Barbara Plett Usher
US State Department correspondent, BBC News

Image source, Reuters

As we've just reported, the White House and Pentagon say they have intelligence that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are operating from and storing weapons in tunnels below hospitals, including Gaza’s largest, Al-Shifa.

This is the first time they have so fully supported such Israeli claims, which have stirred controversy over the treatment of patients and civilians taking shelter there.

The US has broadly supported Israeli claims that Hamas is operating from tunnels below Gaza’s hospitals - but previously the administration would only cite open-source intelligence and wouldn’t confirm whether it had independent information.

Now the White House and Pentagon say they can confirm that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have a command and control centre underneath Al-Shifa hospital. And that they also use tunnels under other hospitals. Hamas and the Gaza health authority deny this.

The White House spokesman called this a war crime, but said that did not lesson Israel’s responsibility to protect civilians. Al-Shifa hospital has lost power because of Israel’s offensive - health officials say several dozen patients, including three babies, have died as a result.

Image source, Reuters

Israel's defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has said in a news conference this evening that Hamas has “lost control” of northern Gaza.

He added that Israel's army has made significant gains and were in control of the centre of Gaza City, in the north. For days Israel's military have surrounded Al-Shifa Hospital, in the city, which Israel says sits above a Hamas military base. Hamas denies this, but in the last hour the US says they have intelligence backing Israel's claim.

“Hamas has lost control, and in fact, we are in control in the entire central theatre of the Gaza Strip, in the north of the Strip and in particular in Gaza City," he said.

But when he was asked about how long the war could go on, Gallant said: “We're talking about long months, not a day or two.”

As a reminder, Israel's army said earlier it had captured a number of government buildings in Gaza City. In an operational update from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), it shared details of raids carried out inside Gaza's governing institutions:

• The army says it has seized the Hamas parliament. Yesterday, images were circulating online showing soldiers holding Israeli flags apparently in its legislative chamber
• The IDF also says it took over a government building, police headquarters and an engineering faculty that served as an institute for the production and development of weapons
• During the operation, the IDF says it took control of a facility containing training facilities, operational headquarters, interrogation facilities and detention facilities
• The governor's house building was also raided by a divisional combat team

This evening, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said that "Hamas has lost control" north of the Gaza Strip, and seeing Israeli soldiers sitting in Gaza's parliament was "of great importance".

Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, said the Israeli army's announcement was a "pathetic attempt to manufacture victory and imaginary control of empty places or those previously targeted and destroyed".

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby says the US has intelligence that Hamas has a command centre under Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Kirby told reporters the intelligence shows that "Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad use some hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including Al-Shifa, and tunnels underneath them to conceal and support their military operations and to hold hostages".

He said the groups have stored weapons under Al-Shifa and are "prepared to respond to an Israeli military operation against that facility".

Kirby added: "We do not support striking a hospital from the air and we do not want to see a firefight in the hospital where innocent people, helpless people, sick people are simply trying to get the medical care that they deserve, not to be caught in a crossfire. Hospitals and patients must be protected.

He said this points out how "challenging the military operation is. Hamas has deeply embedded itself within the civilian population. Israel has now an added burden given the way Hamas operates".

Finally, Kirby said that Hamas’s actions "do not lessen Israel’s responsibilities to protect civilians in Gaza" - and stated that the US is maintaining "active conversation" with the Israeli government about that.

Image source, .

Tonight's edition of the Today debate, presented by Mishal Husain, will be streaming shortly on BBC Radio 4 - you can listen to it here.

The topic is: Israel-Gaza - What happens when the war ends?

On the panel is:

• The BBC's international editor Jeremy Bowen
• Daniel Levy, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations
• Peter Ricketts, the former chair of the UK’s intelligence committee under Tony Blair and former national security adviser to David Cameron
• Ghada Karmi, a Palestinian academic and author. Her latest book, which was published earlier this year, is called One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel
• Evelyn Farkas, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for President Obama

Listen to the debate live from 20:00 on BBC Radio 4 or on the stream at the top of this page.

