Middle East crisis: Israeli military carries out raid in West Bank city of Nablus – as it happened | Israel

• Israeli and US officials will meet in Washington on Wednesday to discuss post-war Gaza, even as Israel’s military calls the evacuation of Gaza City “inevitable” ahead of a military offensive and with no sign of a ceasefire in sight, AP reports. The meeting comes as outrage mounts over this week’s deadly Israeli strikes on a southern Gaza hospital that killed 20, including journalists and emergency responders.

• Israeli tanks pushed into a new area on the edge of Gaza City overnight, destroying houses and prompting residents to flee, witnesses told Reuters. Tanks late on Tuesday entered into the Ebad-Alrahman neighbourhood on the northern edge of Gaza City and shelled houses, wounding several people and forcing many others, who had been taken by surprise, to move deeper into Gaza’s largest city, residents said.

• Children under 15 years old made up almost a third of outpatients treated for wounds in field hospitals run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Gaza last year, statistics published in The Lancet reveal. The figures were released by MSF in correspondence with the respected medical journal and come from six health facilities in Gaza supported by the international medical NGO. The facilities are predominantly in the south and centre of the devastated territory.

• Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon said on Wednesday that there will be more information in the “next few days” on a strike on Nasser hospital in Gaza on Monday, that killed at least 20 people, including five journalists. “We’re still looking into the details of that incident, and so that in the next few days we will have more information about that,” Danon told reporters.

• The Israeli military has said the country will add two “humanitarian aid distribution centres” in the southern Gaza Strip to receive Palestinians it expects to relocate there when the military carries out its planned takeover of Gaza City, Reuters reports. It said in a statement that the work would be completed in coming days, replacing the centre in the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood and bringing the number of distribution centres to a total of five.

• The Israeli military on Wednesday launched an operation involving dozens of soldiers and armoured vehicles in the old city of Nablus, in the northern occupied West Bank. The Israeli military confirmed to the agency that it was conducting an operation, without specifying its purpose.

• Residents of the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City have spoken of heavy Israeli bombardment overnight. It comes after defence minister Israel Katz vowed on Friday to destroy Gaza City if Hamas does not agree to end the war on Israel’s terms.

• Israeli police said on Wednesday that security forces seized roughly 1.5 million shekels ($447,000) of “terror funds” during a raid in the occupied West Bank a day earlier. Israeli forces targeted a currency exchange in Ramallah on Tuesday, leaving dozens of Palestinians wounded, according to the Red Crescent.

• Pope Leo made a “strong appeal” to the global community on Wednesday to end the nearly two-year conflict between Israel and Hamas, calling for a permanent ceasefire, release of hostages and the provision of humanitarian aid.

• Hamas on Tuesday rejected an Israeli statement saying a strike on a Gaza hospital that killed several journalists was aimed at a camera operated by the militant group, calling the accusation “baseless”. The Israeli military on Tuesday said its forces were targeting a camera operated by Hamas in two strikes that killed five journalists at a hospital a day earlier, triggering a wave of international condemnation. Monday’s strike in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis killed at least 20 people, including the five reporters who worked for Al Jazeera, the Associated Press and Reuters, among other outlets.

• Hamas denied on Tuesday that any of the Palestinians killed in Israel’s attack on Gaza’s Nasser hospital on Monday were militants. Earlier, Israel said it had killed six militants in the attack but it was investigating how civilians, including five journalists, were killed. “We can confirm that the Reuters and AP journalists were not a target of the strike,” military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told Reuters on Tuesday.

• The UN has demanded that Israel’s investigations into unlawful killings in Gaza, including its “double tap” bombing of Nasser hospital, yield results and ensure accountability. “There needs to be justice,” Thameen Al-Kheetan, the spokesperson for the UN’s human rights office, told reporters on Tuesday in Geneva. He added that the number of journalists killed in Gaza raised many questions about the targeting of media workers.

• Tens of thousands of people took part in demonstrations across Israel on Tuesday, blocking highways on a “day of disruption” that aimed to push Benjamin Netanyahu into agreeing a deal to end the war and calling off plans to attack Gaza City. Relatives of hostages led the biggest march and rally in Tel Aviv, while in Jerusalem hundreds of people gathered outside the prime minister’s office as the security cabinet met to discuss the war. There were dozens of other protests around the country, including on the main highway to the northern city of Haifa and inside Ben Gurion airport.

• Lebanese state media said US envoy Tom Barrack cut short a visit to the south on Wednesday amid protests in two planned stops against US pressure to disarm Hezbollah, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. The official National News Agency (NNA) reported that Barrack arrived by helicopter at a Lebanese army barracks in Marjayoun near the border, with soldiers deploying in the area.

