100m from the Thabet Thabet hospital.
"I can still hear gunfire and some explosions, I don’t know if it's Israeli or Palestinian. There is a lot of light ammunition fire," he said.
He said the IDF had demolished streets and buildings in the area and were present in the camp with armoured vehicles.
Footage published by local Palestinians earlier this morning showed what appeared to be Israeli bulldozers ripping up streets.
According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, at least 180 West Bank Palestinians have been killed since 7 October by Israeli settlers or in clashes with the IDF.
MORE DETAILS AT: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67400490
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