Adam Goldsmith
Live reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Palestinians are living through "the cruellest phase" of the war between Israel and Hamas, the UN secretary-general has warned today.

An Israeli-enforced aid blockade on Gaza has partially eased, with about 130 aid lorries crossing into the territory in recent days. But one Gazan told the BBC earlier that the help they are seeing is just a "drop in the ocean" of what's needed.

The UN estimates that at least 600 aid trucks are needed every day to start addressing Gaza's humanitarian crisis.

An arm of the Israeli government, Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat), earlier said "there is no food shortage in Gaza at this time".

Meanwhile, Israel's military operation continues. According to the Hamas-run health ministry, 60 people were killed and 185 wounded in Gaza in the 24 hours to midday today.

The ministry adds that 53,822 people have now been killed since Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

This morning, the Israeli military reported having hit "over 75 targets" in the past day, insisting the war will continue to "defend its existence and security against enemies who seek its destruction".

Our live coverage of the conflict is pausing now - we'll be back if there's any breaking news to bring you. To read more on today's developments, we recommend this piece from our Gaza correspondent Rushdi Abualouf and Alice Cuddy, our reporter in Jerusalem.

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," a panicked voice repeats before a loud explosion can be heard.

Then the voice note ends.

Khamis Elessi, a doctor in Gaza City, was updating me on the situation there when an Israeli bomb landed nearby.

“I’m still in Gaza City. I’m volunteering at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital. The situation is beyond description. I can’t put it into words. Killing is rampant, the deaths of so many civilians, especially women and children while sleeping. It’s despicable. It’s unimaginable. It’s beyond description,” he says.

Dr Elessi, a neurorehabilitation and pain medicine consultant, and a senior fellow of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, says: “Gaza City has been invaded and bombarded. It’s every minute. It’s non-stop… I describe Gaza City as being a pulverised city.”

He says "so many patients are dying because of lack of medicine, so many patients are dying because of lack of follow-up”.

As he goes on to tell me about how terrified the children are, the explosion sounds as a missile hits the remnants of a nearby building.

He follows up to say a “huge, huge explosion” had "filled the sky with fumes and fire and ash everywhere” and “shook [the ground] like an earthquake”.

Dr Elessi, who completed his medical training in several countries including Israel, adds: “I pray that everyone will be safe. I pray that peace will prevail for everyone - for Palestinians, for Israelis, for Americans, for British, for everyone, and that no more lives will be lost”.

Here's another update from the Israeli military.

Earlier today, sirens sounded in the area around Gaza, according to the Israeli Air Force (IAF).

After the alerts, the IAF says it "intercepted one launch" from the Gaza Strip that was heading towards Israel.

No casualties have been reported, it adds.

The Israeli military says it hit a currency exchange office in Gaza City overnight on Thursday.

It says the office was used to store and "transfer tens of millions of dollars" to fund Hamas and other groups.

The military also accuses the workers at the office of continuing to "aid and fund the activity of Hamas" throughout the war.

As we've been reporting, Israeli air strikes are continuing across the Gaza Strip. A 23-year-old woman in Gaza City has described the situation as "very difficult".

We're now seeing photos of Palestinians searching through rubble after an air strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

As we've reported, the city was among the areas hit by Israeli strikes today, along with Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

The head of UNRWA, which supports refugees in Gaza, says "the people of Gaza have been starved" for more than 11 weeks.

Philippe Lazzarini says the only way to stop things getting worse is to allow a steady flow of aid into Gaza.

"The aid going in now is a needle in a haystack," he says, adding that at least 500 to 600 trucks a day are needed to help people there.

"Saving lives must overtake military & political agendas. The people of Gaza cannot wait any longer."

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

Sixty-year-old Naim Safi left a bread distribution point in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, empty-handed this afternoon.

He waited in the crowds but tells the BBC, “the quantities they brought are not enough for everyone”.

“We and many others still haven't taken any bread,” he says, adding that larger families are being prioritised.

“They have claimed that they want to bring bread for the people every day, but they didn't. The quantities they brought are not enough - only a tenth of the people got any.”

BBC World Service has just released a 15-minute podcast on the aid situation in Gaza.

