An Israeli soldier gestures towards a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance at the entrance of the Tulkarem refugee camp in Tulkarem, in the occupied West Bank, on January 17, 2024. (Photo by Marco Longari / AFP)
Doha, Qatar: Israel's aggression on Gaza that has killed over 24,000 and wounded over 61,000 continues with the number of those martyred growing every day.
Doctors Without Borders says Israeli forces heavily bombarded areas near Nasser hospital in Gaza’s Khan Younis without prior evacuation warning.
Meanwhile its military intensifies drone strikes and ground incursions in the occupied West Bank with at least 11 killed and many wounded.
Watch this page for more live updates:
[10pm Doha Time] Qatari aircraft carrying aid for Palestinians in Gaza lands in Egypt's El-Arish. Read more.
[2:53pm Doha Time] ‘All patients have a right to treatment’: Red Crescent
Mahmoud Alsaadi – who leads ambulance operations for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank – says Israeli raids and movement restrictions make it impossible to provide timely care for injured and sick Palestinians.
This not only impacts Palestinians wounded in Israeli attacks, he said, but others facing unrelated medical emergencies.
“We do not only transport the injured and those wounded by bullets,” said Alsaadi. “There are many humanitarian cases and we receive calls from citizens with medical conditions — kidney patients, heart patients, or cancer patients. All of these cases require transportation to hospitals.”
Because of lengthy Israeli inspections of Red Crescent ambulances and “harassment of medical staff”, patients in need of urgent hospital treatment may be held up for more than an hour, putting their lives in jeopardy, he said.
[2:05pm Doha Time] ‘Endless chaos and growing despair’: UNRWA chief
After making his fourth trip to Gaza since the war broke out, the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees says the enclave has sunk even “further into despair” and renewed calls for an immediate ceasefire.
“Everyone I met had a personal story of fear, death, loss, trauma to share”, said UNRWA Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini in a statement on his latest visit. “The people of Gaza have moved from the sheer shock of losing everything, in some cases every member of their family, to a debilitating struggle to stay alive and protect their loved ones.”
“This has gone on for far too long. There are no winners in these wars. There is endless chaos and growing despair. I call once again for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to bring some respite,” he said.
A Palestinian woman embraces a lightly injured boy as they check the rubble of a building following Israeli bombardment, on January 18, 2024 in Rafah. (Photo by AFP)
[1:54pm Doha Time] ‘Children dying on the floor’: Gaza hospitals can’t keep up with the injured
With more than 61,000 people wounded from the Israeli attacks on Gaza, healthcare workers and humanitarian staff at the enclave’s overwhelmed and undersupplied hospitals are witnessing people die in front of them every day.
“I’ve seen children full of shrapnel dying on the floor because there are not the supplies in the emergency department, and the healthcare workers … to care for them,” Sean Casey, of the World Health Organization, said after a visit to several Gaza hospitals.
Many of the partially functioning facilities have also turned into de facto refugee centres, with thousands of displaced people crowding into operating rooms, corridors and stairs, making it even more difficult for medical staff to do their jobs.
In al-Shifa Hospital, once Gaza’s leading health facility that now only treats emergency trauma cases, Casey said there were “so many patients on the floor you could barely move without stepping on somebody’s hands or feet”.
[9:30am Doha Time] WHO Coordinator warns 'rapid deterioration' of Gaza hospitals
WHO Emergency Medical Team Coordinator Sean Casey warned of the rapid deterioration of the health care system and access to humanitarian needs in Gaza. Read more
[9am Doha Time] Israeli military raid on Tulkarem now in 26th hour
The raid is still ongoing for more than 26 hours is in Tulkarem, which is to the north of the occupied West Bank.
Israeli forces are raiding into Palestinian home - going inside, ransacking those homes with bulldozers ruining the infrastructure of the Tulkarem refugee camp as well as the Nur Shams refugee camp.
There were reports of similar raids across the occupied West Bank, reported Al Jazeera.
[8:45am Doha Time] 19 Palestinians martyred by Israeli strike in Rafah, southern Gaza
At least 19 Palestinians, the majority of whom were children and women, were martyred, and others were injured, in an Israeli shelling of a house in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip Wednesday night.
The occupation forces targeted an inhabited house of Al-Zamili family, east of Rafah, resulting in at least 19 martyrs, the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA) reported.
A number of citizens were also martyred and others were injured, Wednesday evening, due to Israeli aircraft and artillery bombardment of the south, center and north of the Gaza Strip.
[8:30am Doha Time] Palestinian official: $15bn needed to rebuild Gaza homes after the war
Some $15bn will be required to rebuild Gaza’s homes alone, the head of the Palestine Investment Fund Mohammed Mustafa has said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Citing international reports, Mustafa said some 350,000 housing units have been completely or partially damaged in Gaza since Israel’s bombardment began on October 7.
“We still didn’t talk about infrastructure, we didn’t talk about the hospitals that were damaged, the grids,” he added.
Nearly 25,000 people have been killed and almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced since Israel’s war on the Palestinian territory began.
[8:15am Doha Time] UDST welcomes eight Palestinian students affected by war in Gaza
The University of Doha for Science and Technology (UDST) opened its doors to eight Palestinian students from Al Fakhoora, a programme of Education Above All Foundation, as part of a scholarship initiative to support students whose studies were disrupted by the ongoing crisis in Gaza.
Talal Alhathal, Executive Director of Al Fakhoora, shared insights into the scholarship programme, highlighting the first batch of eight students as part of the larger goal of 100 scholarships. Read more
[8am Doha Time] Heavy bombardment in Khan Younis targeted homes, hospitals, cemetery: UN
An ongoing telecommunications blackout has limited the latest update from the UN’s humanitarian agency (OCHA), with information from northern Gaza even further limited by highly restricted access.
The report says that a missile reportedly struck the UNRWA health clinic in Daraj, in Gaza City on Wednesday, but that “further details on the impact of the projectile are yet to be established”.
In Southern Gaza, OCHA reported heavy bombardment in the Khan Younis area for the last two days targeting residential buildings, a cemetery and hospitals.
“Initial reports and video footage show that much of the al-Namsawi cemetery was destroyed and graves empty with some corpses reportedly missing,” the OCHA update said.
Meanwhile people at and around Nasser Hospital were forced to flee as Israeli tanks approached the district.
Palestinian health officials said at least seven people were killed by Israeli air raids that damaged homes near the hospital.