Image source, Getty Images

The United Nations relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) has reported that 580,000 displaced people in southern Gaza have sought shelter, and that overcrowding coupled with heavy rain will make conditions even worse.

World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Margaret Harris issued a statement on the difficulty of the situation for those already displaced in Gaza saying, "rain will just add to the further suffering".

Early in the war the Israel Defence Forces told the 1.1 million residents of northern Gaza to evacuate to the south of the Strip as it began to expand its military operation against Hamas.

Cities in the south, like Khan Younis, quickly became overcrowded with reports that as many as 90 people were sheltering in one home.

Cities in central Gaza that are thought to be safe have quickly become built-up with makeshift tents as there is no longer any room in repurposed school buildings or hospital courtyards.

The World Health Organization has previously said a "public health catastrophe" was imminent in Gaza, due to mass displacement, overcrowding, and damage to water and sanitation infrastructure which have caused a spike in waterborne diseases and bacterial infection.

Image source, Reuters

The head of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, is "deeply disturbed by the horrible situation and dramatic loss of life in several hospitals in Gaza," his spokesman has said in a statement.

The spokesman was talking to reporters, following reports all day of worsening conditions at the hospitals there as they struggle without power and decomposing bodies.

"In the name of humanity, the secretary-general calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire," the spokesman added.

Image source, EPA

Israel's foreign minister Eli Cohen has been speaking at the UN in Geneva, where he criticised both the Red Cross and UN chief Antonio Guterres.

"Guterres does not deserve to be the head of the United Nations," Cohen told a news conference. "Guterres does not promote any peace process in the region," he said - and suggested he was too close to Iran.

On the Red Cross - who he met with, as well as the World Health Organization - Cohen said it "should be more loud and clear with its statement and with the pressure" to release hostages.

The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross repeated her commitment to working to release hostages, as they met families of those taken.

Posting on social media after the gathering, Mirjana Spoljaric said: "The hostages must immediately be released. ICRC will not stop working to gain access to them: and we need agreements to be reached that allow us to work."

Image source, Reuters

For a while now, aid workers have been raising the alarm about the lack of fuel in Gaza. The charity Médecins Sans Frontières has just told BBC Radio 4's PM programme that fuel will run out in the Strip tomorrow.

Paul Caney, from MSF, said Gaza's stocks will be obsolete within 48 hours. As a result, UN trucks will not be able to deliver aid, he said.

The UN also issued a similar warning. "In the next 48 hours, it just comes to a halt, there's nothing that we can do," said Thomas White, from the UN's Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.

This morning, Juliette Touma - also from UNRWA - said they already did not have fuel and were "on the verge of becoming non-operational". "As of this morning we are not able to go and pick up trucks that are planned to cross the border with Egypt and bring in much needed supplies," she said.

Fuel is needed for things like hospitals - including Al-Shifa, where the director said power cuts have led to people dying - for bakeries, and for electricity generators and water pumping stations. Israel has been blocking fuel deliveries to Gaza for weeks, arguing they could be stolen and exploited by Hamas for military purposes.

James Landale
Diplomatic correspondent

Away from the situation on the ground for a moment - there was fascinating language from the UK's new de facto Deputy Foreign Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, in the Commons earlier about the situation in Gaza.

He repeated what the prime minister said last night at his Guildhall speech: Israel must act within international law, take every precaution to minimise civilian targets and end extremist violence in the West Bank.

But Mitchell also used highly emotive language to describe events in Gaza.

“Appalling loss of life”, “every civilian death heartbreaking”, “impossible to comprehend the pain and loss innocent Palestinians are enduring”, “too many civilians are losing their lives”.

And the usual statement about the right of Israel to defend itself, restore its security and get its hostages back was much less prominent.

Mitchell also had two news lines: he called for longer humanitarian pauses and said the UK was considering “air and maritime options” to deliver aid.

This is further evidence of Western governments’ increasing concerns about the remorselessly rising death toll in Gaza.

