World Food Programme warns civilians in Gaza "face immediate possibility of starvation" The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the Gaza Strip now faces a “massive” food gap and widespread hunger while nearly the entire population of the Palestinian enclave is in “desperate” need of food assistance. In a statement on Thursday, WFP executive director Cindy McCain said food and water supplies are “practically non-existent” in Gaza, and “only a fraction” of aid that is needed is reaching the territory through the borders. She said: With winter fast approaching, unsafe and overcrowded shelters, and the lack of clean water, civilians are facing the immediate possibility of starvation. There is no way to meet current hunger needs with one operational border crossing. The only hope is opening another, safe passage for humanitarian access to bring life-saving food into Gaza. Earlier this week, WFP confirmed the closure of the final bakery operating in partnership with the agency due to lack of fuel. Bread, a staple food for people in Gaza, is scarce or non-existent, it said. The shortage of fuel is also crippling humanitarian distribution and operations, including the delivery of food assistance, it said. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said there will be no aid deliveries into Gaza from the Rafah crossing from tomorrow because of fuel shortages. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry about efforts to increase humanitarian aid to Palestinians in urgent need, the State Department said on Thursday. Blinken reaffirmed the importance of concrete steps to minimise harm to Palestinian civilians in all of Gaza, the State Department said, and reaffirmed Washington’s rejection of the forced displacement of Palestinians, the department said in a statement. This is Helen Sullivan taking over the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said there were “strong indications” that some hostages were held in Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, and that it was “one of the reasons” Israeli forces entered the hospital. In an interview with CBS, Netanyahu added that “if they were, they were taken out.” He said Israel has “intelligence about the hostages” but that “the less I say about it the better.” His remarks came as the Israeli military said it uncovered a Hamas tunnel shaft and a vehicle with weapons at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital complex. It also said it had recovered the body of Yehudit Weiss, a 65-year-old woman taken hostage by Hamas, near al-Shifa. The IDF have accused Hamas of hiding evidence that would confirm that the organisation had used the hospital as a command and control centre – a charge Israel has made frequently in recent weeks as troops have advanced further into the territory and global anger has mounted. A press freedom group has said it is “highly alarmed” by widespread reports of a communications blackout in Gaza due to a fuel shortage. The complete shutdown of communications services throughout the Gaza Strip poses “an extreme risk” to the lives of journalists reporting in Gaza, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said. A statement from Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator, reads: By withholding fuel from Gaza, the Israeli government is preventing journalists in Gaza from providing the world with updates on the war, leaving the international community vulnerable to deadly propaganda, disinformation, and misinformation. The Israeli and Egyptian governments must immediately allow fuel into the Gaza Strip as part of the essential humanitarian assistance needed in the region. Death toll in Gaza rises to 11,470, including 4,707 children - health ministry At least 11,470 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the Israel-Hamas war broke out six weeks ago, according to figures by the Palestinian health authorities. The ministry said 4,707 of the dead were children and minors and that 3,155 were women. The vast majority have been killed in Israeli airstrikes. In recent days, the Palestinian health ministry in the West Bank has started updating the Gaza death toll, AP reported. Until last week, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza was the main official source for the death toll in the Palestinian enclave, but it stopped publishing updates after key ministry officials based in Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital lost electricity and connectivity. Protesters against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza were locked in a battle of words with Washington police on Thursday after accusing officers of violently breaking up a demonstration on Capitol Hill that organisers insist was peaceful. Leaders of the Ceasefire Now Coalition said 90 of their activists were injured in confrontations that took place after they staged a candlelit vigil outside the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters on Wednesday evening. The coalition said volunteers were pepper-sprayed, kicked, pulled by the hair and dragged down flights of stairs by officers in riot gear, who they accused of ignoring long-standing protocols for non-violent protest by failing to issue dispersal notices or engage with the rally’s specially designated police liaison representative. But in a rebuttal, police said the group was “not peaceful” and said six officers had to be treated for injuries after being pepper-sprayed and punched. One 24-year-old protester was arrested for allegedly slamming a female officer into a garage door and punching her in the face, police said in a statement. Organisers said the event – jointly staged by three leftist groups, Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now and the Democratic Socialists of America – followed the traditions of non-violence pioneered by the US civil rights movement. But Wednesday’s clashes was one of the most graphic signs yet of the dissension arising from Israel’s military response to last month’s attack by Hamas. Israeli forces "advancing to next stage" of war in Gaza, says defence minister Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has announced a “next stage” of the offensive in Gaza during a situational assessment on Thursday. “I arrived today at the headquarters of the division whose special forces also operate inside the Shifa hospital,” i24NEWS reported Gallant saying alongside