Israel-Hamas war live: Palestinian Red Crescent warns of ‘war crime’ after ambulances hit in Gaza | Israel-Hamas war

The stench of death still pervades Kfar Aza, an Israeli kibbutz on the periphery of the blockaded Gaza Strip. The street closest to the barbed wire border fence, just 50 metres away from the 3 mile (5km) buffer zone that separates the territories, previously housed the kibbutz’s volunteers. These young adults lived in around 40 small homes designed for single occupancy, staying for a few months at a time to explore the socialist and environmental principles typical of a kibbutz lifestyle.

As there are several communal bomb shelters in the vicinity, the houses were not designed with safe rooms in which to wait out rocket attacks. Even if they were, the occupants would not have escaped Kfar Aza’s fate on 7 October, when Hamas burst out of its cage.

What came next has forever changed the region. Four weeks after the Palestinian militant group’s horrifying attack that killed 1,400 Israelis across southern Israel, there is only silence in this community, previously home to 750 people, perforated by blasts of nearby Israeli artillery fire and a warning of an incoming anti-tank missile.

An Israeli drone has fired a missile at the Gaza house of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, Reuters has said in a quick snap, citing the Hamas-affiliated Aqsa Radio.

The report said Haniyeh was currently outside the territory.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has condemned the targeting of a convoy of ambulances in Gaza by Israeli forces on Friday, which it says killed 15 people and wounded more than 60 others.

The PRCS said in a statement early on Saturday that one of its ambulances was struck “by a missile fired by the Israeli forces” about 2 metres from the entrance to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Agence France-Presse reports.

The attack resulted in the deaths of 15 civilians and wounded 60 other people, the PRCS said, mirroring figures released earlier by the Hamas-run health ministry.

Another ambulance, belonging to the health ministry, was “directly targeted” by a missile about a kilometre from the hospital, causing injuries and damage, it said.

The PRCS, part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, added that deliberately targeting medical teams constituted “a grave violation of the Geneva conventions, a war crime”.

Israel’s military said it had launched an airstrike on “an ambulance that was identified by forces as being used by a Hamas terrorist cell in close proximity to their position in the battle zone”.

“A number of Hamas terrorist operatives were killed in the strike,” a military statement said.

Hamas official Izzat El Reshiq said allegations its fighters were present were “baseless”.

In a statement on the incident, Israel’s military gave no evidence to support its assertion that the ambulance was linked to Hamas but said it intended to release additional information.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will meet Jordan’s King Abdullah II after leaving Israel empty-handed in his efforts to secure humanitarian “pauses” in its war with Hamas.

Blinken arrived late on Friday in Amman, where he will also join a meeting of foreign ministers of five Arab countries which will be attended by a representative of the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmud Abbas.

In Israel, Blinken discussed with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the idea of “humanitarian pauses” to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas and to allow aid to be distributed to the beleaguered population of the Gaza Strip.

But after meeting Blinken on Friday, Netanyahu warned there could be no “temporary truce” in Gaza unless Hamas releases the hostages it holds.

Saudi, Qatari, Emirati, Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers as well as Palestinian representatives will stress the “Arab stance calling for an immediate ceasefire, delivering humanitarian aid and ways of ending the dangerous deterioration that threatens the security of the region”, the Jordanian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Welcome to our rolling live coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas, now on day 29. I’m Adam Fulton and here’s a rundown on the latest news as it nears 7am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv.

Fifteen people have been killed and 60 injured in an Israeli strike on a convoy of ambulances near the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said.

Israeli forces on Friday targeted the convoy near al-Shifa hospital transporting the wounded from Gaza City towards Rafah in the south, according to the Hamas government in Gaza.

The Israel Defense Forces said they carried out an airstrike on an ambulance they said was being used by Hamas and that “a number of Hamas terrorist operatives” were killed.

Meanwhile, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, arrived in Amman late on Friday and is to meet Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Saturday after leaving Israel empty-handed in his efforts to secure “humanitarian pauses” in its war to destroy Hamas.

Blinken will also join a meeting of foreign ministers of five Arab countries which will be attended by a representative of the Palestinian Authority, a rival of Hamas.

Blinken had urged Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to temporarily stop its military offensive to allow aid into Gaza. But Netanyahu said after the meeting there could be no “temporary truce” unless Hamas released the hostages it held.

