Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

When we first spoke to Sami Abu Omar more than a year ago, he was volunteering at a community kitchen distributing hot meals in southern Gaza.

The kitchen is one of many across Gaza to shut down in recent weeks after running out of supplies.

“At the beginning [of the blockade] we were using food supplies we had in storage but, bit by bit, they started decreasing... About 10 days ago all the supplies ran out - we couldn’t cook anything,” he says by voice note.

“When we closed our kitchen, it was a feeling of sorrow and despair for all of us volunteers."

He says people across Gaza are now living with the “smallest amount of meals we can eat”, saying he has one meal a day.

“We are suffering. There are shortages of all foods - tins, wheat, rice, pasta, oil... Meat? There is no meat at all.”

He left us a voice note this morning following a two-hour journey to a medical clinic that he now volunteers at. He had travelled there by foot because of the lack of transport options and fuel.

He says people coming to the clinic ask for food and water as well as medication.

“It’s a disastrous feeling for people who used to work at kitchens and for all humanitarian aid workers,” he says.

Construction sites appear in Gaza ahead of Israeli-US aid plan rejected by UN, images showpublished at 12:42 British Summer Time 15 May

12:42 BST 15 May

By Benedict Garman, Matt Murphy and Merlyn Thomas

Israel is preparing a series of sites in Gaza that could be used as distribution centres for humanitarian aid in a controversial new plan, satellite images show.

The Israeli government suspended food and medicine deliveries into Gaza in March, causing severe shortages. A UN-backed assessment has warned around 2.1 million people are at "critical risk" of famine.

Images analysed by BBC Verify show that land has already been cleared, with new roads and staging areas constructed at four sites in southern and central Gaza in recent weeks.

Our analysis of the imagery shows significant development at one of the sites in south-west Gaza, close to the ruins of a village that is now an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) base.

The Israeli-US plan has been widely condemned by Middle Eastern and European governments, and humanitarian groups and the UN have said they will not take part.

Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the the UN's aid coordination office (OCHA), accused Israel of seeking to use "food and fuel as leverage, as part of a military strategy".

A special half-hour dedicated to stories from Gaza is being broadcast on the BBC News Channel.

You can 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.

Caroline Hawley
Diplomatic correspondent

Image source, Handout

I’ve been speaking via Whatsapp to Suha Shaath, a pharmacist from Khan Younis, who specialises in pain relief and palliative care.

Despite being displaced multiple times, she has always found a way to continue working.

But pain relief is in desperately short supply.

It’s misery, she says, to have to ration supplies to patients in agony.

“It’s our duty not to give up,” she says. “We made a promise to stand with our patients until the last moment of our lives."

It’s also hard to work when you’re hungry.

“We have one meal a day – but there’s no protein. No eggs, no fish or meat. Just canned food and carbohydrates.”

Her house was destroyed earlier in the war. “My dream home - built with love and passion - has gone with the wind.”

So – like so many people in Gaza – she doesn’t think of the future but just how to survive, and work, another day.

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

I’ve been continuing to speak over WhatsApp to nurse and mother-of-two Rewaa Mohsen, who I’ve been in touch with since the early days of the war.

She has been telling me about the struggles of finding essential supplies and bringing up two young daughters - aged three, and 19 months - in a war zone and under a blockade.

You can see excerpts of our conversation below:

Rushdi Abualouf
Gaza correspondent, in Cairo

The number of people killed in by Israeli air strikes in Gaza today has risen to 103, according to the Hamas-run civil defence agency.

The total includes 13 people killed in a strike on the Jabalia refugee camp which hit a building housing a prayer hall and a charity clinic.

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

We have just been speaking on the phone to Mohammed Abu Rjileh, whose Shabab Gaza (Gaza Youth) charity has distributed more than 4,500 meals today.

The charity has had to close three or its four kitchens due to a lack of supplies caused by the Israeli blockade, in addition to looting by criminal gangs and by desperate civilians.

“At the moment we’re relying heavily on rice and pasta. There’s no bread anymore,” he says.

He says his organisation is working “day by day” and currently has no ingredients for tomorrow.

“We’re trying now to source ingredients” from any remaining stocks, he says.

“The portions we serve depend on what food we find each day, but it’s always much less now than what we were serving a month ago."

Rushdi Abualouf
Gaza correspondent, in Cairo

Covering the war in Gaza has broken me in ways I still struggle to express. In the early days, I walked through the smoke-filled streets where I grew up, stepping over rubble and shattered memories and sometimes bodies to report the story.

I interviewed mothers cradling their children. I filmed fathers digging with bare hands to rescue loved ones.

Then I left Gaza. But the guilt of leaving my family, my courageous colleagues, has never left me. It lives in my soul and weighs heavily on my heart.

Every call, every message from a colleague still risking their life to report the news from inside Gaza feels like a lifeline.

Every air strike I hear about, I imagine it hitting someone I know.

Two days ago, I lived through an hour of terror. A message came in: one of our journalists in Gaza had been injured in an air strike.

I was at a dentist’s appointment, about to enter the treatment room. I apologised, ran to my car, and made dozens of calls with trembling hands and a racing heart—until I finally heard he was safe.

I’ve lost many relatives, friends. I’ve lost fellow journalists - people who stayed to tell the story, no matter the cost.

For the past 18 months, I’ve been reporting from afar. But my heart has never left. Whether I’m in Turkey, London, Qatar or Cairo, my first thought is always Gaza.

It's my job to report. But it’s also my life, lived under constant fear.

Since dawn, 94 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes in Gaza, the Hamas-run civil defence agency's spokesman says in a post on Telegram.

The death toll includes a family in the Jabalia area in north Gaza, where the father, mother and children were killed, the agency says.

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 15 May

11:12 BST 15 May

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

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.