BBC Visual Journalism Team

The Israeli response to the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 has caused extensive damage to buildings and infrastructure in Gaza.

Air strikes initially focused on northern areas, with Israel ordering Palestinians living there to move south - but its operations soon spread to the south, too.

Analysts suggested almost 59.8% of buildings across the Strip had been damaged or destroyed since the start of the war by the time a ceasefire was declared in January this year.

Israel ended the ceasefire on 18 March and that figure had risen to 60.4% by 28 April, according to Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center, and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University. Both base their assessments on satellite data. Rafah in the south has suffered the biggest jump in damage, they added.

The map below shows the concentration of damage in different areas using radar. While this can show clusters of destruction in the Strip, there may be incidents where houses have their windows/doors destroyed, but they are not picked up by radar as the main foundations are still standing.

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

We’ve just been catching up with the mother of baby Siwar Ashour - whose name you may recognise from my colleague Fergal Keane’s powerful reporting in recent days.

At five months old, Siwar is acutely malnourished. She cannot absorb regular formula milk and doctors say the Israeli blockade - now in its third month - means food supplies are scarce.

Speaking over the phone from Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, her mother, Najwa, tells us the pair had a restless night amid Israeli strikes.

"I woke up in the middle of the night to find her crying because of the sound of bombing," she says.

Doctors managed to briefly secure the right formula for Siwar, but that has now run out, so they have found an alternative at a field hospital. Najwa tells us that this milk is causing Siwar "severe diarrhoea".

“Her weight has dropped [since yesterday]. She’s not gaining any weight,” the panicked mother says.

She adds that Siwar's skin condition is improving thanks to a cream applied by doctors.

• You can watch a video report by Fergal about child malnourishment in Gaza here

British nurse in Gaza says they only have one week’s supply of food leftpublished at 11:12 British Summer Time

11:12 BST

By Nick Beake

We made contact with British nurse Paula Tobin on the last day of her six week rotation running a UK-funded field hospital near Rafah in the south of Gaza.

At the time she arrived, Israel had already been blocking aid for a month, and Paula says the lack of food is having huge consequences.

“Our patients and the local community are all desperate for food. People are getting very hungry, tensions are rising,” she explains.

She says her patients are surviving on just one meal a day. “In the next week, we will not be able to feed them at all."

Paula says the lack of food is significantly reducing the chances of the injured and sick getting better.

UK-Med, the organisation she works for, treated 36,000 people across three sites in Gaza last month.

Paula, who is now ending her fourth stint in Gaza, was awarded a Humanitarian Medal by King Charles earlier this year for her voluntary work in the territory.

When I ask her if there’s one thing that has hit her hardest during this tour, she says it’s the impact on the children.

“In most conflict zones people, the civilian population will be able to flee and take their children and the pregnant women away,” she explains. “But that obviously is not happening here.”

Image source, Reuters

To give you some context as you read the testimonies of Palestinians surviving in Gaza, here’s a quick look at the latest developments in the war:

• More than 60 people were killed in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip overnight, according to Hamas's civil defence agency
• Those strikes hit at least nine separate places in the south, with reports of at least 56 bodies taken to hospitals there
• One hospital struck by Israel earlier this week, the European Hospital, is now out of service, the health ministry says
• New evacuation orders have been issued in parts of Gaza City as Israel warns its forces are due to attack "with intense force"
• The Israeli blockade on aid - which includes food, water, medicine and shelter supplies - has continued for 10 weeks now
• A group of former hostages has signed an open letter to the Israeli government calling for a ceasefire deal that would see remaining hostages released from Gaza

Mallory Moench
Live reporter

Mai Elawawda, communications officer for British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, shares in a message today from south Gaza: "The future is utterly bleak."

“After more than 19 months of forced starvation, dehydration, and displacement, we do not know how much longer we can hold on,” she says.

Access to drinking water is “extremely limited” and food supplies have “all disappeared from the markets, and the few items still available are sold at prices most cannot afford”, she says.

Infant formula is nearly non-existent and where available, costs more than $25 (£18). Nappies sell for more than $30 (£22) - “well beyond the reach of displaced families who cannot even secure their daily meals”.

Walking in Gaza City while visiting last week, “you would not find a single loaf of bread for sale”, she says.

Image source, Reuters

A special half-hour dedicated to stories from Gaza will be broadcast at 12:30 BST over on the BBC News Channel.

When it begins, you will be able to follow along by tapping the watch live button at the top of this page.

We'll be hearing from our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams, Gaza correspondent Rushdi Abualouf and BBC Verify's Merlyn Thomas.

We will bring you their key lines right here.

Rushdi Abualouf
Gaza correspondent, in Cairo

At least 62 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in 12 Israeli airstrikes since midnight, with the majority of casualties reported in the southern city of Khan Younis.

The spokesperson for the Hamas-run civil defence agency, Mahmoud Bassal, tells the BBC that rescue teams evacuated 56 bodies from Khan Younis, four from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, and two from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, starting from 02:00 local time (00:00 BST) on Thursday.

