- Israel’s military begins what it calls a large-scale ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 151 Palestinians on Sunday.
- In northern Gaza, the director of the Indonesian Hospital, Dr Marwan al-Sultan, says Israeli forces are “directly targeting” and laying siege to the facility, trapping some 55 people inside.
- Israel says it will allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza, but it’s not clear when the supplies will enter the enclave.
- Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 53,339 Palestinians and wounded 121,034, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
- The Government Media Office updated the death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.
Israel’s true goal in Gaza is ethnic cleansing, says top Palestinian politician
Musthafa Barghouti, the secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, says Israel “knows full well that it is incapable of eradicating” the Palestinian resistance, and that its true goal in Gaza is “ethnic cleansing”.
The politician, in an interview with Al Jazeera, urged Arab and Muslim nations to unite and “stop the aggression and genocide” in Gaza.
He denounced continued Israeli bombardment in Gaza, noting that those killed include people lining up for food.
“What is the value of giving a person a loaf of bread and then bombing him?” he asked.
Photos: Over 100,000 march against Gaza war in The Hague, organisers say
Israeli forces target patient inside Indonesian Hospital, official says
More on the Israeli attack on the last remaining medical facility in North Gaza.
Munir al-Bursh, the director-general of Gaza’s Health Ministry, told Al Jazeera that an Israeli aircraft targeted a patient inside the Indonesian Hospital, “without prior warning”. He said the military also fired on the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit.
Earlier, the hospital’s director reported that Israeli forces had surrounded the hospital and forced it to shut down.
The Palestinian Health Ministry also said in a statement that the closure of the Indonesian Hospital means there are no public hospitals in North Gaza, which includes Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoon, since Israeli forces had also earlier destroyed the Kamal Adwan and Beit Hanoon hospitals.
One killed, four wounded in Israeli attack on south Gaza
Israel’s relentless bombardment continues.
This time, Israeli forces attacked a tent sheltering displaced people in the town of Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis.
At least one person was killed and four others were wounded.
We’ll bring you more when we have it.
Three killed in Israeli attack on central Gaza
We reported earlier on an Israeli attack on a house in Deir el-Balah.
Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are now reporting that at least three people were killed in that attack. All of them were from the same family.
We’ll bring you more soon.
Israeli forces bulldoze wall at besieged hospital
We are following the situation at the Indonesian Hospital in north Gaza.
Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondent is reporting that Israeli forces have attacked the hospital’s gate and demolished the northern wall of the besieged facility using a bulldozer.
As we’ve been reporting, at least 55 people are trapped inside, including four doctors and eight nurses.
Al Jazeera Arabic is also reporting that shelling and gunfire have been heard around the hospital.
Palestinians in Gaza facing death, either by starvation or bombings
Israel has intensified its attacks across the Gaza Strip.
It has designated al-Mawasi in southern Gaza as a “safe zone”, but it bombed the camp on Sunday, killing dozens of people. More than a hundred people were wounded.
One survivor, Warda al-Chaer, said her mother was killed and that her niece lost her eye. “What do they want with the children?” she asked. “Please, have mercy on us, we are fed up.”
In the north, air strikes killed several members of a single family after hitting their home in Beit Lahiya.
Israel also targeted the Indonesian Hospital in the north, forcing patients and medical staff to flee under fire.
Officials in Gaza have accused Israeli forces of blocking wounded patients from reaching the hospital.
Meanwhile, health workers in Gaza say the situation is deteriorating.
Dr Victoria Rose, a surgeon, said they don’t have the basics due to the ongoing Israeli blockade. “We are unable to run any blood analysis, so we can’t do any blood count. We can’t look at urea and electrolytes and kidney function. We are really limited on blood,” she told Al Jazeera.
In central Gaza, Israeli strikes have flattened residential buildings, and in az-Zawayda, desperate families are searching for their relatives, trapped under the rubble.
The Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip has brought people to the point of death from starvation, and now they are facing being killed in increasing waves of attacks.
A grim choice no person should be forced to face.
Six Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on central and south Gaza
There have been several deadly Israeli attacks in Gaza in recent hours.
Here’s what we know:
- At least three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli drone attack on tents sheltering displaced Palestinians near the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
- Two others were killed and several more injured in another Israeli drone attack on tents in the Yarmouk area of central Gaza.
- We are also getting reports of casualties following an Israeli air strike on a house in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
- In southern Gaza, at least one person was killed and nine others wounded in Israeli air strike on a house in the town of Abasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Younis.
We will bring you more information when we have it.
Israel to allow limited aid into Gaza to ‘help expand ground operation’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that he is going to allow the resumption of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
But there’s a catch. He says that only a basic amount of food is going to go in.
That’s because it came at the recommendation of the Israeli military in order to help them with their expanding operations inside of Gaza, Netanyahu says, in order to defeat Hamas.
It’s worth mentioning that the Israelis have been blockading all humanitarian assistance since March 2, which includes food, water, medical supplies and fuel.
The Israelis have largely been opposed to allowing the resumption of the flow of aid until there was a new mechanism in place, but according to sources within Israel, they’re saying that the World Central Kitchen (WCK) and the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) are going to assist with distribution for about a week until this new US contractor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, takes over.
The Israeli Security Council had largely approved this new measure around two weeks ago when it was presented by the new military chief of staff.
At the same time, he had also presented the widening of Israel’s military operations inside of Gaza.
But when the aid is going to resume is still a question on everyone’s mind.
Death toll in Gaza rises
Medical sources say Israeli forces have killed 151 Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday.
Earlier, we reported that the figure was 144.
Some 70 of the victims were in Gaza City and northern parts of the enclave.
A recap of recent developments
- Israel’s military says it has begun a large-scale ground operation in Gaza as the death toll from Israeli attacks on Sunday rises to at least 144.
- Israeli forces have laid siege to the Indonesian Hospital, the main partially functioning hospital in North Gaza, trapping some 55 people and forcing it to shut down.
- Israel’s military issues forced displacement orders for central Gaza, including al-Qarara in Deir el-Balah, after Hamas fighters fired rockets at Israeli territory, citing the latest ground assault.
- Yemen’s Houthi rebels promise to launch more attacks on Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport and other airports over the “escalation against the Gaza Strip and the aggression against Yemen”.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel will allow a “basic amount” of humanitarian aid into Gaza, but it was not immediately clear when the supplies would enter the enclave.
- A senior Hamas official says negotiations for a ceasefire are continuing in Qatar, noting there are some “ideas that are unacceptable to us being put forward” and “we are also putting forward ideas”.
- More than 100,000 red-clad protesters have rallied in the Dutch city of The Hague, calling for the Netherlands to end support for Israel, as a group of Italian and European legislators demonstrated in front of Egypt’s Rafah border crossing with Gaza, calling for an end to the war.
Welcome to our live coverage
Hello, and thank you for joining our live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, as well as its attacks on the occupied West Bank and the wider region.
Follow this page for round-the-clock updates and analysis on the latest developments.
You can read about the key events from Sunday, May 18, here.