the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) deputy chief of staff and other senior officers. “There are significant findings. We are working with precision and determination.” His comments came as the Israeli military said it uncovered a Hamas tunnel shaft and a vehicle with weapons at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital complex. It made videos and photographs of the tunnel shaft and weapons public, but no independent verification was possible. Gallant continued: We have completed taking over and clearing the western part of Gaza City and are now advancing to the next stage of the offensive. He said Israeli forces are working “precisely, determinedly, decisively” and coordinating air, sea and land forces, accompanied by “very strong and encompassing intelligence”. Earlier on Thursday, Israel dropped leaflets into southern Gaza telling Palestinian civilians to leave four towns on the eastern edge of Khan Younis, raising fears that its war against Hamas could spread to areas it previously said were safe. World Food Programme warns civilians in Gaza "face immediate possibility of starvation" The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the Gaza Strip now faces a “massive” food gap and widespread hunger while nearly the entire population of the Palestinian enclave is in “desperate” need of food assistance. In a statement on Thursday, WFP executive director Cindy McCain said food and water supplies are “practically non-existent” in Gaza, and “only a fraction” of aid that is needed is reaching the territory through the borders. She said: With winter fast approaching, unsafe and overcrowded shelters, and the lack of clean water, civilians are facing the immediate possibility of starvation. There is no way to meet current hunger needs with one operational border crossing. The only hope is opening another, safe passage for humanitarian access to bring life-saving food into Gaza. Earlier this week, WFP confirmed the closure of the final bakery operating in partnership with the agency due to lack of fuel. Bread, a staple food for people in Gaza, is scarce or non-existent, it said. The shortage of fuel is also crippling humanitarian distribution and operations, including the delivery of food assistance, it said. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said there will be no aid deliveries into Gaza from the Rafah crossing from tomorrow because of fuel shortages. Summary of the day so far It’s nearly midnight in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments: All communications are down in Gaza on Thursday night. The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said Gaza was in a “total communication blackout” and that he feared the blackout could heighten panic in the Gaza Strip and erode civil order. The main telecommunications companies confirmed no telecom services were working because of the lack of fuel. The Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza has been completely shut down and about 45 patients who urgently need surgery have been left in the reception area, the hospital chief Atef al-Kahlout has said. Al-Ahli hospital is currently under siege by Israeli tanks and a “violent attack is underway” at the hospital, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Thursday. The Israeli operation in al-Shifa hospital continued on Thursday after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) entered the sprawling compound in the early hours of Wednesday morning. There were reports of shooting at the hospital. The IDF said it had uncovered a Hamas tunnel shaft and a vehicle with weapons at the Dar al-Shifa hospital complex. It made videos and photographs of the tunnel shaft and weapons public, but no independent verification was possible. The IDF accused Hamas earlier in the day of hiding evidence that would confirm that the organisation had used the hospital as a command and control centre – a charge Israel has made frequently in recent weeks as troops have advanced further into the territory and global anger has mounted. Hamas and medical administrators have strenuously denied the allegation al-Shifa hospital was a command centre and the health ministry in Gaza said the Israeli military did not find any weapons in the hospital. Human Rights Watch said that images released by Israel on Wednesday of weapons it says its soldiers found inside al-Shifa were not sufficient to justify revoking the hospital’s status as protected by the laws of war. The White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said the US is still “convinced by the soundness” of its intelligence “that convinces us that Hamas was using al-Shifa as a command and control node”. The UN is looking for ways to evacuate al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, but options are limited by security and logistical constraints, a senior World Health Organization (WHO) official said on Thursday. One obstacle is that the Palestinian Red Crescent lacks sufficient fuel for its ambulances within Gaza to evacuate patients, according to the WHO regional emergency director, Rick Brennan. The WHO understood that there were still about 600 patients, including 27 in critical condition, at Shifa, he said. The Israeli military said it has recovered the body of an Israeli hostage from a building near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Yehudit Weiss, a 65-year-old woman, was abducted from the Be’eri kibbutz by Hamas during their attack on southern Israel on 7 October. The IDF said the body had been identified by forensic scientific examiners and the family had been informed. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said there will be no aid deliveries into Gaza from the Rafah crossing from Friday. All communications are down in Gaza because of a lack of fuel, UNRWA said in a statement on Thursday. “This makes it impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys,” Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s director of communications, said. The UNRWA commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said he believed there was a deliberate attempt to “strangle” its humanitarian work in Gaza. The Israeli air force dropped leaflets overnight on Thursday in eastern areas of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip, telling people to evacuate to shelters for their own safety – suggesting imminent military operations in the area. The flyers told civilians in Bani Shuhaila, Khuza’a, Abassan and al-Qarara that anyone in the vicinity of militants or their positions was “putting his life in danger”, local people told Reuters. Tens of thousands of people displaced from the north have sought refuge in Khan Younis, causing severe overcrowding amid shortages of food and water. The heads of several United Nations agencies and other humanitarian organisations have said they will not take part in the establishment of any “safe zones” in Gaza that are declared by only one side of the conflict. The joint statement on Thursday said proposals to unilaterally create “safe zones” in Gaza “risk creating harm for civilians, including large-scale loss of life, and must be rejected”. The UN high commissioner for human rights has said the killing of civilians in Gaza cannot be dismissed as “collateral damage”, while calling for a ceasefire based on humanitarian and human rights grounds. Volker Türk said that five weeks into the war, “massive outbreaks of infectious disease, and hunger” seemed inevitable in the densely populated Gaza. Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam brigades, has claimed responsibility for a shooting at a checkpoint between Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem. Six Israeli security force members were wounded after three gunmen opened fire at the checkpoint on Wednesday, Israeli police said. Shelling intensified across Lebanon’s frontier with Israel on Thursday, with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah saying it had fired missiles at eight positions across the border, and Israel saying it had retaliated with artillery. The EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has urged Israel not to be “consumed by rage” in its response to the Hamas attacks of 7 October. Speaking from kibbutz Be’eri on Friday, Borrell said “Israel must be defended” but that “one horror does not justify another: innocent civilians, including thousands of children, have died in recent weeks. Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, on Thursday repeated his call for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign. In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 on Wednesday, Lapid said: “We can’t run an extended [military] operation with a prime minister we do not have faith in.” Joe Biden has presented an unapologetic defence of his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, arguing on Wednesday night that Hamas presented a continuing threat to Israel. The US president also argued that Israeli forces had switched from aerial bombardment, which he seemed to acknowledge had been indiscriminate in parts, to more targeted ground operations. Biden’s remarks come amid escalating tensions between US and Israeli officials over Israel’s future strategy. Israel’s UN ambassador has denounced a UN security council resolution calling for a “humanitarian pauses” as “disconnected from reality” and “meaningless”. The UNSC voted on Wednesday to back a resolution calling for “urgent extended humanitarian pauses for [a] sufficient number of days to allow aid access” to the embattled territory. The US and the UK abstained. Norway’s parliament has adopted a resolution calling on the government to be ready to recognise an “independent” Palestinian state. Iceland, Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic and Romania are among countries to have already given legal recognition to a Palestinian state. Dozens of protesters were arrested on Thursday after shutting down a portion of the San Francisco Bay Bridge as part of a demonstration calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The protest blocked all westbound traffic on the bridge – a key commuter route into the city that sees roughly 260,000 vehicles daily – as San Francisco hosts the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum. Organizers said 200 people attended the demonstration on Thursday morning. Footage posted on social media showed protesters had formed a human chain between vehicles as they sat on the bridge while others laid under white sheets as part of a “die-in” near bridge near a giant banner urging Joe Biden to call for a ceasefire now. They also displayed a large banner reading “stop the genocide” and demanded an end to US military aid to Israel. Media captured footage of law enforcement in riot gear making their way across the bridge as sheriff’s deputies led a line of handcuffed-protesters toward buses. Other images showed protesters zip-tied on the bridge. The California highway patrol did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but told the San Francisco Chronicle it planned to “press all the charges it can” against protesters. A spokesperson for the agency told the newspaper that at least 50 people were arrested and as many as 20 more people are likely to be arrested. Israel has dropped leaflets into southern Gaza telling Palestinian civilians to leave four towns on the eastern edge of Khan Younis, raising fears that its war against Hamas could spread to areas it had previously said were safe. The flyers told civilians in Bani Shuhaila, Khuza’a, Abassan and al-Qarara that anyone in the vicinity of militants or their positions was putting their life in danger, local people told Reuters. At a US State Department press briefing, there was feisty back and forth between reporters and spokesperson Matthew Miller on what Israeli reports of guns found at al-Shifa hospital signified. This happened before the unverified assertion from the Israeli military that it had found an “operational tunnel shaft” and a vehicle with weapons at the hospital complex in Gaza City. Miller was challenged on the difference between the US over the last two days backing up the Israeli government’s assertion that Hamas has a military command node at the hospital and what the Israeli government said earlier about having found what amounted to a small number of assault rifles and other armaments at the complex. “There should not be any assault rifles at a hospital,” Miller said, adding: “We stand by the assessment that we made the other day.” Israeli military reports finding "operational tunnel shaft" in Shifa hospital complex The Israeli military has said in the last 30 minutes that it uncovered a tunnel shaft and a vehicle with weapons at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital complex, Reuters reports. In the Shifa Hospital, IDF