Rushdi Abualouf
Khan Younis, southern Gaza

There's very heavy rain here tonight here at Nasser Hospital where hundreds of displaced people are now located in the courtyard of this hospital.

They are struggling to cope with this weather as the rain hasn't stopped for the last half an hour and most people are sleeping on the ground.

Very few people have managed to build a tent like the one I am under but even with a tent, with this rain it's going to be a struggle.

For those who are displaced they have been struggling to get food and water for a very long time and now they are struggling to get cover and clothes that are appropriate for these conditions.

It's coming up to 17:30 in our London newsroom - and 19.30 in Israel and Gaza, where there's currently torrential rain according to our reporters there. Here's the latest:

• Today we've been hearing more on the situation at the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. The hospital's director told us that 179 people have been buried in a mass grave there. Separately, a doctor also working there then estimated about 200 people have been buried in the grave. People are dying after vital hospital equipment failed because of power cuts, the hospital director says. It comes as there's more warnings from aid workers in the Gaza Strip that fuel continues to run low
• Israel accuses Hamas of running a command centre under Al-Shifa, which the hospital and Hamas both deny
• The BBC's Rushdi Abualouf said no people, or any items of aid, have been allowed in or out of the Al-Shifa hospital for the last 48 hours, according to one of his contacts. Israel says there's an evacuation route for people to get out - and the BBC has verified video of people on the road waving white flags
• Away from the situation on the ground, the US and Britain have announced new sanctions against four senior leaders and two financiers of Hamas, which both countries list as a terrorist group. And speaking earlier, US President Joe Biden said he believed the release of hostages is "going to happen", telling families: "Hang in there"
• Hostages' families began a five-day protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem earlier. They're walking to the prime minister's office to demand more is done to free their loved ones.
• Earlier, Israel also confirmed the death of one of the hostages - 19-year-old Noa Marciano, a soldier who was kidnapped by Hamas last month

Satellite image shows Israeli positions near Gaza's largest hospitalpublished at 17:26 Greenwich Mean Time 14 November 2023

17:26 GMT 14 November 2023

Image source, Planet Labs

As the Israel Defence Forces continues its offensive inside Gaza City, BBC Verify has acquired a satellite image of the area around Al-Shifa hospital from 11 November. The area has seen heavy fighting with more than 2,000 people trapped.

The image appears to show military vehicles parked in several positions in open ground, about 600m away from the hospital.

One of these is the premises of a school, which we found on Google Maps.

We also compared the shape and outline of the vehicles with previous satellite images of Israeli military formations, and they look like tanks as well as bulldozers used to clear rubble for advancing vehicles.

Also visible are clouds of smoke, including in the immediate area by the hospital where explosions have been reported.

Image source, AFP

US President Joe Biden has offered a message of hope to the hostages Hamas kidnapped from Israel during the 7 October attacks.

Asked by journalists at an address he was giving on climate change about the hostages - now more than five weeks on from them being taken - Biden said he had been "talking to the people involved every single day".

"I believe it's going to happen but I don't want to get into detail," he said.

For the families of more than 200 hostages taken, President Biden said he had this message: "Hang in there, we're coming."

Read more: Stories of the hostages taken by Hamas from Israel

More now from the situation in Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, where hospital workers have said people are being buried in mass graves after power cuts meant hospital equipment failed.

In the last couple of hours, the charity Doctors Without Borders said, external bullets were fired into one of its premises near Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City this morning, where staff and their families had been sheltering.

It said there are more than 100 people, including 65 children, there and adds they have run out of water and food. The group says it has been trying to evacuate them for the past three days and has asked Israel and Hamas for safe passage.

The BBC has not verified the charity's claims.

The Israeli military said it has opened designated routes out of hospitals including Al-Shifa - and video footage shows a glimpse of the road out.

Why this war in Gaza is different to the otherspublished at 16:39 Greenwich Mean Time 14 November 2023

16:39 GMT 14 November 2023

Jeremy Bowen
International Editor

Image source, Reuters

If this Gaza war was like all the others, a ceasefire would probably have been in force by now.