• France, Britain and Germany remain ready to trigger a snapback of UN sanctions against Iran, a German foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday, Reuters reports. The comments came after the trio of countries met with Iran on Tuesday to try to revive diplomacy over its nuclear programme.

• Eight Syrian soldiers were killed in Israeli drone strikes in the Damascus countryside, state-run El Ekhbariya TV reported early on Wednesday. Syria and Israel are engaged in US-mediated talks on easing tensions in southern Syria, with Damascus seeking a security deal that could open the door to wider political negotiations.

Ten Palestinians have died from starvation in last 24 hours, says Gaza health ministry

William Christou

Ten Palestinians including two children have died from starvation in the last 24 hours, the health authorities in Gaza said on Wednesday, as Pope Leo XIV demanded that Israel stop its “collective punishment” of the population in the besieged territory.

At least 313 people have died from hunger, including 119 children, since the war in Gaza began and Israel intensified its siege on the Palestinian territory. Last week a UN-backed monitoring body confirmed that Gaza is in the throes of famine, warning that without more aid increasing numbers of people would lose access to food.

As humanitarian conditions continue to worsen the pope called for a suspension of hostilities.

“I beg for a permanent ceasefire to be reached, the safe entry of humanitarian aid to be facilitated and humanitarian law to be fully respected,” Leo said. He referred to international law and its “prohibition of collective punishment, indiscriminate use of force and the forced displacement of the population”.

A third of outpatients treated for wounds at MSF’s Gaza hospitals in 2024 were children, figures show

Jason Burke

Children under 15 years old made up almost a third of outpatients treated for wounds in field hospitals run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Gaza last year, statistics published in The Lancet reveal.

The figures were released by MSF in correspondence with the respected medical journal and come from six health facilities in Gaza supported by the international medical NGO. The facilities are predominantly in the south and centre of the devastated territory.

More than 90,000 outpatient consultations involving wounds were carried out at the facilities in 2024. Bombs, shelling or shooting was involved in just under half of these, MSF said.

The death toll in the Israeli offensive launched following the Hamas raid into Israel in October 2023 has risen to more than 62,000, according to a count by the ministry of health in Gaza that is used by much of the UN, and which the British government says is a “reasonable figure”. Of these, more than half are women or children.

The proportion could be higher. Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza have been civilians, the Guardian revealed last week.

Israeli officials say they take all “feasible” precautions to avoid civilian casualties and accuse Hamas of using civilians as human shields.

The Israeli military has said the country will add two “humanitarian aid distribution centres” in the southern Gaza Strip to receive Palestinians it expects to relocate there when the military carries out its planned takeover of Gaza City, Reuters reports.

It said in a statement that the work would be completed in coming days, replacing the centre in the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood and bringing the number of distribution centres to a total of five.

Food in Gaza is now distributed by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), whose sites have been described by UN officials as “death traps”. Previous Guardian reporting described the dangers faced by Palestinians seeking food from GHF sites.

The Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday 10 more people had died of malnutrition and starvation, raising deaths from such causes to 313 people, including 119 children, since the Gaza war started nearly two years ago. Israel disputes fatality figures by the health ministry in the Hamas-run strip.

Lebanese state media said US envoy Tom Barrack cut short a visit to the south on Wednesday amid protests in two planned stops against US pressure to disarm Hezbollah, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.

The official National News Agency (NNA) reported that Barrack arrived by helicopter at a Lebanese army barracks in Marjayoun near the border, with soldiers deploying in the area.

The news agency later reported that the envoy had cancelled planned stops in nearby Khiam, which was pummelled by Israel during its latest hostilities with Hezbollah, and in the coastal city of Tyre.

A spokesperson told AFP the US embassy did not comment on officials’ schedules for security reasons.

An AFP correspondent in Khiam saw a group of residents, some waving Hezbollah flags or holding pictures of fighters killed in the conflict, demonstrating against Barrack.

Some were standing on a Star of David that had been drawn on the road in blue, near the words in Arabic “America is the great Satan”, and “Barak is animal” written in English.

The last was a reference to comments by the US envoy at a Beirut press conference on Tuesday which sparked an outcry in Lebanon.

Barak told journalists to “act civilised”, adding: “The moment that this starts becoming chaotic, like animalistic, we’re gone.”

Bilal Kashmar, an official from the southern municipalities union, said dozens of people had demonstrated in Tyre on Wednesday against Barak’s expected visit and Washington’s “biased policies”.

