Region

ISMAILIA, Egypt (AFP) — A Turkish vessel carrying materials for field hospitals arrived Monday in Egypt's port of El Arish near the Rafah border crossing with the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, a port official said.

It is the first such aid vessel to arrive in Egypt since war broke out on October 7. A Turkish health official told AFP that the vessel was carrying "materials, generators, ambulances to establish eight field hospitals".

The Turkish official added that Ankara had requested Cairo's approval to build the field hospitals in El Arish, which lies about 40 kilometres  from the Rafah border, the only crossing to Gaza not controlled by Israel.

"We received the green light from Egyptian authorities. We will set up these hospitals to the areas shown by the Egyptian authorities," the official said.

The delivery comes as Hamas government officials said all hospitals in northern Gaza were “out of service” amid fuel shortages as a result of fighting with Israeli forces.

The Hamas government’s Deputy Health Minister Youssef Abu Rish said the death toll inside Al Shifa rose to 27 adult intensive care patients and seven babies since the weekend as the facility suffered fuel shortages.

OCCUPIIED JERUSALEM — The United Nations said several people have been killed and wounded in strikes on a UN facility in Gaza City, where hundreds of Palestinians have taken refuge to escape the war.

"The shelling has reportedly resulted in a significant number of deaths and injuries," the United Nations Development Programme said in a statement issued late Saturday.

"The ongoing tragedy of death and injury to civilians ensnared in this conflict is unacceptable and must stop."

In a separate incident, AFPTV footage showed a crater in the middle of a compound of a school run by the UN agency for supporting Palestinians (UNRWA) in Beit Lahia in north Gaza.

Thousands of people displaced by the war had taken refuge in the school.

Israel has been bombing targets across the Gaza Strip since Hamas fighters carried out a surprise attack on southern Israeli border on October 7.

The ministry has not given updated casualty figures for 48 hours, saying it has been unable to establish contact with hospitals.

It said dozens of bodies are scattered on the streets while ambulances have been unable to reach the casualties due to intense fighting and bombings.

UNRWA announced on Friday that more than 100 of its employees had died in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war.

ISTANBUL — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday called for pressure on the United States to stop Israel's offensive in Gaza, but said there would be no agreement unless Washington accepted the enclave as Palestinian land.

Erdogan returned from a summit on Saturday of Arab and Muslim leaders in the Saudi capital Riyadh, which condemned Israeli forces' "barbaric actions" in Gaza without approving concrete punitive measures.

He is due to visit Germany on Friday and plans to travel to Egypt and host Iran's president in the coming weeks.

"We should hold talks with Egypt and the Gulf countries, and pressure the United States," Erdogan told Turkish reporters on board his return flight from Riyadh.

"The US should increase its pressure on Israel. The West should increase pressure on Israel... It's vital for us to secure a ceasefire," he said.

Erdogan, who was on a trip to a northeastern Turkish village when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Ankara on November 5, did not rule out a meeting with President Joe Biden.

"The most important country that needs to be involved is the United States, which has influence on Israel," Erdogan said.

But he said he would not call Biden.

Blinken "has just been here [in Turkey]. I guess Biden will host us from now on. It would not be suitable for me to call Biden," he said.

Erdogan said the US must accept Gaza as Palestinian land.

"We cannot agree with Biden if he approaches [the conflict] by seeing Gaza as the land of occupying settlers or Israel, rather than the land of the Palestinian people," he said.

In another speech in Istanbul on Sunday, Erdogan vented fury at Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in comments broadcast live on Turkish television.

"Hey Netanyahu, these are your good days, more different days are awaiting you... Netanyahu you should know that you're leaving," Erdogan said, after previously labelling the Israeli leader "no longer someone we can talk to".

Erdogan will meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz next week.

Turkey is technically a candidate for eventual EU membership and, even if this seems a distant prospect, Erdogan’s portrayal of Hamas fighters as “liberators”, which differs sharply from the bloc’s, has caused unease.

It also stands in stark contrast to the position taken by Berlin, the EU’s most populous member.

“The European Union thinks exactly the same as Israel regarding Hamas,” Erdogan said on the plane.

“I see Hamas as a political party that won the elections in Palestine. I don’t look at it the same way they do,” he added.

Erdogan repeated his call for an international conference to resolve the conflict.

“Nothing can serve peace more than a meeting of all regional actors including warring sides,” he said.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli fighter jets pounded Hizbollah hideouts in southern Lebanon with air strikes on Sunday, after an incoming anti-tank missile wounded Israeli civilians near the border, the army said.

The Israeli forces said "a number of civilians were wounded" in the anti-tank missile strike near the village of Dovev, just 800km from the frontier with Lebanon.

In response, "fighter jets struck a number of Hizbollah targets", the army said.

Iran-backed group Hizbollah claimed responsibility and said it had fired on an Israeli team installing "eavesdropping and spying devices" near the border.