But now the fault lines that divide the Middle East are rumbling. For at least two decades, the most serious rift in the region has been between the friends and allies of Iran, and the friends and allies of the United States.

The core of Iran's network is made up of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Assad regime in Syria, the Houthis in Yemen and assorted Iraqi militias that are armed and trained by Iran. The Iranians have also supported Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

Iran is also getting closer to Russia and China. It has become a significant part of Russia's war effort in Ukraine and China buys a great deal of Iranian oil.

The longer the war in Gaza goes on, and as Israel kills more Palestinian civilians and destroys tens of thousands of homes, the greater the risk of conflict involving some members of those two camps.

Read more here.

Ethar Shalaby
BBC Arabic

Earlier we reported that 179 people had been buried in a mass grave within Gaza City's largest hospital, Al-Shifa, according to the hospital's director.

Now we've spoken to Dr Adnan al-Bursh from the hospital, who says 200 bodies have been buried in the hospital grounds.

It took around 100 of the hospital’s medical team six hours to bury the 200 bodies. “We started off at 08:30 in the morning and finished around 15:00 local time,” he says.

Al-Bursh, head of the orthopaedic surgery department, says bodies “have been left for days until decomposed” and so medics were left with little choice but to make a mass grave.

He says they “were not able to open the windows in the buildings because of the bad smell coming out of the courtyard” - adding that around 120 dead bodies were out there, before being buried.

Another 80 were in the morgue, he says, with mostly women and children among the dead.

The Red Cross warned the medics to leave them due to safety fears from ongoing shelling, "but we took the responsibility [to bury them],” Al-Bursh says.

Women in Gaza have described giving birth without painkillers and having to flee from one place to another while heavily pregnant.

The World Health Organization says maternal deaths are expected to increase in Gaza given the lack of access to adequate care. It says the hostilities have direct and deadly consequences for pregnancies, with a rise in stress-induced miscarriages, stillbirths and premature births.

Keifaia Abu Asser, who gave birth to her baby girl four days ago, was heavily pregnant when she was forced to evacuate her home in northern Gaza.

She was given no painkillers while giving birth at hospital.

Pregnant mother-of-three Asma is from Gaza City but is now living in a tent in the compound of Al Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza.

Pleading for a ceasefire, she said: "What is the fault of the children that they have to suffer this much? What is the fault of my baby who hasn't come to life yet?"

• Read more of the mothers' stories here

Video shows people along evacuation road out of Al-Shifa hospitalpublished at 15:46 Greenwich Mean Time 14 November 2023

15:46 GMT 14 November 2023

Video has emerged showing some people on what the IDF calls a “humanitarian corridor” for Palestinians to leave Al-Shifa hospital. Israel has been asking people to evacuate the hospital because they believe Hamas has its base underneath the building - something Hamas denies.

The IDF said people should flee along al-Wahda street - which links to Salah al-Din road (just over 3km away), which is the main route to southern Gaza. We don't know how many people have managed to leave Al-Shifa hospital this way.

The video shows someone with a white flag or white sheets and a couple of people with raised hands walking along a virtually empty street.

Using satellite images, we matched the location to a crossroads on al-Wahda street from the layout of nearby buildings.

We can't say for certain when it was filmed, but clues suggest it might be yesterday. Based on the light and shadows, it's morning. It's also dry (unlike Gaza today where it's been raining). This aligns with yesterday’s weather, according to sites like Weatherbit.

At one point, a body is seeing lying in the street, but it's unclear how long it’s been there.

Image source, Telegram

The UK and US have announced a third round of sanctions following Hamas's 7 October attack on Israel.

The US Treasury Department said the sanctions will target "key Hamas officials and the mechanisms by which Iran provides support to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad" - which is another armed faction in the Gaza Strip.

Individuals face travel bans, asset freezes and arms embargoes.

Some of those targeted by the sanctions will include Palestinian Islamic Jihad's representative to Iran, Nasser Abu Sharif, as well as a Lebanon-based money exchange which allegedly handles transfers between Hamas and Tehran.