In other key developments:

• The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah has said his powerful militia is engaged in cross-border fighting with Israel and has threatened further “realistic escalation”. Hassan Nasrallah stopped short of announcing that Hezbollah had fully joined the Israel-Hamas war but warned that fighting on the Lebanon-Israel border would not be limited to the scale seen so far. The White House said Hezbollah should not try to take advantage of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

• Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed at least 9,227 Palestinians, including 3,826 children, since 7 October, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said on Friday. The Israeli offensive on Gaza followed attacks launched by Hamas into Israel on 7 October which killed 1,400 people.

• The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned it cannot provide safety to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians “sheltering under a UN flag”. More than 50 UN facilities have been “impacted” by the conflict – including “five direct hits” – and 38 people had died in UN shelters, Thomas White, the director of UNRWA affairs said on Friday. “Let’s be very clear, there is no place that is safe in Gaza right now.”

• UNRWA “is practically out of business”, the UN’s humanitarian chief said on Friday, as he paid tribute to at least 72 UNRWA staff killed in Gaza since 7 October. Martin Griffiths told UN member states in New York that what had unfolded over the past 26 days of conflict “is nothing short of … a blight on our collective conscience”.

• Talks are being held on a “very significant” pause in the Israel-Hamas war to win the release of hostages taken by Hamas, Agence France-Presse quoted a senior US official as saying. “It is something that is under a very serious and active discussion. But there is no agreement as of yet to actually get this done,” the official said on Friday. Reuters quoted a US official saying there was “indirect engagement” aimed at finding a way to get the hostages out and “it’s something we’re working on extremely hard”, but there was “absolutely no guarantee” it would happen. An estimated 240 Israeli and foreign hostages were kidnapped by Hamas during its 7 October assault.

• Israel will continue its offensive in Gaza “with full force” and refuse any temporary ceasefire that does not include the release of the hostages held by Hamas, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said, rejecting US calls for a pause in the fighting. “I made clear that we are continuing full force and that Israel refuses a temporary ceasefire which does not include the release of our hostages,” he said on Friday.

• Israeli forces have surrounded Gaza City and are attacking Hamas infrastructure and destroying tunnels used by militants to launch attacks, the Israeli military said on Friday. Airstrikes continued alongside the intensifying ground offensive in what Netanyahu described as the second stage of the war.

• Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, saying “crimes against humanity” are being committed in Gaza. “There is no concept that could explain or excuse the brutality that we have witnessed since 7 October,” Erdogan said during a summit of Turkic states in the Kazakh capital, Astana.

• France has reacted with “astonishment” and “incomprehension” after it said that an Israeli airstrike had hit the Institut Français in Gaza, and that the Gaza office of Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency was also hit. AFP said its Gaza City office was significantly damaged by a strike on the building on Thursday. No injuries have been reported.

• Israeli forces on Friday killed six Palestinians in raids across the West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, as violence surged in the occupied territory in tandem with the Gaza war. The Israeli army said its forces were “operating against Hamas” across the West Bank, with operations in Jenin and the northern city of Nablus.

• The US has confirmed for the first time that it has been flying unarmed surveillance drones over Gaza. The flights were “in support of hostage recovery efforts”, the Pentagon said.

• The first people in a group of about 100 Britons due to leave Gaza on Friday have made the crossing into Egypt, amid concerns about whether individuals in the north of the Palestinian territory will be able to make it to the southern Rafah crossing. By Friday, there were 127 people on the UK list to be evacuated into Egypt since the crossing opened on Wednesday. The parents-in-law of Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, were among the Britons able to leave Gaza. It is understood hundreds of British nationals remain trapped in Gaza.

• The White House has said 100 American citizens and family members left Gaza on Thursday. Another large group of Americans were expected to leave the territory on Friday, it said.

• Thirty-four French citizens were evacuated from the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to the French foreign ministry.

• Doctors and aid workers in Gaza say they have been abandoned by the international community to a “humanitarian tragedy” as they “fight to survive” after almost four weeks of war.

• Thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza who were stranded in Israel when war broke out last month have been deported back to the war-torn strip after being expelled by the Israeli government. The UN Human Rights Office said it was “deeply concerned” about the expulsions.

• Five people were arrested during a pro-Palestinian sit-in at King’s Cross station in London after the demonstration was banned. On Friday evening scores of people could still be seen outside the station on social media. Rishi Sunak, meanwhile, described pro-Palestinian protests planned for London on Armistice Day as “provocative and disrespectful”. The UK prime minister’s intervention on Friday came as two women pictured at a pro-Palestinian march in London carrying photos of paragliders were charged with terrorism offences.