At least 60 reported killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza, including on hospital in Khan Younis
Al Jazeera reports that at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza on Wednesday morning. It cited local medical sources.
Strikes hit the European hospital complex near Khan Younis and left large craters gouged into the ground and cracks in the courtyard outside the European Hospital complex, images from the AFP news agency show. A damaged bus was lodged in a hole in the road.
“Everyone inside the hospital – patients and wounded alike – was running in fear, some on crutches, others screaming for their children, while others were being dragged on beds,” Amro Tabash, a local photojournalist, told AFP.
Israeli media reported that the target of the strikes on the European Hospital complex was Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, brother of the group’s previous leader, Yahya Sinwar, who was killed in an Israeli operation in October 2024. Israel’s military claimed to have hit what it called a “Hamas command centre” beneath the hospital.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals and other civilian buildings as operational bases, which Hamas has denied.
Key events
The UK prime minister Keir Starmer has said he “fundamentally” believes that the “pathway to a two-state solution is the only way for settled and lasting peace in the Middle East”.
During weekly questioning in parliament, Starmer was asked whether he would “act now and pick up the phone to President Trump for a joint plan to recognise Palestine and get food, water and medicine into Gaza?” The question was posed by the Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, who also said: “Rather than ending this crisis, the [Benjamin] Netanyahu government is planning to seize all Gaza indefinitely.”
Starmer replied that “the situation in Gaza is simply intolerable and getting worse”.
He added: “We are working with other leaders urgently to bring about rapid and unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza which is desperately needed, obviously alongside the release of hostages, and to get back to a ceasefire.
“And that work is going on through my team 24/7. I do believe that that is the initial action that needs to be taken but I still fundamentally believe that however remote it may seem at the moment, the pathway to a two-state solution is the only way for settled and lasting peace in the Middle East, and we will continue with our allies to pursue that path.”
Donald Trump has denied claims Israel has been sidelined during his trip to the Middle East. The US president said that good US relations with Gulf countries would be good for Israel.
“This is good for Israel,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “Having a relationship like I have with these countries … I think it’s very good for Israel.”
The IDF has said it carried out a drone strike in southern Lebanon’s Qaaqaait al-Jisr earlier today (see post here). Israeli media are reporting that the strike killed the head of Hezbollah’s forces in the Qabrikha area.
The Guardian has not confirmed this information.
Reuters, citing local medics, is reporting more details of this morning’s attacks on Gaza by Israel.
Medics said most of the dead, including women and children, were killed in a barrage of Israeli airstrikes that targeted houses in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza.
“Some victims are still on the road and under the rubble where rescue and civil emergency teams can’t reach (them),” the health ministry statement said.
Reuters reports Israel’s military had no immediate comment.
Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting 70 people have been killed and “dozens of injuries have arrived at hospitals since dawn today” as a result of Israeli airstrikes.
The Hamas-led health ministry in Gaza has issued updated casualty figures, putting the total death toll in Gaza from the Israeli assault at 52,928 since 7 October 2023. It claims that 2,799 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the resumption of fighting on 18 March. Israel launched the assault after the surprise attack by Hamas inside southern Israel during which over 1,000 people
Figures issued by the health ministry in Gaza have not distinguished between combatants and non-combatants, and have not been independently verified by journalists.
Media in Lebanon reports that an Israeli drone targeted a car in the country’s southern Nabatieh region.
William Christou in Beirut has this report on Donald Trump’s latest round of diplomacy in the Middle East, where the US president has urged Syria to join the Abraham Accords and normalise its relations with Syria.
My colleague Tom Ambrose has been following events on Trump’s Middle East trip in our US politics live blog today.
The exact death toll in Gaza this morning from Israeli strikes remains unclear, with different sources quoting different figures. Al Jazeera has put the number of dead as at least 65, Reuters is reporting at least 50 Palestinians killed, and Associated Press is reporting that at least 22 children are among those killed. These are some of the latest photos sent from Gaza over the newswires.
A White House spokesperson has said that in their meeting, US president Donald Trump urged Syria’s president Ahmed al-Sharaa to sign up to the Abraham Accords, which would normalise Syria’s relations with Israel.
In recent months Israel has repeatedly carried out airstrikes inside Syria, and staged an incursion into Syrian territory near the disputed Golan Heights, which Israel seized and occupied in 1967.
Associated Press, citing local hospitals, reports that at least 22 children were killed in Gaza overnight Tuesday and early Wednesday by Israeli airstrikes.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met online with US president Donald Trump, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa, Reuters reports, citing Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu news agency.
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme in the UK, the BBC News international editor Jeremy Bowen said that his assessment would be that Israel’s military campaign had left Hamas “broken as a coherent military organization”, but that Israel faced years of insurgency ahead.
He told listeners:
What has happened now is that instead of that coherent military organization, there is an insurgency going on against the Israelis. And insurgency history shows very clearly that will go on as long as there are mostly young men who are prepared to take, often, light weapons and move against the people they see as their invaders, oppressors and occupiers.
Bowen also reflected on criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu’s tactics within Israel, telling listeners that critics say a lengthy war “would quite suit him”.
Bowen said the criticism is that “he wants to prolong the war, not to make Israel safer, not to get the hostages back. In fact, hostage families are absolutely appalled that they’re talking about a new offensive there, but because when the war goes on, he keeps his hard, ultra nationalist right wing happy, and therefore he stays in power.
“He puts off the day of reckoning about his part in security failures leading to 7 October, and also then the emphasis will go back on to his corruption trial, which could end up with him serving a jail sentence, if he’s found guilty.”
Al Jazeera has updated the latest casualty figures from Gaza, citing local medical sources. It reports “At least 65 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since the early hours of this morning.”
Al Jazeera has been banned from operating inside Israel by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
In another portion of an interview on BBC radio in the UK, Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer sought to put some distance between Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy on Gaza and statements made by ministers in his coalition government.
It was put to Mencer that defense minister Israel Katz has previously said a food blockade on Gaza was the main lever to use against Hamas, while finance minister Bezalel Smotrich had said Gaza would be “entirely destroyed.”
Radio 4 Today programme presenter Nick Robinson asked Mencer “Can you say this morning, on behalf of the Israeli prime minister, for whom you speak, that the starvation of people in Gaza is not deliberate policy by Israel to win the war?”
Mencer said that if that was the case, why would Israel have sent aid into Gaza, then continued, saying:
I’m speaking on behalf of the prime minister. We are a broad government. There are many members of the government, but the prime minister, as the name suggests, it is led by Benjamin Netanyahu. He sets policy.
And I can share with you that Israel faces a moral paradox right now. It’s been created by Hamas. We have an opportunity to strike every military target, but when we do, we get condemned, you know, or we don’t strike them, and we reward the use of human shields.
Hamas are deliberately embedding its commanders underneath hospitals, knowing that any Israeli airstrike, however legal and precise, will generate headlines, as they have on your programme today, which they can weaponise. It’s a test textbook case of asymmetric warfare. The IDF is punished for acting, and Hamas is rewarding for hiding.
Israeli government spokesperson: military pressure on Hamas will increase ‘exponentially’
An Israeli government spokesperson has said Israel will increase military pressure on Hamas “exponentially” in order to secure the release of hostages still held in Gaza.
David Mencer said that Israeli negotiators were working on Doha to try to agree the Witkoff framework for a deal with Hamas, but “unfortunately, the terror organization has refused to accept it.”
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Mencer said:
Now look this Witkoff proposal is a phased deal. It means that Hamas must release hostages.
But the reason why we have put this military threat, and the reason why our hostage was released over the last couple of days was because we put this military threat on to Hamas now.
Hamas, who are a genocidal death cult … they don’t care about their own civilians. They only wish more Gazans were killed.
Hamas hate to lose ground. They hate to lose physical ground. When Hamas stopped releasing hostages, we created a plan to increase the pressure, and it will increase exponentially.
Now we have called up tens of thousands of our soldiers precisely to put pressure on Hamas to release our hostages. This war will end. I’ll tell you when it will end when Hamas are no longer in power.
During often terse exchanges with presenter Nick Robinson, Mencer also sought to cast doubt on any reporting coming out of Gaza. He claimed “many of these so called journalists in Gaza are Hamas operatives simply wearing press vests,” and asserted that “real journalists enter with the IDF.”
Mencer also claimed that plenty of aid had been sent to Gaza, saying Israel had sent enough food aid to fill Wembley Stadium in London to the brim 80 times over.
US president Donald Trump will meet Syria’s president Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, after the sudden announcement the US would lift all sanctions on the Islamist-led government that has replaced the Bashar al-Assad regime.
Sharaa is a former al-Qaida commander who led troops that seized control of Syria from Assad in December. Sharaa renounced ties to al-Qaida in 2016.
At least 60 reported killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza, including on hospital in Khan Younis
Al Jazeera reports that at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza on Wednesday morning. It cited local medical sources.
Strikes hit the European hospital complex near Khan Younis and left large craters gouged into the ground and cracks in the courtyard outside the European Hospital complex, images from the AFP news agency show. A damaged bus was lodged in a hole in the road.
“Everyone inside the hospital – patients and wounded alike – was running in fear, some on crutches, others screaming for their children, while others were being dragged on beds,” Amro Tabash, a local photojournalist, told AFP.
Israeli media reported that the target of the strikes on the European Hospital complex was Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, brother of the group’s previous leader, Yahya Sinwar, who was killed in an Israeli operation in October 2024. Israel’s military claimed to have hit what it called a “Hamas command centre” beneath the hospital.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals and other civilian buildings as operational bases, which Hamas has denied.
Welcome and opening summary …
Good morning from London, and welcome to the Guardian’s rolling coverage of the conflict in the Middle East. Here are the latest headlines …
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Israel’s military has issued evacuation warnings to three seaports in Yemen including Ras Issa, Hodeidah and Salif, claiming they are being used by the Houthi. Earlier the IDF said it had intercepted a missile aimed at Israel from Yemen’s territory
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Al Jazeera reports that at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza on Wednesday morning, according to medical sources in the area. Strikes hit the European hospital complex near Khan Younis
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Palestinian news agency Wafa reports a 17-year-old has been shot and wounded by Israeli security forces in Abwein in the occupied West Bank
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US president Donald Trump will meet Syria’s president Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday before heading to Qatar
Israel issues evacuation orders for three ports in Yemen
The Israeli military issued warnings on Wednesday to evacuate three seaports in Yemen including Ras Issa, Hodeidah and Salif, Reuters reports.
The army claimed the ports were being used by the Iran-aligned Houthi group.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen towards its territory.
US president Donald Trump has previously said that the US and Yemen’s Houthis had come to a ceasefire agreement which would stop attacks on shipping in the region, however the Houthis said they will continue to fire missiles and drones towards Israel.