troops found an operational tunnel shaft and a vehicle containing a large number of weapons,” the military said, using the acronym for the Israel Defense Forces. The military also made public videos and photographs of the tunnel shaft and weapons. There is no independent verification of the IDF claim at this time. Ofir Gendelman, a spokesperson for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, posted a short video clip on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: We await further details and reaction. More context on this situation from the Guardian’s initial story published a few moments ago. UNRWA says no aid deliveries into Gaza from tomorrow The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said there will be no aid deliveries into Gaza from the Rafah crossing on Friday. All communications are down in Gaza because of a lack of fuel, UNRWA said in a statement. This makes it impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys. Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s director of communications, said that from tomorrow, the agency will be unable to send trucks to pick up aid supplies for Palestinians from the border with Egypt. “We have been warning about the impact of the siege on people’s lives,” Touma told the BBC. “It seems our calls have fallen on deaf ears.” The EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has urged Israel not to be “consumed by rage” in its response to the Hamas attacks of 7 October. Speaking from kibbutz Be’eri – where at least 85 of the 1,200 people killed that day died and from where about 30 of more than 240 people were kidnapped – Borrell said “Israel must be defended”but that “one horror does not justify another: innocent civilians, including thousands of children, have died in recent weeks. I understand your fears and your pain. I understand your rage. But let me ask you not to let yourself be consumed by rage. The diplomat also called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of those taken hostage by Hamas that day. Meanwhile, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, acknowledged splits in Europe on the conflict. Macron, who was visiting Switzerland, urged an “immediate truce leading to a humanitarian ceasefire” but admitted that “there is not a united position, to be honest, at the European level”. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its soldiers have recovered the body of a hostage seized by Hamas militants on 7 October from a building near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. The body of Yehudit Weiss, an Israeli woman who was abducted from kibbutz Be’eri, “was extracted by IDF (army) troops from a structure adjacent to Al-Shifa hospital”, an IDF statement said, adding: In the structure in which Yehudit was located, military equipment including Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs were also found. The al-Shifa hospital has become a key objective for Israel, because proving their claim that Hamas used it to shield military activities would help counter the international outcry prompted by the Israel Defense Forces killing a large number of civilians. Writing in Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, columnist Amos Harel said the IDF had moved into Shifa to pursue specific goals – proving their claim that Hamas used medical facilities for military purposes and to search for intelligence about Israeli hostages – but also because of the hospital’s “symbolic importance”. Harel wrote: The IDF wants to signal that even though the current raid has limited goals, there is no place its forces fear to enter and there is no place Hamas can feel safe. IDF says body of hostage recovered near al-Shifa hospital The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said they have recovered the body of Yehudit Weiss, 65, one of about 240 hostages taken by Hamas during the 7 October attacks on Israel. The body was recovered from a building near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the IDF said on Thursday. It was brought into Israel for identification and the family were informed, it said. Weiss, a mother of five, was abducted from kibbutz Be’eri on 7 October, the Times of Israel reported. Her husband, Shmulik Weiss, was found murdered in the safe room of their home. The IDF did not provide further details on the cause of death. The IDF statement reads: The body of Yehudit Weiss, who was abducted by the Hamas terrorist organisation, was extracted by IDF troops from a structure adjacent to the Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip and was transferred to Israeli territory. In the structure in which Yehudit was located, military equipment including Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs were also found. The IDF “sends its heartfelt condolences to the family”, it said, adding: “We will not cease from the mission until it will be completed.” The Israeli military has accused Hamas of hiding evidence that would confirm the organisation used al-Shifa hospital in Gaza as a command and control centre. Israeli special forces moved into al-Shifa hospital early on Wednesday morning and continued to search the sprawling complex in the centre of Gaza City on Thursday. An IDF spokesperson said on Thursday: It is important to emphasise that from the moment the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) publicly exposed the use of hospitals for terrorist activity a few weeks ago, Hamas has persistently worked to conceal infrastructure and cover up evidence. Hamas and medical administrators have strenuously denied the allegation the hospital was a command centre, and the health ministry in Gaza said the Israeli military did not find any weapons in the hospital. A British doctor working at Shifa said the charge was an “outlandish excuse”. “The soldiers are proceeding one building at a time, searching each floor, all while hundreds of patients and medical staff remain in the complex,” an IDF spokesperson said. The operational activity is being carried out in a discrete, methodical and thorough manner, based on ongoing field assessments and informed by questioning taking place in the field. The IDF said that “after searching some of the hospital complex buildings”, troops had found weapons as well as “intelligence materials, military technologies and equipment, command and control centres, and communications equipment, all belonging to Hamas”.