Middle East correspondent Yolande Knell talks about the challenges of getting aid to those who need it.

You’ll also hear from aid workers from Doctors without Borders and the International Committee of the Red Cross, who will tell us about the challenges they face when distributing aid to Palestinians on the ground.

Listen to today’s episode of What in the World here.

Mallory Moench
Live reporter

Saba Nahed Alnajjar, a teenager who lives in Khan Younis, Gaza, tells the BBC her family has stayed in their partially destroyed home “despite the deteriorating situation in the area".

"An evacuation order has been issued for our area, but we have not been displaced because we have nowhere else to go”.

“We have no food, no flour, no basic necessities of life,” she says in a WhatsApp message, adding that the Israeli military is close “while the bombing continues in a brutal manner”.

“There are not many citizens in the area. The majority have been displaced and there is no place to go. The displaced are sleeping in the street and there is no food. The conditions are deteriorating and very difficult.”

Image source, PA Media

As Gazans begin to receive some humanitarian aid, many are spending hours queuing at distribution points.

People are trying to get bread from bakeries, which are receiving flour deliveries for the first time in months.

Watch the video below to see how the chaotic crowd fights for the bread being distributed.

Image source, UN

In his remarks to reporters, Guterres has also said that 80% of Gaza has been either designated an Israeli-militarised zone or is an area where people have been told to leave.

"In other words, four-fifths of the territory of Gaza is a no-go zone for the people of Gaza," he says.

He adds that "more people will die" without quick and ongoing access to aid.

"The long-term consequences on the entire population will be profound."

More from António Guterres.

Speaking to reporters, he set out a five-stage plan to get aid to people in Gaza, which he says has the backing of member states:

• Ensure the delivery of aid to Gaza
• Inspect aid at crossing points
• Move aid from crossings to humanitarian centres
• Prepare the aid for distribution
• Deliver aid to those in need

Guterres says the UN has the staff and networks needed to carry this out.

He also says that 160,000 pallets, which is "enough to fill nearly 9,000 trucks", are ready and waiting.

"This is my appeal for life-saving aid for the long-suffering people of Gaza," Guterres says. "Let’s do it right. And let’s do it right away."

Image source, Reuters

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has just spoken to reporters about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

"Palestinians in Gaza are enduring what may be the cruellest phase of this cruel conflict," he says.

Guterres says the entire population of Gaza is facing the risk of famine. He adds almost 400 lorries were cleared for entry into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, but supplies from only 115 have actually been collected.

“Nothing has reached the besieged north,” he states.

He says the UN has managed to distribute “some wheat flour, baby food, nutrition supplements and medicines” and that some bakeries are operating in south and central Gaza.

“But let us not forget that we are operating in the middle of a military operation,” he says. “All the aid authorised until now amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required.”

Mallory Moench
Live reporter

Nestor Owomuhangi from the UN’s sexual health and reproductive rights agency (UNFPA) tells the BBC he expects the number of babies dying from malnutrition in Gaza to rise.

He says the 57 deaths reported last week by Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry is an “understatement”.

During his visit to Gaza last week, he says, “the level of desperation was showing clearly on people’s faces”. Wherever he drove, people, thin and weak, were “pointing their fingers to their mouths, indicating that they need something to eat”.

“Visiting maternity units and witnessing women giving birth starving, and knowing that others are out there cut off from accessing health facilities, bleeding, delivering on their own, it’s a terrible feeling,” he says.

Health facilities have reported a higher miscarriage rate of 12% among late pregnancies – “a scare for us”, Owomuhangi says.

He adds they are caused by malnutrition, extreme stress, trauma, infections, and lack of access to prenatal care.

Image source, EPA

Image source, Reuters

Just over half of Gaza's 36 hospitals remain operational amid Israel's military campaign in the strip, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Nineteen are still operating, but a WHO press release warns that these facilities are "struggling under severe supply shortages" and a "lack of health workers".

Seven of these are only able to provide basic emergency care, while at least 94% of all hospitals in the Gaza strip "are damaged or destroyed", according to WHO.