Since October 7 Israel has also traded fire with militant groups in southern Lebanon on a near-daily basis.

In addition to Hizbollah, Hamas’s Lebanese branch has launched attacks into southern Israel in recent weeks.

Overnight, a drone also hit another group in Lebanon that the army said was attempting to launch an anti-tank missile towards Israel.

Israel has evacuated tens of thousands of residents from communities in the north since the October 7.

Israeli leaders have warned Hizbollah against launching a full-scale attack on Israel, saying it could suffer a similar fate to besieged Gaza if it enters the war.

Israel and Hizbollah fought a month-long war in 2006.

GAZA STRIP, Occupied Palestine — Gaza hospitals reported being under constant fire and running on nearly exhausted supplies Saturday as Israel rejected key allies' condemnation of a rising civilian death toll in the Hamas-controlled territory.

The director of the besieged Palestinian territory's largest hospital, Al Shifa, said on Saturday the compound was struck repeatedly overnight and lost power for hours after its generator was hit.

"We received calls about dozens of dead and hundreds wounded in air and artillery strikes, but our ambulances weren't able to go out because of gunfire," said hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya.

Gaza health ministry said dozens of premature babies at Al Shifa compound were at risk of dying because the lack of generator fuel meant their incubators could be shut down on Saturday as fighting raged.

They added one of the babies had died, and one person was killed and several others wounded in a strike on Al Shifa early Saturday.

The suffering in Gaza has prompted growing calls for a halt in five weeks of fighting in order to protect civilian lives and allow humanitarian aid into the densely populated territory.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Israel had the right to defend itself but urged it to stop strikes on civilians in Gaza: “These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed.”

The ministry says Israeli fighting has killed more than 11,000 people, also mostly civilians and thousands of them children.

‘Far too many’ deaths 

Concern over the civilian toll has also come from staunch Israel ally Washington, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying Friday: “Far too many Palestinians have been killed.”

The conflict has stoked regional tensions, with deadly cross-border exchanges between the Israeli army and Lebanon’s Hizbollah movement.

Hospitals have become key sites for Palestinians seeking refuge from the intense gun battles and bombardment.

A wounded boy at the Indonesian hospital, Youssef Al Najjar, said he was waiting for surgery but the necessary machines were off due to lack of power.

“I’m very thirsty but I’m not allowed to drink or eat until the operation is done,” he added.

Twenty of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are “no longer functioning”, the UN’s humanitarian agency said.

Tens of thousands flee 

Fighting has reduced some streets in Gaza to ruins, with the sounds of apparent explosions and gunfire caught Saturday on AFPTV’s Gaza City camera.

The bodies of about 50 people killed in a strike on Gaza City’s Al Buraq school were taken to the Al Shifa hospital, its director said on Friday.

The exodus toward Gaza’s south, which has accelerated under intense fighting and through evacuation corridors, has seen tens of thousands of people flee in recent days.

An estimated 30,000 additional Palestinians went southwards through a corridor opened by the Israeli military on Friday, according to the UN humanitarian affairs office OCHA.

The Israeli military said that around 150,000 Palestinians have left in a “mass evacuation” south in recent days from the area of the northern Gaza Strip where combat is heavy.

However, strikes were hitting buildings at the southern end of Gaza in Rafah, the area of the densely-populated territory to which civilians have been urged to evacuate.

“They struck us with a missile, and they are innocent people,” said Harb Fojou, standing near the rubble of a destroyed building.

Almost 1.6 million people have been internally displaced since October 7, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, about two thirds of Gaza’s population.

UNITED NATIONS, United States — The health care system in the Gaza Strip is "on its knees," the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned on Friday, noting that half of the territory's 36 hospitals are no longer functioning.

Speaking to the Security Council, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the situation on the ground as desperate: "Hospital corridors crammed with the injured, the sick, the dying; morgues overflowing; surgery without anesthesia; tens of thousands of displaced people sheltering at hospitals."

"The health system is on its knees, and yet somehow is continuing to deliver lifesaving care," he said.

Tedros said there had been more than 250 attacks on health care, such as strikes on hospitals, clinics, ambulances and patients, in Gaza and the West Bank, and 25 such attacks in Israel in the conflict triggered by Hamas' shock October 7 assault.

"The best way to support those health workers and the people they serve is by giving them the tools they need to deliver that care, medicines, medical equipment and fuel for hospital generators," he said, calling for an increase in aid trickling in through the Rafah crossing with Egypt and repeating the UN's call for a ceasefire.

"I understand what the children of Gaza must be going through, because as a child, I went through the same thing," said the WHO chief, who is from Ethiopia's Tigray region.

"The sound of gunfire and shells whistling through the air; the smell of smoke after they struck; tracer bullets in the night sky; the fear; the pain; the loss, these things have stayed with me throughout my life."