Among the victims were women, children and an infant. One entire family of 13 members, the Samour family in Khan Younis, was completely wiped from the civil registry, the spokesperson adds.

Yolande Knell
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

There are no reports of a breakthrough in Gaza ceasefire and hostage release talks in Doha, but dozens of Israelis freed from Hamas captivity are pushing for a deal to be done.

A group of more than 65 released hostages signed a letter to the Israeli prime minister and other ministers.

They wrote: “We believe the Israeli government now faces a genuine opportunity to return to the negotiating table. We urge all those involved in this process: Please do not walk away until a comprehensive deal is signed.”

After the US negotiated the release of American-Israeli soldier Edan Alexander this week, they also addressed President Trump. “Do not let this historic momentum stop,” they said.

The former hostages argue that most Israelis prioritise bringing back those still held in captivity over continuing the military offensive in Gaza. This has been indicated by recent opinion polls. However, the Israeli government insists that only military pressure will get Hamas to return the hostages.

It is believed that up to 23 of those held are still alive, out of a total of 58 – which includes the body of one Israeli soldier held prior to the 2023 Hamas attacks.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

A hospital in Khan Younis hit by an Israeli air strike earlier this week is out of service, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says.

Israeli warplanes dropped six bombs simultaneously on the European Hospital on Tuesday, killing 28 people and injuring dozens more, the Hamas-run civil defence agency said.

The Israeli military said it had struck "Hamas terrorists in a command and control centre" which it claimed was beneath the hospital.

The attacks caused significant damage to infrastructure, including sewage lines, internal departments, and roads leading to the hospital, the health ministry now says.

"⁠Due to the repeated targeting of the hospital, it is no longer possible to provide medical care because of the danger it poses to medical teams, the wounded, and patients," it adds.

Image source, Getty Images

The closure of the hospital means the end of specialised services including neurosurgery, ophthalmology, and follow-up cancer care, which is available nowhere else in Gaza after the earlier destruction of another hospital, the ministry says.

⁠The European Hospital has 28 intensive care beds, 12 neonatal incubators, 260 inpatient beds, 25 emergency beds, and 60 oncology beds — all of which are now out of operation.

• BBC Verify spoke to munitions experts who said the strikes and destruction were consistent with so-called "bunker buster" bombs - watch the report below:

Throughout the morning, we've been bringing you accounts from people across Gaza, surviving under Israel's aid blockade.

Here's what some of them have told us:

• Esraa Shaheen, 23, who is in Gaza's north, says “dizziness has become a constant feeling, as is general weakness and fatigue from the lack of food and medicine”
• Ayman, displaced with his family in Khan Younis, tells us: "I cannot move well due to the severity of the hunger we are experiencing"
• Yousra Abu Sharekh, an aid co-ordinator in Gaza City, says after delivering a rare food parcel of vegetables: “You could not imagine the happiness amongst children, they were dancing while they were eating cucumbers”
• Nurse and mother-of-two Rewaa Mohsen describes the amount of food she can access for her family under the blockade as “not enough but enough for one meal daily” of beans, rice, tuna and a small amount of flour
• Mohammed Salha, acting director of northern Gaza's al-Awda hospital, says trying to treat patients is "very complicated and we can't really work in this bad situation"

BBC Visual Journalism Team

At least 1.9 million people – or about 90% of the population of Gaza - have been displaced during the war, according to the UN.

Many fled south in the early days of the conflict after being told to evacuate northern areas by the Israeli military, but the areas covered by its evacuation orders have changed multiple times since then.

The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) says many of those forced to to move have been displaced repeatedly, some 10 times or more.

It also estimates that 430,000 have been forcibly displaced since 18 March when Israel ended the two-month ceasefire and resumed its offensive in Gaza.

In a briefing earlier this month, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the expanded campaign would displace most Palestinians in Gaza as air strikes and other military operations continued.

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

Yesterday, Mohammed Salha, acting director of northern Gaza's Al-Awda hospital, sent me a voice note over Whatsapp, in which he said it had become increasingly difficult to run the facility under Israel’s blockade.

He tells me that some departments have been shut down due to the scarcity of fuel and medical supplies.

"It's very complicated and we can't really work in this bad situation," he adds.

Salha says the hospital received 52 injured patients following Israeli strikes on Tuesday night, in addition to nine bodies, including seven children.

The Israeli military said it had struck Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters in the north. It had warned residents of Jabalia and neighbouring areas to evacuate on Tuesday after rockets were launched into Israel.

Sighing deeply at the end of his voice note, Salha says: “This is the situation and we don’t know when it will stop.”

You can listen to more of his message below:

Image source, EPA

Overnight, Israel issued one of the most sweeping evacuation orders of the war for civilians in Gaza, declaring large swathes of Gaza City - an area already devastated by bombing - unsafe.

"Tents are everywhere in the street so there is nowhere to go to," the Gaza co-ordinator at the International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance (Inara) in Gaza City tells the BBC's Newsday programme.

“Where to go again and again because Gaza city is very small, crowded, rubble and damage everywhere," Yousra Abu Sharekh says.

