Middle East crisis live: fears grow for key Gaza hospital as patients die after Israeli raid | Israel-Gaza war

Egypt building walled enclosure in Sinai for Rafah refugees, photos suggest

Ruth Michaelson

Egypt has begun building an enclosed area ringed with high concrete walls along its border with Gaza that appears intended to house Palestinians fleeing a threatened Israeli assault on the southern city of Rafah.

Photos and videos released by the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights (SFHR), a monitoring group, show workers using heavy machinery erecting concrete barriers and security towers around a strip of land on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing.

The videos, dated 15 February, gave little indication of authorities installing water or other infrastructure. Satellite imagery released by Planet Labs on the same day shows cleared strips of land adjacent to the Gaza border.

SFHR said on social media that the videos showed efforts to “establish an isolated area surrounded by walls on the border with the Gaza Strip, with the aim of receiving refugees in the event of a mass exodus”.

The US president said he doesn’t expect an offensive on the densely populated Rafah region of Gaza, the last refuge of Palestinians fleeing Israeli assaults on the besieged territory.

Speaking at a press conference held after the announcement by Moscow of the death of dissident Alexei Navalny, Joe Biden said a ‘temporary ceasefire’ was necessary to evacuate hostages held in Gaza.

Gaza’s largest functioning hospital was under siege on Friday in Israel’s war with Hamas, leaving patients and doctors helpless in the chaos as warplanes struck Rafah, the last refuge for Palestinians in the enclave, officials said.

Reuters reports that Israeli forces remained in Nasser hospital in the town of Khan Younis after raiding it early on Thursday. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said five intensive-care patients died on Friday due to power outages and lack of oxygen supply caused by the attack.

Israel said it moved into the hospital because Hamas militants were hiding there. The Israeli military said on Friday its troops detained more than 20 militants in the hospital who participated in the 7 October attack on Israel and dozens of others for questioning.

Hamas denies there were militants in the hospital, describing the claim as “lies aimed to cover up for destroying hospitals”.

The Gaza health ministry said the hospital lost power and remained without electricity on Friday, jeopardising patient care. But the Israeli military said it repaired one generator and provided another, ensuring “all vital systems continued to operate”.

Two pregnant women gave birth on Friday with “no water, no food and no way of warming them up” in cold weather, said ministry spokesperson, Ashraf Al-Qidra.

According to the ministry, Israeli soldiers stopped an aid convoy outside the hospital, which was unable to deliver supplies. The military said it provided aid including baby food and water.

The incursion at the hospital raised alarm about patients, medical workers and displaced Palestinians sheltering there.

“There are still critically injured and sick patients that are inside the hospital,” said Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization (WHO), which said its staff were trying to reach the hospital after the Israeli raid.

“There is an urgent need to deliver fuel to ensure the continuation of the provision of life-saving services.”

Israel said its soldiers found ammunition and weapons in the hospital, as well as medication bearing names of some hostages.

It has gone 10am in Gaza and Tel Aviv and this is our latest Guardian blog on the Middle East crisis.

Gaza’s largest functioning hospital is under siege from Israeli forces, leaving trapping patients and doctors as warplanes strike Rafah in the south, officials said.

Israeli troops remained in Nasser hospital in Khan Younis after raiding it early Thursday, with Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry saying five intensive-care patients died on Friday due to power outages and a lack of oxygen supply caused by the attack.

The Israeli army said its troops found medications with the names of Israeli hostages at the hospital during the operation and it detained more than 20 militants involved in the 7 October attacks on Israel. Hamas denies militants were in the hospital.

The Gaza health ministry said the hospital lost power and remained without electricity on Friday, jeopardising patient care. But the Israeli military said “all vital systems continued to operate”.

A witness at Nasser hospital told Agence France-Presse the army had shot “at anyone who moved inside the hospital”.

More on that story shortly. In other key developments:

• Egypt is preparing an area at the Gaza border which could accommodate Palestinians in case an Israeli offensive into Rafah prompts an exodus across the frontier, four sources told Reuters, in what they described as a contingency move by Cairo. Egypt, which denied making any such preparations, has repeatedly raised the alarm over the possibility that Israel’s Gaza offensive could displace Palestinians into Sinai – something Cairo says would be completely unacceptable – echoing warnings from Arab states such as Jordan. The Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, an Egyptian non-governmental organisation, released images showing workers using heavy machinery erecting concrete barriers and security towers around a strip of land on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing.

• An exodus of Palestinians into Egypt must be “avoided at all costs” and could be the “nail in the coffin” of a future peace process, the UN high commissioner for refugees said. “The position of Egypt has been very clear: people should not go across the border. I think Egypt has very valid reasons,” Filippo Grandi told the BBC from the Munich Security Conference on Friday.

• Israel will coordinate with Egypt on Palestinian refugees and find a way not to harm Egypt’s interests, Israel’s foreign minister said on Friday. When asked where Rafah refugees would go, Israel Katz suggested Khan Younis, Gaza’s second city.

• Western leaders are hoping a round of meetings at the Munich Security Conference will put overwhelming pressure on Israel not to press ahead with a ground offensive in Rafah. Almost all the key figures, save the Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, were present in Munich on Friday, including foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and Jordan.

• Negotiations over a ceasefire in Gaza appear to have stalled, with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, pushing back hard on Friday against the US vision for after the war, particularly its calls for the creation of a Palestinian state. After speaking overnight with President Joe Biden, Netanyahu wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that Israel would not accept “international dictates regarding a permanent settlement with the Palestinians”, saying that if other countries unilaterally recognised a Palestinian state, it would give a “reward to terrorism”.

• In their call, Biden again cautioned Netanyahu against moving forward with a military operation in Rafah before coming up with a “credible and executable plan” to ensure the safety of Palestinian civilians, the White House said.

• Two people were killed and four wounded in what Israeli police said was a shooting attack near a junction in southern Israel on Friday. Authorities in the district said the suspected shooter was killed by an armed civilian.

• The Palestinian ambassador to the UK said eight of his relatives who were sheltering in Rafah were killed in an Israeli strike. Husam Zomlot also identified a girl in a distressing photo that has been widely shared online as his wife’s seven-year-old cousin Sidra Hassouna.

• Israeli strikes on targets in south Lebanon killed five fighters from Hezbollah and the allied Amal movement, the groups said on Friday. A strike on one house in al-Qantara village killed three members of the Amal movement, the group said. Hezbollah separately announced the death of two of its fighters, bringing to 12 the number killed since Wednesday.

• The hunger crisis in Gaza has reached “unprecedented levels, as people run out of even animal feed to eat”, development charity ActionAid said. ‘Things will get substantially worse” if Israel proceeds with an operation in Rafah, it said.

• Russia has invited Hamas and other Palestinian factions including Fatah to Moscow for talks on the Israel-Gaza war and other issues in the Middle East from 29 February, the state-run Tass news agency reported, citing deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov.