Israel-Hamas war live: Biden in Israel, anger over Gaza hospital strike

Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces near the city of Ramallah in the West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry has said.

Qais Shalash, 18, and Khalil Shalash, 16 were killed in the village of Shoqba, west of Ramallah, an eyewitness told Al Jazeera.

The eyewitness Hamza Mahmoud said that Israeli forces prevented paramedics from evacuating the two men to the hospital for at least 20 minutes.

The two men were shot in the heart and lungs respectively, said Raed al-Khatib, who is in charge of emergency services in the villages west of Ramallah.

The US has vetoed a UN resolution that would have condemned Hamas’ attacks against Israel and all violence against civilians while urging humanitarian aid to Gazans.

The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 12 votes in favor, the US against, and two abstentions.

In a meeting with Israel’s cabinet, President Biden says the government has agreed to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, based on the “understanding that there will be inspections, and that aid should go to civilians, not Hamas”.

“Israel agreed humanitarian assistance can begin to move from Egypt to Gaza,” Biden added.

Tuesday’s attack on the al-Ahli Arab Hospital killed nearly 500 people in a place where civilians were taking shelter, overworked medical staff were treating patients, and the sick and injured had gathered in the hope of rescue or recovery.

If you want to know what international law says about attacks on civilians and health facilities, go here.

International law has specific protections for medical staff, supplies and patients [File: Ali Mahmoud/AP Photo]

In his latest comments from Tel Aviv, Biden has assured Israel that Washington will keep the Iron Dome “fully supplied”.

The US president also said that he would urge Congress to pass an “unprecedented support package for Israel’s defence”.

Here’s the latest update from the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Jeddah.

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amirabdollahian, on the sidelines of the meeting where they discussed the current military escalation in Gaza.

The Saudi foreign minister “affirmed the Kingdom’s firm position towards the Palestinian cause and supporting efforts aimed at achieving comprehensive and just peace that guarantees the Palestinian people’s access to their legitimate rights”, the kingdom’s foreign ministry said on X.

As we bring you all the latest news and developments from the ground, here are some explainers to break all that down as the war continues:

• What do we know about the deadly strike on al-Ahli Arab Hospital that killed nearly 500 people?
• Why did Jordan cancel the Biden visit after the bombing of a Gaza hospital?
• What can Biden’s Israel visit accomplish after the hospital bombing?
• Israel controls Gaza’s airspace and territorial waters, as well as two of the three border crossing points; the third is controlled by Egypt. Last week, Israel imposed a “total siege” of Gaza, stopping the supply of fuel and water, and effectively blocking any aid from coming in.
• Why reopening the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza is crucial amid Israeli bombing?
• Here, we explain Gaza’s dire humanitarian crisis.
• What’s the Israel-Palestine conflict about? A simple guide.

The US was apparently trying to put some pressure on delaying the UN Security Council vote until President Biden was in the air, but that is not happening, and the vote is definitely on.

Brazil’s draft resolution has now been watered down; after initially calling for an immediate ceasefire, it now calls for humanitarian pauses.

But the US will likely support this resolution because they will use this to try and push Secretary Blinken’s plan to get the Americans out at the Rafah crossing and get some aid in. Of course, the US position is that Israel has the right to defend itself, so bombardment will continue after that.

• President Joe Biden stressed once again the US’s unwavering support for the Israeli war in Gaza during a visit to Israel.
• Biden tells PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, that the al-Ahli Arab Hospital bombing appears to have been committed by the “other team, not you”, implying Palestinian armed factions were behind it.
• The bombardment of the hospital in Gaza has triggered a wave of anger and protests across the Middle East.
• Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi rules out hosting Palestinian refugees from Gaza in the Sinai Peninsula, suggesting instead that Israel could move them to the Negev desert.
• Israeli air strikes in Gaza continue, bringing the number of people killed in the besieged enclave to nearly 3,450.
• Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian suggests an oil embargo and other sanctions on Israel.
• Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib warns that continued aggression against Gaza could ignite a “fire that could consume the whole region”.
  

  Buildings destroyed in Israeli air strikes on Bureij refugee camp, Gaza Strip [Hatem Moussa/AP Photo]

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib warns that continued aggression against Gaza could ignite a “fire that could consume the whole region”.

Speaking in Jeddah, Bou Habib cautioned against sparking tensions “that could lead to an uncontainable escalation”.

Israel military’s top spokesperson Daniel Hagari says the army fired at targets in southern Lebanon after one of its posts on the border was shelled.

Twelve Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli air raid that targeted a house in Khan Younis.

Medical sources told Anadolu Agency that dozens more have been injured in the shelling in eastern Khan Younis.

Civil defence teams and residents continue search and rescue operations around the buildings that were destroyed after Israel’s attacks in Khan Younis [Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu]

Archbishop Hosam Naoum, speaking alongside the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem, said that the al-Ahli Arab Hospital had received warnings by phone to evacuate on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

He would not state who had made those warnings.

“We are not military people to decide, we are not journalists to analyze, we are not politicians to decide, what we are saying here is what has happened in the hospital is a crime, is a massacre,” Naoum said.

The US Treasury has announced sanctions on 10 Hamas members, operatives and financial facilitators, including a key commander.

“The United States is taking swift and decisive action to target Hamas’s financiers and facilitators following its brutal and unconscionable massacre of Israeli civilians, including children,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.

A protest has been called by the Hezbollah group in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.

The ongoing rally is also a message from Hezbollah that it is their duty to stand with the people of the besieged Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah has repeatedly stated that Gaza will not fall. Of course, there is a strategic interest for Hezbollah. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are part of the Iranian-backed so-called axis of resistance.

If you speak with senior officials of the group, they will tell you this has become an existential fight. They will tell you either Israel will remain or the so-called axis of resistance.

[Hatem Moussa/AP Photo]

[Hatem Moussa/AP Photo]

[Hatem Moussa/AP Photo]

Here is more from a news conference held by the health ministry spokesperson:

• The continued attacks “constitute ethnic cleansing and a threat to the Palestinian existence”.
• Seventy percent of the victims of the Israeli aggression are children, women and the elderly.
• There are about 1,300 people still under the rubble, including 600 children.
• There are people still alive and stuck under the rubble of destroyed buildings “but the process of reaching them faces great difficulties due to continuous targeting”.

A Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesperson has given updates from the explosion at the Gaza hospital on Tuesday evening:

• 471 people killed
• 314 wounded
• 28 of those are in critical condition

[Muath Freij/Reuters]

[Alaa Al Sukhni/Reuters]

[Alaa Al Sukhni/Reuters]

The health ministry in Gaza now says a total of 3,478 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air attacks, while another 12,000 people have been wounded.

Palestinian medics help a child wounded in Israeli air strikes outside the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza [Ali Mahmoud/AP Photo]