In an update to earlier comments by Pope Leo XIV, he said that Israel must stop the “collective punishment” and forced displacement of Palestinian people in Gaza as he pleaded for an immediate and permanent ceasefire amid preparations by Israel for a new military offensive.

Leo was interrupted twice by applause as he read aloud his latest appeal for an end to the 22-month war during his weekly general audience attended by thousands of people in the Vatican’s auditorium.

History’s first American pope also called for the release of hostages taken by Hamas in southern Israel – 50 of them remain in Gaza – and for both sides and international powers to end the war “which has caused so much terror, destruction and death”.

“I beg for a permanent ceasefire to be reached, the safe entry of humanitarian aid to be facilitated and humanitarian law to be fully respected,” Leo said. He cited international law requiring the obligation to protect civilians and “the prohibition of collective punishment, indiscriminate use of force and the forced displacement of the population”.

• US special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday that president Donald Trump would chair a meeting on Gaza at the White House on Wednesday and added that Washington expected Israel’s war in the Palestinian territory to be settled by the end of the year. The US state department separately said secretary of state Marco Rubio will meet Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar in Washington on Wednesday, which is expected to take place at 3.15pm ET (7.15pm UK time).

• Israeli tanks pushed into a new area on the edge of Gaza City overnight, destroying houses and prompting residents to flee, witnesses told Reuters. Tanks late on Tuesday entered into the Ebad-Alrahman neighbourhood on the northern edge of Gaza City and shelled houses, wounding several people and forcing many others, who had been taken by surprise, to move deeper into Gaza’s largest city, residents said.

• The Israeli military on Wednesday launched an operation involving dozens of soldiers and armoured vehicles in the old city of Nablus, in the northern occupied West Bank. The Israeli military confirmed to the agency that it was conducting an operation, without specifying its purpose.

• Residents of the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City have spoken of heavy Israeli bombardment overnight. It comes after defence minister Israel Katz vowed on Friday to destroy Gaza City if Hamas does not agree to end the war on Israel’s terms.

• Israeli police said on Wednesday that security forces seized roughly 1.5 million shekels ($447,000) of “terror funds” during a raid in the occupied West Bank a day earlier. Israeli forces targeted a currency exchange in Ramallah on Tuesday, leaving dozens of Palestinians wounded, according to the Red Crescent.

• Pope Leo made a “strong appeal” to the global community on Wednesday to end the nearly two-year conflict between Israel and Hamas, calling for a permanent ceasefire, release of hostages and the provision of humanitarian aid.

• Hamas on Tuesday rejected an Israeli statement saying a strike on a Gaza hospital that killed several journalists was aimed at a camera operated by the militant group, calling the accusation “baseless”. The Israeli military on Tuesday said its forces were targeting a camera operated by Hamas in two strikes that killed five journalists at a hospital a day earlier, triggering a wave of international condemnation. Monday’s strike in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis killed at least 20 people, including the five reporters who worked for Al Jazeera, the Associated Press and Reuters, among other outlets.

• Hamas denied on Tuesday that any of the Palestinians killed in Israel’s attack on Gaza’s Nasser hospital on Monday were militants. Earlier, Israel said it had killed six militants in the attack but it was investigating how civilians, including five journalists, were killed. “We can confirm that the Reuters and AP journalists were not a target of the strike,” military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told Reuters on Tuesday.

• The UN has demanded that Israel’s investigations into unlawful killings in Gaza, including its “double tap” bombing of Nasser hospital, yield results and ensure accountability. “There needs to be justice,” Thameen Al-Kheetan, the spokesperson for the UN’s human rights office, told reporters on Tuesday in Geneva. He added that the number of journalists killed in Gaza raised many questions about the targeting of media workers.

• Tens of thousands of people took part in demonstrations across Israel on Tuesday, blocking highways on a “day of disruption” that aimed to push Benjamin Netanyahu into agreeing a deal to end the war and calling off plans to attack Gaza City. Relatives of hostages led the biggest march and rally in Tel Aviv, while in Jerusalem hundreds of people gathered outside the prime minister’s office as the security cabinet met to discuss the war. There were dozens of other protests around the country, including on the main highway to the northern city of Haifa and inside Ben Gurion airport.

• Six Syrian soldiers were killed in Israeli drone strikes in the Damascus countryside, state-run El Ekhbariya TV reported early on Wednesday. Syria and Israel are engaged in US-mediated talks on easing tensions in southern Syria, with Damascus seeking a security deal that could open the door to wider political negotiations.