• It is the twelfth day of the war: at least 3,400 Palestinians have died, 1,400 Israelis, 199 hostages.
• The history of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis explained.
• Biden met Netanyahu in Tel Aviv and said: “It appears that it was not Israel that hit the hospital.”
• Explosion at al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City: hundreds dead. Hamas blames Israel and Tel Aviv blames the Palestinians by releasing videos and satellite images.
• One of the three Italian-Israeli citizens missing after the Hamas attack has died.
• Two Hamas leaders were killed in an Israeli raid.
6:16 a.m. – Xi: “China with Egypt for more stability in the Middle East”
A direct bridge will be opened between Beijing and Cairo. China hopes to work with Egypt to bring “more stability” to the Middle East amid tensions in the region over the conflict between Israel and Hamas. President Xi Jinping said this when he met Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli in Beijing today, as part of the latest engagements related to the third forum on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which ended yesterday. “China is ready to strengthen cooperation with Egypt and create greater security and stability in the region and the world,” the Chinese leader said in the report on state television network CCTV.
4:44 a.m. – Biden: “No to US intervention if Hezbollah attacks, but “let’s evaluate””
US President Joe Biden has branded as “untrue” the news that his administration had told Israel that US forces would fight alongside Israeli troops in response to any attack by the Lebanese Hezbollah movement against the Jewish state. However, when asked by journalists, Biden said: “Our military is talking” with the Israeli military “about what alternatives there are” in the event of a Hezbollah attack.
4:01 a.m. – Israel and Hezbollah targets hit in the south
The Israeli army says it is currently attacking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Lebanese television Al Mayadeen reported that in the early hours of today there were airstrikes on two villages in the south of the country: rockets were fired at Kafr Shuba and near Odaisseh.
In a statement quoted by local media, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that among the positions attacked this evening was an observation point in southwest Lebanon from which anti-tank fire was directed at the Israeli border town of Rosh Hanikra yesterday.
3.47am – Sunak will be in Israel today
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will travel to Israel today before visiting other countries in the region to defuse the conflict between Israel and Gaza, his office said. “The attack on Al-Ahli Hospital should be a turning point for leaders in the region and around the world to come together to prevent a further dangerous escalation of the conflict,” Sunak said in a statement. “I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this effort”
3:15 a.m. – “Israeli attack on a Syrian position in the south”
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Israel launched an airstrike against a regime military position in southern Syria a few days after an attack on Aleppo airport in the north. “Explosions occurred in Quneitra province following an Israeli attack on a Syrian army position,” said the British-based NGO, which has a large network of sources in the war-torn country. Sounds of explosions were also heard in the Golan Heights (south), the organization said, without naming the source of the shots.
2:36 a.m. – Biden, address to the nation on Israel and Ukraine this evening
Joe Biden will address the nation on Thursday evening about the “response to Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel and Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine.” The White House announced this and emphasized that Biden would speak in the Oval Office at 8 p.m. local time.
2:14 a.m. – Biden in Israel: “Don’t let your anger consume you, it wasn’t you who bombed the hospital”
(by Davide Frattini) As he descends the steps of Air Force One, he hugs Benjamin Netanyahu. He came to embrace an entire country, he came to look closely at the photographs of the atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists at dawn twelve days ago. After the massacre in the hospital in the south of the Gaza Strip, Joe Biden asks his Israeli allies to show him the information they have collected so far.
– US President Biden hugs Prime Minister Netanyahu upon his arrival in Tel Aviv
02:00 – Egypt: “Green light for “sustainable” flow of humanitarian aid via Rafah”
Egypt has announced the “sustainable” passage of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing, while hundreds of humanitarian trucks are still parked at the gates of the enclave relentlessly bombarded by Israel. “Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and US President Joe Biden have agreed on a sustained delivery of humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing,” presidential spokesman Ahmed Fahmy said in a press release without specifying a date.
1:47 a.m. – From Ramallah to Beirut, the streets are mobilizing: attacks on embassies, Abu Mazen challenged
(by Francesco Battistini, correspondent) “We are all Barghouti!” At ten in the morning we cry about Gaza and the tear gas. On the kefieh to cover the eyes. Raise your fists, throw a stone and don’t hide your hand. “Revenge, revenge! Oh Hamas, bomb Tel Aviv! …” Tires are burned at the Kalandia checkpoint, which was once the gate to Jerusalem. The hospital massacre drives hundreds of people from the Piazza dei Leoni: columns of smoke rise and the shops close. The years of infidelity and fires – so many shootings, so many suicide bombers – have now blackened Marwan Barghouti’s magnificent mural. Nothing goes through here anymore. Security reasons. The eternally failed leader of the Palestinians in the West Bank is just a big face spray-painted on the wall, handcuffs on his wrists and the determination of the Tanzim. (…)
1:24 a.m. – The day after the massacre in the hospital, at the site of the explosion: “They sought refuge there”
(by Lorenzo Cremonesi, our correspondent in Ashkelon) Charred cars, blood on the sidewalk, walls and roofs damaged by shrapnel, windows and doors blown out: this is the site of the explosion in the parking lot of Al-Ahli Hospital in the Gaza Strip. Yesterday morning, health workers and volunteers attempted to clean up the area.
“Over a thousand displaced people were in the courtyard at 6:59 p.m. the other evening when the rocket exploded with full force. A cloud of fire and splinters that left those closest to them no hope.
1:01 a.m. – Netanyahu: “Received gigantic military aid from Biden”
“With President Joe Biden’s visit today, we have achieved something of the utmost importance that will make an enormous contribution to our security: gigantic military aid to Israel, aid of an unprecedented scale,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a recorded message to the nation. “As for the hostages,” he added, “I made three things clear to President Biden: I have asked for the hostages’ return and we are working together to bring them home by any means possible; Until this happens, we demand Red Cross visits to the hostages; Finally, we will not allow humanitarian aid in the form of food and medicine for Gaza to leave our territory.”
00:49 – 3,478 victims in Gaza
The death toll in Gaza is rising, with today’s statement from the Palestinian Ministry of Health putting the death toll at 3,478 while more than 12,000 people are injured.
1:18 a.m. – “The video proves that the rocket on the hospital was Palestinian”
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari released a video satellite images captured “the area around the hospital before and after the failed rocket launch by the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad,” writes Hagari.
12:05 a.m. – One of the three Italian-Israeli citizens missing after the Hamas attack has died
Eviatar Moshe Kipnis, 65, one of three Italian Israelis not heard from since the October 7 Hamas attack, has died. He disappeared from the Be’eri kibbutz with his wife Liliach Le Havron, whose fate is still unknown.