And last week, WHO reports, four major hospitals were forced to suspend medial services due to their proximity to attacks or evacuation zones.

In its press release, WHO warns that Israel's "intensified military operations continue to threaten an already weakened health system" and has left only 2000 hospital beds to cover the needs of over million people.

Mallory Moench
News reporter

Rida, a midwife with charity Project HOPE in Deir al-Balah, tells the BBC in a phone call that women come to her clinic suffering from fainting, having sought medical help without eating breakfast.

Many of them eat only one meal a day and subsist on high energy biscuits given by the charity, she says.

“Due to malnutrition they are always telling us that my baby cannot take enough supplement from my breast …my baby won’t stop crying…they always need to be breastfed, but my breast is empty,” she explains.

Over the past two weeks, an average of 27% of pregnant and lactating women who came to Project HOPE’s six clinics across Gaza were diagnosed as malnourished, the charity says.

And, Rida predicts the clinic’s nutritional supplies could run out in two to three weeks if more aid is not delivered.

As we've been reporting, about 130 aid lorries have crossed into Gaza in recent days after Israel eased an 11-week blockade.

Israeli air strikes have also continued across the strip, with raids in the Jabalia refugee camp area, as well as Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis.

One man in Gaza City tells the BBC's Alice Cuddy that "no liquids of any kind have reached us yet". Esraa Shaheen, a 23-year-old woman, describes the situation as "very difficult", adding there's "continuous bombing" in the area.

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

Image source, Reuters

Image source, A woman walks amid rubble following a strike in Jabalia

Image source, X/Reuters

As we mentioned in the post below, Benjamin Netanyahu's criticism of the leaders of the UK, France and Canada comes after an attack in Washington DC on Wednesday night, where Israeli embassy staff members Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were shot and killed.

The suspect, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, has been charged with first-degree murder, murder of foreign officials, and firearms offences.

Interim US Attorney Jeanine Pirro says the attack is also being investigated as a hate crime.

World leaders, including UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, have condemned the attack in the US capital. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack "a heinous antisemitic murder".

Netanyahu's address to three close allies was extraordinarypublished at 14:06 British Summer Time 23 May

14:06 BST 23 May

Yolande Knell
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

Image source, Reuters

Benjamin Netanyahu’s video address last night was quite an extraordinary statement, where he addresses three close allies of Israel.

Just to put this in perspective, these are three countries - the UK, France and Canada - that came out quite quickly to condemn the shooting of a young couple who worked at the Israeli embassy in Washington DC.

They have also come out very strongly supportive of Israel after the deadly 7 October 2023 attacks that triggered the war.

We just had this joint statement from these three leaders earlier in the week, in which they condemned the intensification of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and what they called the “intolerable” situation there, the human suffering caused by the deep humanitarian crisis following 11 weeks of a total Israeli blockade of Gaza.

But Netanyahu accused the leaders of these three countries of wanting Hamas to stay in power, and said that by holding out creation of an independent Palestinian state, they were “emboldening Hamas to continue fighting forever”.

And he made other claims: he said that the call “free Palestine” had been picked up by Hamas, and compared them to neo-Nazis, saying that declaration has become today’s “heil Hitler”.

He accuses these three leaders and others of what he calls “hypocrisy” and falling for “Hamas’s propaganda” that says Israel is starving Palestinian children.

Image source, AFP/Getty Images

France has now responded to Benjamin Netanyahu’s accusations that Emmanuel Macron, together with the UK’s Keir Starmer and Canada’s Mark Carney, is “on the wrong side of humanity” for criticising Israel’s expanded offensive in Gaza.

French government spokesperson Sophie Primas says “we do not accept this accusation” and adds that Macron’s response was “very firm”.

“We do not confuse the Israeli people with the policies being pursued today by Benjamin Netanyahu,” Primas says. “You know the great, immense reservations we have, particularly regarding what is happening in Gaza.”

She goes on: “I think we must de-escalate this rising tension between our two states and work to find lasting peace solutions for Israel and Palestine.”

A UK defence minister has also rejected Netanyahu's criticism, saying: "We stand in support of Israel's right to self-defence as long as they conduct that within international humanitarian law."