Israel says its troops have completed encirclement of Gaza City

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We've just heard from our correspondent Anthony Zurcher in Ireland, where the US secretary of state's plane is refuelling on the way to Israel.

His arrival come just hours after the country's president, Michael D Higgins, made a vocal intervention warning against the "collective punishment" of people living in Gaza.

Higgins called on the European Union and the broader international community to put an end to the conflict, saying they have a responsibility of upholding and vindicating international law.

"The ongoing horrific loss of civilian life in Gaza and Israel has to be addressed," Higgins said in a statement. "When it comes to the protection of children, no other issues should stand in the way for even a minute."

His statement criticised the targeting of hospitals in particular, saying it is "simply unacceptable that hospitals and those being cared for within them are threatened by the basic lack of resources, damaged or indeed threatened with destruction".

He concluded that if the world is to move past this conflict, a consistent, diverse body of proposals on the region's future should be put forward.

The proposals, he says, are "ones that can deliver a reasonable security to citizens of Israel, and at the same time achieve the delivery of the long-neglected rights of the Palestinian people".

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

Antony Blinken’s plane has landed for a refuelling stop in Ireland, the first leg of a journey that will take the secretary of state and newly appointed US ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, to Tel Aviv for a full day of meetings with Israeli officials.

It has been a quiet trip so far, with Blinken’s only contact with the travelling press corps coming in brief remarks from the tarmac before departing Washington DC.

The pace will pick up considerably over the next few days, however.

US diplomats have a daunting task ahead of them – reassuring the Israelis of continued American support while stepping up pressure to minimise civilian casualties in Gaza. The devastation in the Palestinian territory is increasing tensions with Israel’s Arab neighbours – and risking a widening of the conflict.

Blinken has said he wants to talk to leaders throughout the region in the days ahead about how to ensure a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Plotting a long-term future may be difficult, however, if the secretary is unable to bring new assurances - and evidence - of Israeli restraint to Arab leaders when the secretary meets with over the weekend.

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US Vice-President Kamala Harris was in London on Thursday for the UK AI safety summit, where she met with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Though her trip was unrelated to the situation in Israel and Gaza, she and Sunak did discuss the war. In remarks afterwards, she reiterated Israel has a "right to defend itself."

She added that there there must be "no conflation between the Palestinian people and Hamas", and there "should not be any intentional targeting" of civilians.

Harris also thanked Sunak for the position he has taken on the conflict, including the UK's support for Israel.

"As we've both stated, Hamas is a terrorist organisation and what happened in Israel is horrendous by any measure."

Harris was met with protestors when she arrived at Downing Street, with some waving Palestinian flags and shouting "ceasefire now".

The Israeli military says 242 people were taken hostage by Hamas on 7 October.

Udi Goren's cousin is one of them.

In an interview with the BBC, Udi describes his cousin as "an average guy, he's a civil engineer, he's got a wife, he's got three kids". His family is "sick with worry", Udi says.

But his biggest frustration is that he feels the families of hostages "just can't trust anyone".

"We don't trust our government, [we don't trust] that they're doing their best to bring them back. Obviously we don't trust Hamas," he explains, adding that they're "not getting any clear answers".

"I don't see in any way, in any way, how bombing Gaza to the ground is going to get my cousin back. I don't see in any kind of scenario, how this is getting him back alive sooner," Udi adds.

Israel has said it is protecting its country and civilian population by seeking to "destroy" Hamas.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

Nine-year-old Rafif Abu Ziyada is currently living in Khan Younis, in the south of Gaza.

She tells the Reuters news agency she drinks dirty water and is getting stomach aches and headaches.

"There is no cooking gas, there is no water, we don't eat well. We are getting sick," she says.

"There's garbage on the ground and the whole place is polluted."