Sharekh also speaks about the struggle to find food there, but describes a moment of joy yesterday when she was able to deliver food parcels of vegetables.

“You could not imagine the happiness amongst children, they were dancing while they were eating cucumbers," she says.

However, she adds: "People in Gaza are starving. They are tired. They are exhausted, drained."

Images are emerging of new destruction in Gaza, as people inspected a destroyed house in Khan Younis, in the south of Gaza, this morning.

As a reminder, more than 40 people were killed in Israeli air strikes overnight across Gaza, hospital sources said, with reports of at least 36 bodies taken to hospitals in the south.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

As we have been reporting, it is not possible for me to get into Gaza. So, conversations with people there happen over messages and phone calls.

In a WhatsApp exchange, nurse and mother-of-two Rewaa Mohsen describes the amount of food she can access for her family under the blockade as “not enough but enough for one meal daily”.

“We have some canned goods such as beans. I have some rice and canned tuna, and there is a small amount of flour,” she says.

• For context: Since the beginning of March, Israel has blocked all humanitarian aid, including food, from entering Gaza. The UN has warned of a "critical risk" of famine there. Israel denies that there is a hunger crisis

Multiple aid agencies sound alarm over Gaza aidpublished at 08:22 British Summer Time

08:22 BST

Image source, Reuters

By Nick Beake

Here at BBC Verify, we’ve heard accounts from ten different aid organisations based in Gaza over the past 24 hours - and each is sounding the alarm.

They say the humanitarian situation is rapidly deteriorating because of Israel’s 10-week blockade of aid into the territory.

As part of this research, I had in-depth conversations with two nurses, a doctor and an aid coordinator working on the ground in Gaza.

Each described the same grim reality: bombs falling, families seeking shelter and – significantly - now an increase in malnutrition, particularly among children.

Both the nurses described a rise in the number of undernourished pregnant mothers coming to their makeshift medical centres.

The doctor said he and his staff each have only one bowl of rice to eat a day currently, and that the Israeli ban on fuel, medicines and other supplies coming into the Gaza Strip was badly hampering their work.

Each of those we spoke to said this is the most challenging aid situation of the war so far.

Israel says there is enough aid in Gaza and has accused Hamas of stealing it.

We’ll bring you details of these individual accounts as part of our coverage today.

On a single day this week, two hospitals in Gaza were hit by Israeli strikes, according to hospitals and first responders.

On Tuesday, Israeli warplanes dropped six bombs simultaneously at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, killing 28 people and injuring dozens, the Hamas-run civil defence agency said.

Dr Tom Potokar, a plastic surgeon who was working with the Ideals international aid charity in the hospital, told the BBC the explosions had directly hit with "no warning whatsoever".

The Israeli military said it had conducted a "precise strike" on "Hamas terrorists in a command and control centre" which it claimed was beneath the hospital.

The dead and wounded were transferred to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, which had been hit by another strike earlier on Tuesday, killing two people, according to medical sources and eyewitnesses.

In a statement, the Israeli military said Hamas "continues" to use hospitals in Gaza for its activities - a long-standing Israeli allegation which the group denies.

The BBC obtained and analysed video footage of the European Hospital strike and the kind of bombs used.

Image source, Getty Images

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

Earlier this year, we spoke to 23-year-old Esraa Shaheen as she returned to her home in northern Gaza during the ceasefire.

She said then that she would never leave her home again.

Overnight, Esraa sent a message saying she is still in the north but the “situation is beyond difficult”.

“We do not have the most basic necessities of life. There is no security, continuous bombing, no food, and no medicine,” she wrote in a WhatsApp message.

“Some of the few items available in the market are very scarce, such as flour. When available, it is at exorbitant prices. Some families are replacing it with rice, bulgur, or pasta, which have begun to run out in the market.

“There are no fruits or vegetables. There are even no vitamins to compensate for the lack of food.”

Under the Israeli blockade, Esraa said “dizziness has become a constant feeling, as is general weakness and fatigue from the lack of food and medicine”.

She said there was “great difficulty” in moving around, with limited transport options and no fuel available to drive.

And, she said, there was “destruction in most of the streets”.

• You can look back at Esraa’s return home here

Since the beginning of March, Israel has blocked all shipments of humanitarian aid, including food and medical supplies, from entering Gaza.

There has been international condemnation of the blockade, including from the UN which has warned of a "critical risk" of famine for the 2.1 million Palestinians living there.

A UN-backed assessment, released on Monday, found half a million people - or one in five - were facing starvation in Gaza.

It said nearly 71,000 children under the age of five are expected to be acutely malnourished over the next 11 months to April 2026.

Other aid agencies have said the blockade could be a war crime and amounts to a policy of starvation.

Israel denies that there is a hunger crisis in Gaza. It says it is putting pressure on Hamas to release its remaining hostages.

It insists that it is complying with international law and that there is no shortage of aid in Gaza.

Yolande Knell
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

An update now from Gaza.

More than 40 people have been killed in the latest Israeli strikes across the Strip, according to hospital sources.

There are reports that at least 36 bodies were taken to hospitals in the south, which saw intense Israeli bombardment overnight.