The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Marwan Jilani, addressed the Security Council by video, calling on members to "do all you can to spare further deaths and sufferings." The council is divided on the war and has failed to issue a resolution on it.

He highlighted the dire situation at the Al Quds hospital in Gaza City, which the Red Crescent said was fired on Friday by Israeli snipers.

“Our utmost concern is the direct threat to the lives of all those wounded and sick, together with tens of thousands of civilians, including thousands of children,” Jilani said.

“They are looking at you, imploring you to act to stop another possible massacre unfolding.”

The Security Council started its meeting with a minute of silence to honor the victims of the Hamas assault, the civilians killed in Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Gaza, as well as the journalists and UN personnel who have died in the war.

GAZA STRIP, Occupied Palestinian Territories – Palestinians said deadly strikes on Friday hit hospitals and a school where desperate civilians in Gaza City have sought refuge from intense combat that has sent thousands of others fleeing.

"There is no safe place left. The army hit Al Shifa. I don't know what to do," said 32-year-old Abu Mohammad, who was among those seeking refuge at the hospital. "There is shooting... at the hospital. We are afraid to go out."

Al Shifa's director and Gaza's Hamas government, which reported a death toll of 13, blamed Israeli forces for a strike on the hospital.

The hospital received the bodies of another 50 people killed in a strike on Gaza City's Al Buraq school, the Al Shifa director said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Israeli snipers had also shot at Al Quds hospital, killing at least one person. AFP could not immediately confirm the tolls.

'Point of no return' 

Heavy fighting was raging near Al Shifa hospital, with Israel saying it had killed dozens of fighters and destroyed tunnels that are key to Hamas's capacity to fight.

Israel launched an offensive in Gaza after Hamas fighters suddenly poured across the heavily militarised border on October 7.

Vowing to destroy the fighters, Israel attacked with bombardment and a ground campaign that the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip says has killed more than 11,000 people, mostly civilians and many of them children.

"Last night, I wasn't optimistic that any of my children or I would come out unharmed, given the intensity of the bombing and gunfire," said Jawad Haruda, who was among thousands walking south in an exodus away from Gaza City.

"We couldn't wait for the morning, and everyone in Al Shifa hospital left," he added.

Witnesses told AFP that hundreds of people sheltering at Gaza City's Al Rantisi hospital fled on instruction from the Israeli military, which was surrounding it with armoured vehicles.

Amid the fighting, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned the health system in the Gaza Strip had "reached a point of no return".

'No safe place'

The war in the densely populated coastal territory, which is effectively sealed off, has prompted repeated calls for a ceasefire to protect civilian lives and allow in more humanitarian aid.

Tens of thousands of people have fled to the south of the territory in recent days, often on foot and with only the things the could carry.

Almost 1.6 million people have been internally displaced since October 7, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said, nearly two thirds of Gaza's population.

But the UN estimates hundreds of thousands of civilians remain in the fiercest battle zones in the north.

The United Nations called for an end to the "carnage" in Gaza, saying "razing entire neighbourhoods to the ground is not an answer.

"To the contrary, it is creating a new generation of aggrieved Palestinians who are likely to continue the cycle of violence. The carnage simply must stop," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote in an opinion piece.

Lazzarini also said on social media that over 100 UNRWA colleagues were confirmed killed in one month of war, noting the figure included parents, teachers, nurses, doctors and support staff.

"Enough destruction, there's nothing left. We need a truce to see what will later happen to us, a truce to bring medicine or aid to the hospitals," said Mohammed Khader, who was displaced in Rafah.

"Those hospitals are now full of displaced people and not only injured and martyrs," he added.

Hostages

Complicating Israel's military push is the fate of the hostages abducted on October 7.

CIA director Bill Burns and David Barnea, head of Israel's Mossad spy agency, were in Doha for talks on pauses that would include hostage releases and more aid for Gaza, an official told AFP on Thursday.

Four hostages have been freed so far by Hamas and another released in an Israeli operation. The desperate relatives of those still held in Gaza have piled pressure on Israeli and US authorities to secure the release of their loved ones.

The conflict has also stoked regional tensions, with cross-border exchanges between the Israeli army and Lebanon's Hizbollah, and Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels saying they launched "ballistic missiles" at southern Israel.

Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said the expansion of the Hamas-Israel war has become "inevitable".

The Islamic republic, which supports Hamas financially and militarily, has hailed the militant group's attack on Israel as a "success" but denied any involvement.

Saudi Arabia is hosting Arab leaders and Iran's president for two summits this weekend in emergency meetings of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman denounced the conduct of Israeli forces in Gaza, saying "we stress the necessity of stopping this war and forced displacement".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up a marathon diplomatic push Friday, saying Israel's pauses in its Gaza offensive would "save lives" but more was needed.

"Far too many Palestinians have been killed," Blinken said in New Delhi, his last stop before heading home, where he repeated US support for ally Israel but was firm that more aid had to reach civilians in Gaza.