LIVE | Israel-Hamas War Day 23: Thousands loot UN aid warehouses in Gaza

A spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent says Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City received two calls from Israeli authorities Sunday morning demanding it evacuate.

A statement released by the organisation said that the calls constituted a “clear and direct threat that the hospital must be evacuated at once, otherwise PRCS holds full responsibility for the lives of everyone inside the hospital.” Spokesperson Nebal Farsakh said that since Sunday morning, Israeli airstrikes have been increasing in the area, reaching buildings as close as 50 metres.

She said that 12,000 people are currently sheltering in the hospital. The intensive care unit is predominantly occupied by children injured in the latest airstrikes. “Most of them are connected to oxygen machines,” she said. “Evacuating them would be killing them.” The Israeli military did not comment immediately Sunday. The military has told some 1 million people to evacuate to the southern part of the Gaza Strip ahead of an expected ground invasion.

WHO said it's impossible to evacuate patients without endangering their lives. Hospitals across Gaza are already operating at maximum capacity due to the injuries from unrelenting bombardment, and are unable to absorb a dramatic rise in the number of patients, while sheltering thousands of civilians, the UN agency said. (AP)

An Iranian-backed Iraqi militia says it launched drone strikes on a base housing US forces in eastern Syria.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which has claimed responsibility for a series of strikes on US forces in Iraq and Syria over the past two weeks, claimed responsibility on Sunday for the latest attack. The group has said the attacks are in retaliation for US support for Israel.

According to the Pentagon, as of Friday there had been at least 20 attacks on US bases and personnel in Iraq and Syria since October 17, and 21 US personnel were injured in two of those assaults when drones targeted al-Assad airbase in Iraq and al-Tanf garrison in Syria. (AP)

In a sign of growing chaos in Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said thousands of people broke into its Gaza aid warehouses to take food and other “basic survival items” like hygiene products.

Thomas White, the agency’s director in Gaza, said the break-in was “a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down”. The agency, known as UNRWA, provides basic services to hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza. Its schools across the territory have been transformed into packed shelters housing Palestinians displaced by the conflict.

On Saturday, the Israeli military released grainy images showing tank columns moving slowly in open areas of Gaza, apparently near the border, and said warplanes had bombed dozens of Hamas tunnels and underground bunkers. (AP)

Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes early Sunday near Gaza’s largest hospital, which is packed with patients and tens of thousands of Palestinians seeking shelter, residents said.

Israel has said Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers have a command post under the hospital, without providing much evidence.

The strikes came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a “second stage” in Israel’s war on Hamas, three weeks after Hamas launched a brutal incursion into Israel October 7.

Tanks and infantry pushed into Gaza over the weekend in what officials described as a widening ground offensive as Israel pounded the territory from air, land and sea.

The bombardment — described by Gaza residents as the most intense of the war — knocked out most communications in the territory late Friday, largely cutting off the besieged enclave's 2.3 million people from the world.

Residents said the latest airstrikes destroyed most of the roads leading to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, in the northern part of the besieged territory.

Tens of thousands are sheltering in Shifa, which is also packed with patients wounded in the strikes.

“Reaching the hospital has become increasingly difficult,” Mahmoud al-Sawah, who is sheltering in the hospital, said over the phone. “It seems they want to cut off the area.” Another Gaza City resident, Abdallah Sayed, said the Israeli bombing over the past two days was “the most violent and intense” since the war started.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment when asked about reports of strikes near Shifa.

The army recently released computer-generated images showing what it said were Hamas installations in and around Shifa Hospital, as well as interrogations of captured Hamas fighters who might have been speaking under duress. Israel has made similar claims before, but has not substantiated them.

Little is known about Hamas’ tunnels and other infrastructure, and the claims could not be independently verified.

Hamas' government dismissed the allegations as “lies” and said they were “a precursor for striking this facility.” (AP)

The UN Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting on Israel's ground invasion of Gaza on Monday afternoon at the request of the United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative on the council. (AP)

Internet and telephone connectivity has been restored for many people in Gaza, according to the telecoms company Paltel, Internet-access advocacy group NetBlocks.org and confirmation on the ground.

The besieged Gaza Strip had suffered a communication blackout since late Friday, leaving its 2.3 million residents cut off from the outside world amid heavy Israeli air and land bombardment. (AP)

No international aid entered the Gaza Strip on Saturday, as the communications blackout created by Israel continued.

Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent, told The Associated Press that no aid trucks entered Gaza on Saturday because communication was impossible and teams inside Gaza couldn't connect with Egyptian Red Crescent or United Nations personnel.

Before Saturday, a total of 84 aid trucks were let into Gaza, a tiny amount for a population of 2.3 million people in need of power, food, medical supplies and clean drinking water. (AP)

The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier and its strike group has moved through the Strait of Gibraltar, putting two American carriers in the Mediterranean Sea, a rare sight in recent years.

The USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group is already in the eastern Mediterranean, part of a buildup of forces as the U.S. supports Israel in its war against Hamas.

The Eisenhower sailed into the Mediterranean on Saturday and is slated to move through the Suez Canal to the U.S. Central Command region as the American forces expand their presence in the Middle East to deter Iran and its proxy militant groups from trying to widen the war. (AP)

Israeli military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, dismissed Hamas's offer of prisoner exchange as “psychological terror” and said Israel is working on multiple channels to free the hostages.

Hamas’s top leader in Gaza Yehia Sinwar said the Palestinian militant groups are ready to release Israeli hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners in Israel’s jails.

“We are ready immediately to have an exchange deal that includes releasing all prisoners in the prisons of the Zionist occupation enemy in return for the release of all prisoners held by the resistance,” he said in a comment posted Saturday evening on Hamas media groups. (AP)

Israel’s military said on Saturday that its warplanes struck 150 underground Hamas targets in northern Gaza, including tunnels, combat spaces and other infrastructure. But the extensive labyrinth of tunnels built by Hamas is believed to stretch for hundreds of miles, hiding fighters, an arsenal of rockets and now more than 200 Israeli hostages.

Clearing and collapsing those tunnels is crucial to dismantling Hamas. But Israeli's military could be at a serious disadvantage underground. Urban warfare experts say the militants can be hiding in millions of places, choosing when and where to ambush their enemies.

Former Israeli soldier Ariel Bernstein described urban combat in northern Gaza as a mix of ambushes, traps, hideouts and snipers in tunnels so disorienting that it was like he was fighting ghosts. (AP)