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Latest situation
All but one hospital in Gaza’s north has been forced to stop operating, according to the UN, as Israeli forces advance deep into the enclave and severely restrict supplies of fuel, water and food to the besieged territory.
Israel claims al-Shifa is a significant site for Hamas’s operations because it sits on top of the armed group’s underground infrastructure that the Israeli military intends to destroy.
Doctors at al-Shifa have denied that it is a military base and say thousands of patients, medical personnel and civilians are sheltering there.
The desperate situation in Gaza’s hospitals has become a source of tension between Israel and its allies, with the US, France and other western nations increasingly pushing Israel to exercise restraint in operations near medical facilities.
President Joe Biden said on Monday that the US had spoken to Israel about the topic and that hospitals “must be protected”. He added: “My hope and expectation is that there will be less intrusive action relative to hospitals.”
Israel’s incursion in Gaza
Israel’s defence forces launched an aerial bombardment and a ground offensive in Gaza after Hamas’s brutal October 7 attack in southern Israel.
Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostages during its cross-border raid, according to Israeli officials.
The IDF’s response has killed more than 11,000 Palestinian civilians, say local officials in the Hamas-controlled health ministry. A further 3,000 people are reported missing or under the rubble of buildings destroyed in fighting.
Since launching its incursion, Israel’s military has been tight-lipped about how many troops it has committed to its biggest operation in years, and about where they are now.
But data tracking the movement of Israeli forces since November 2 shows them tightening their hold on Gaza City and surrounding al-Shifa hospital.
Satellite imagery published by Planet Labs from October 31 also shows a significant invasion.
After they breached the barrier wall in at least six places, vehicle tracks show how Israel’s columns cut through the sparsely populated farmland to the south of the border, before making their way deeper into Gaza towards more populated areas.
Aid agencies and foreign diplomats have expressed concern over the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including insufficient fuel to keep hospitals running.
Gaza’s sole power plant went offline on October 11 after it ran out of fuel, with the outage captured by night-time satellite imagery.
Satellite images also show the toll the war has taken on built-up parts of Gaza, with dozens of craters in residential areas and entire neighbourhoods destroyed.
October 7 — how events unfolded
As much of Israel slept, Hamas militants launched an unprecedented, multipronged dawn assault on the country from the Gaza Strip. The Middle East’s most powerful security force was caught off guard.
Launched on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, the assault began in the early hours with thousands of rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities. The barrage set off warning sirens across the south and centre of the country, sending citizens fleeing to air-raid shelters.
Israel’s military said Gaza-based militants launched more than 4,500 rockets over the weekend. Many were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defence system, but satellite imagery showed fires and plumes of black smoke rising from some locations that had been hit.
Hundreds of Hamas fighters simultaneously attacked by land, air and sea, repeatedly breaching the fortified barrier between Gaza and Israel.
Images and videos showed motorbikes carrying armed militants riding through a hole in a wire fence along the border and a bulldozer destroying part of the barrier. Bombs, rockets and drones could also be seen blowing up the fence as well as defensive positions.
Militants used motorised paragliders to attack the Supernova music festival, not far from the Gaza border, flying in and turning the two-day rave into the site of a massacre.
Gunmen chased young Israelis across the desert, shooting and snatching people to take back to Gaza as hostages. The Israeli military failed to respond for hours, apparently caught by surprise by the attack. Hundreds of bodies have been recovered from the site.
After breaching the Gaza fence, armed Hamas fighters began targeting Israeli communities at several locations, going door-to-door and taking hostages.
Images and video show people lying dead in the streets after execution-style killings and residents including women, children and the elderly being taken away.
The Hamas militants also attacked Israeli military sites.
More than 1,200 Israeli civilians and troops were killed, the IDF said — making it the deadliest attack on the country since its foundation.
The complexity of the assault by Hamas was unlike anything Israel has witnessed in decades. It raised serious questions about the security service’s intelligence gathering and the military’s preparedness for an attack.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu imposed a “complete siege” on Gaza on October 9, calling up a record 300,000 reservists and ordering the strip to be pounded from the air.
Israel’s military also ordered the evacuation of 42 communities along its northern border, where Israelis have died after cross-border fire that Israel blamed on Hizbollah or Lebanon-based Palestinian factions — part of the Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance”.
Visual and Data team: Peter Andringa, Steven Bernard, Chris Campbell, Sam Joiner, Lucy Rodgers and Alan Smith
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