EPACopyright: EPA

It’s approaching 22:00 here in London and midnight in Israel and Gaza. Here's a recap of the main developments from today:

• Israel’s military said it has “completed the encirclement of Gaza City” and has been attacking positions used by Hamas. The city is the largest in the Gaza Strip and was the most densely populated part of the territory before the war began
• The UN said four of its schools in Gaza that are being used as shelters have been damaged in less than 24 hours. The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees also noted that at 20 people are reportedly dead at a school in the Jabalia refugee camp
• Schools at the Beach refugee camp, and the Al Bureij camp, were also damaged, with three reported deaths

• A limited number of citizens were able to leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing, near the Egyptian border, which opened yesterday. Egyptian officials said 21 injured Palestinians left today, plus 344 foreign passport holders, including 72 children
• The UK Foreign Office said “more British nationals” were able to cross into Egypt from Gaza, but didn’t provide a number, while the US said 74 American citizens with dual nationality have left via the Rafah crossing
• The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said more than 9,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since 7 October, when the current conflict began after Hamas launched its deadly attacks on Israel, killing 1,400 people. Since then, Israel has bombarded Gaza with air strikes as it seeks to "destroy Hamas"

• The Lebanese group Hezbollah also said it used two drones packed with explosives to attack an Israeli army position in the disputed Shebaa Farms/Mount Dov area at the Lebanese-Israeli border

Earlier, the Israeli military said its forces had encircled Gaza City, the largest part of the Gaza Strip.

Before the war began, it was the largest most densely populated part of the strip.

Home to an estimated 775,000 people, it had more than 9,000 people per square kilometre – almost double that of the rest of the Gaza Strip, an already densely-packed area.

However, many of those have now left – although it’s not clear how many – after the Israeli military ordered citizens of northern Gaza to move south in the middle of last month, days after the 7 October Hamas attacks.

The Israeli military has described Gaza City as the “focus” of Hamas’s activities.

BBCCopyright: BBC

A second French helicopter carrier will be sent to the coast of Gaza, French defence minister Sebastien Lecornu has told local media.

In an interview with France Info radio, Lecornu said the ship was being "equipped to be transformed into a hospital vessel".

"The idea is to tell all the actors in this conflict that we cannot leave civilian populations exposed to danger and, above all, without a healthcare solution on a humanitarian level," Lecornu added.

France announced that it would send the first navy vessel to the eastern Mediterranean last week, following President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Israel and other countries in the Middle East.

As the number of dead and wounded from Israel’s bombardment in Gaza grows by the hour, aid agencies are increasingly concerned for Palestinian patients with long-term conditions whose lives, they say, are now at risk.

As we've been reporting, the World Health Organization has been giving some statistics at a press conference in Geneva.

It says an estimated 350,000 people have diabetes, cancer or heart disease.

• 1,000 people in Gaza need kidney dialysis
• At least 130 premature babies are in incubators
• There are 2,000 cancer patients, on average, every year

Before the latest conflict, officials say, 100 patients were referred out of Gaza every day for specialised health care in Israel and the West Bank.

That is, obviously, no longer happening.

The agency is also worried about new infections spreading in overcrowded shelters, with officials reporting an increase in acute respiratory infections, diarrhoea, and skin diseases.

“The needs are sky-rocketing, while our ability to meet them is plummeting,” said WHO Regional Emergency Director, Rick Brennan.

They were on the road and heading south.

South, where the Israel Defence Forces told them to go. But the war found them anyway.

Sixteen-year-old Ahmad Jaber, his mother, father and uncle were caught in an airstrike on 13 October while trying to reach Rafah on Gaza’s border with Egypt. Ahmad was the only survivor. He lost his leg and suffered severe burns in the blast.

A BBC colleague met Ahmad in Al Najjar hospital in Rafah today where he showed photos of his dead father and uncle. He wishes for what cannot be.

“I wish that my life could go back to how it was,” he says, “to have my life go back to how it looked like, and my people's lives go back to how they were before.”

In those happier times he used to swim in the sea near his home.

“I loved swimming, it was the thing I did when I needed to get some negative energy off. It made me stronger, strengthened my muscles, my body.”

And then he says simply that the place where he once lived, where he walked to the sea from, is “gone.”

As a diplomat, Antony Blinken is a master of understatement. In brief remark made before he taking off on another trip to the Middle East, the US Secretary of State said that these were “challenging times”.

He says his task for this trip is to prevent the conflict between Israel and Hamas from spilling into wider conflict, ensure the return of all US hostages in Gaza and lay the groundwork for a durable two-state peace solution.

His trip will start with meetings on the ground in Israel and then include discussions with other leaders in the region.

It’s a frenetic scramble to keep the situation from boiling over, but Blinken says he still believes the US diplomacy can make a difference. How much of a difference, however, will be put to the test over the coming days.

GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFPCopyright: GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP

A video and picture posted by Hamas of two young sisters held hostage is the only thing giving an Israeli mother hope.

Eight-year-old Ela and her sister Dafna, 15, we taken when Hamas launched a series of deadly attacks on Israel on 7 October.

Hamas posted a video of a gunman looming over Ela and sent a picture of Dafna in her pyjamas in Gaza to their mother Maayan Zin.

She told news agency AFP she stares at these images every day, as it's the "closest proof of life".

"Sometimes I imagine they rape them, they hit them," Zin said at her home in Kiryat Ono near Tel Aviv.

"A bit later I'll be more optimistic, telling myself that there are so many children over there, they must be treating them well."

She says she dreams of their return, and if she sees them again she wants to "buy a big bed so we can sleep all three together".

But until then, Mayaan Zin's life is a "permanent rollercoaster".

Mayaan Zin hasn't seen the girls since she they went to stay with their dad before the attack. He was killed when they were taken.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

As we've been reporting, the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened yesterday - allowing a limited number of civilians to leave the strip for the first time in more than three weeks.

The Egyptian Health Ministry says so far 21 injured Palestinians entered Egypt today, plus 344 foreign passport holders, including 72 children.

On Wednesday, 46 injured Palestinians left Gaza, as well as around 320 foreign passport holders.

The World Health Organization has made an urgent appeal for humanitarian access in Gaza, calling conditions there “indescribable.”

“It’s too late to help the dead but we can help the living,” the director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a press briefing in Geneva.

He said hospitals were crammed with the injured lying in corridors - while morgues overflowed with bodies and doctors carried out surgery without anaesthesia.

Fourteen out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are no longer functioning, and 23 hospitals in Gaza City and the north of the territory have been ordered to evacuate, according to the agency.

“We are running out of words to describe the horror unfolding in Gaza,” said the WHO chief. “We need a humanitarian pause in the fighting, ideally a ceasefire. We need unfettered access and safe passage.”

EPACopyright: EPA

Israel's military says it has "completed the encirclement of Gaza City".

In a statement, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said its forces had been attacking outposts, headquarters and other infrastructure being used by Hamas.

Located in the north of the Gaza Strip, Gaza City was the most densely populated part of the strip before the war began, but on 13 October Israel ordered civilians in northern Gaza to move south.

It’s unclear how many civilians are currently in Gaza City, but images from today showed widespread destruction across the city and empty streets.

BBCCopyright: BBC

US President Joe Biden has said that 74 American citizens with dual nationality have left Gaza via the Rafah Crossing.

They have entered into Egypt, he said.

As we've been reporting, the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt opened yesterday - allowing some civilians to leave for the first time in more than three weeks.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

The UN adds that these four damaged shelters altogether host nearly 20,000 people.

Its agency for Palestinian refugees says nearly 50 of its buildings have been impacted since 7 October, when Hamas launched its surprise attack in Israel, killing 1,400 and kidnapping more than 200 people. Israel has bombarded Gaza since with air strikes as it seeks to "destroy Hamas".

The UN says that, to date, 72 of its employees have been killed in Gaza, often with their families.

In a statement, it adds: “How many more? How much more grief and suffering? A humanitarian ceasefire is overdue for the sake of humanity.”

The agency says it is currently hosting 700,000 displaced people in dozens of facilities across the Gaza Strip.

The BBC has verified two videos from two separate blasts reported today at schools run by the UN in Gaza.

One extremely graphic video, filmed at an elementary school in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, shows the aftermath, first outside the main gate of the school and then in the main courtyard.

At least 20 people, either dead or injured, can be seen on the ground, including men, women and children.

Dozens try to attend to the injured while several ambulances can be seen outside the main gate.

The second video, filmed at the main courtyard of a primary school in the Al-Shati refugee camp, also in northern Gaza but near the Mediterranean coast, shows a plume of smoke rising from behind the main building of the school.

Several people, including children, run for safety in the courtyard, while some residents of the camp watch from the windows above. A series of explosions can be heard in the background of the video. The last one, the loudest, causes the crowd in the courtyard to flee in panic.

Hamas authorities in Gaza blamed Israeli strikes. The Israel Defense Forces have been contacted for comment.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters