Summary

  • Hundreds of Palestinians are feared dead after a huge blast at a hospital in Gaza City, blamed by the Hamas group on an Israeli air strike

  • Israel says the blast was caused by rockets misfired by another group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and both sides deny blame

  • US President Joe Biden will visit Israel on Wednesday but a planned summit in Jordan with Arab leaders has been cancelled

  • At least 600,000 Palestinians have fled the northern Gaza Strip for the south since Israeli military warnings

  • Israel has blocked essential supplies to Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas attack on 7 October that left 1,300 Israelis dead

Live Reporting

Edited by Jessica Murphy and Marianna Brady

  1. Hopes aid could enter Gaza via Egypt crossing

    There are reports in US media that the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt could open briefly soon.

    After talks with Egyptian officials on Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Egyptian-controlled crossing would reopen to deliver aid to Gaza, but he didn’t give specific timings.

    The Israel Defense Forces estimates 500,000 have now left northern Gaza, out of about 1.1 million, after an order to move south ahead of an expected ground offensive. The BBC can't verify this figure.

    Meanwhile, conditions for people in Gaza are worsening, with water, food, power and medicines in scarce supply, with the UN warning "thousands of patients" will be at risk if fuel reserves run out at all Gaza's hospitals in the next 24 hours.