Image source, Reuters

A doctor at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis says there are only four doctors working there, compared to between 35 and 40 on a usual working day.

Mohammed Qandil tells Reuters news agency that most of the medical team are finding it difficult to reach the facility.

"They are scared, they don't know the next steps, so everybody is confused and this is affecting the medical team, the nurses and the doctors," he says.

A man at the hospital, Mohammed Hamo, says he was told he would be safe if he moved south, but that that's not the case.

"There is no safe place in Gaza," he says.

As Israel continues its military campaign in the Gaza Strip, Hamas and its allies have been launching retaliatory attacks.

Hamas’s military branch said it fired rockets towards Beersheba, about 40km (25 miles) from the Gaza Strip in southern Israel. No injuries were reported, but the Times of Israel said some vehicles were damaged.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said they were responsible for launching missiles towards the southern Israeli city of Eilat. The IDF said the projectiles did not enter Israeli territory.

Rushdi Abu Alouf
Reporting from Istanbul

Eyewitnesses said that Israeli forces were surrounding the Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip from all directions, intensifying air raids on the camp.

Khalil Abu Qamar, who lives in the al-Faluja neighborhood, one of the largest neighbourhoods in the camp, said: “The explosions have not stopped for two days, and dozens have been killed and others are trapped under the rubble of residential buildings.”

“This morning, my brother was killed in an air strike when he rushed to rescue neighbours whose house had been bombed. We could not bury him in the family cemetery because it’s too risky and we had to bury him in a courtyard near his house," Abu Qamar said.

“There is no longer dignity for the living or the dead," he added.

More now on the UN secretary general's letter to Security Council members.

António Guterres wrote that every civilian in Gaza faced grave danger as “nowhere is safe” and no effective protection of civilians existed as the health care system collapsed and hospitals were turned into battlegrounds.

Without shelter or essentials needed to survive, and as Israel continues its constant bombardment, Guterres wrote that he was expecting public order to "completely break down soon, due to the desperate conditions, rendering even limited humanitarian assistance impossible".

Guterres concluded his letter by saying that the international community had a responsibility "to use all its influence to prevent further escalation and end this crisis" and renewed his call for a humanitarian ceasefire.

Image source, Reuters

Dramatic move by the UN chiefpublished at 19:27 Greenwich Mean Time 6 December 2023

19:27 GMT 6 December 2023

Nada Tawfik
BBC New York correspondent

The explicit invoking of Article 99 by a secretary general has only happened nine times, and it's been decades since.

The UN for weeks has been urgently warning about the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and now Antonio Guterres is activating one of his most powerful distress signals.

It was done - the UN said - given the scale of the loss of life in Gaza and Israel in such a short amount of time.

This dramatic move by the UN chief is also a powerful expression of his frustration with the Security Council and a reminder to them of their responsibilities.

He wants to push the Security Council to call for a humanitarian ceasefire and to meet as early as this week.

The majority of council members support a ceasefire but crucially the United States, Israel’s ally and a permanent veto-wielding member, does not.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has made an urgent appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

He invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, which allows him to bring to the attention of the Security Council "any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security".

"Facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, I urge the Council to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe & appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire to be declared," Guterres wrote in a post on X, external.

He added this was the first time he had done so since he became secretary general in 2017.

In a letter to the Security Council president, he stressed that the situation was deteriorating rapidly, with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians and for security in the whole region.

It's been an intense day of fighting in Gaza as the Israeli army continues to push into Khan Younis, where tens of thousands of displaced people have been sheltering.

Here's a look at what has been happening the last few hours:

• Israeli forces have encircled the home of Yahya Sinwar, head of the Hamas’s political wing in Gaza, who Israel believes to be one of the masterminds behind the 7 October attacks, according to the Israeli PM
• Despite the pressure on Israel to avoid civilian casualties and displacement, UNRWA said it had seen "no recalibration" of the country’s tactics as it pushes through southern Gaza
• UN agencies said humanitarian assistance had been "reduced virtually to nothing" raising fears of widescale hunger and disease for Gaza's 2.2 million people as intense fighting prevented the distribution of aid in Khan Younis today

• Journalists in Gaza have told the BBC about the desolate conditions in the enclave and the impossible choices they face covering the conflict in their homeland
• Israel’s military said it intercepted a surface-to-surface missile that was launched towards Israel over the Red Sea and that it has been launching attacks on targets in Lebanon

Image source, Reuters

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

A woman in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis has been telling us she fled there in search of safety, but has found only danger.

"Despite coming to Khan Younis for safety, it is not secure," the woman, who gave her name only as Um Saleh, said.

She said she had tried to seek shelter in schools but had found them unsuitable to live in.

"The situation in Khan Younis is very difficult. We were directed to move to the southern areas, where we now hear the sounds of tanks and bombs."

She added that she couldn’t see anywhere safe in Gaza that she could escape to.

"Where should we go? What do they want?" she asked.

Image source, IDF

The Israeli military says another one of its troops has died while fighting against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, bringing the total number of its soldiers killed since 7 October to 411.

The IDF said Adi Shani, 39, was killed today in the Gaza Strip. The IDF publishes a list of troops it says has been killed in the conflict on its website., external

Hamas's unprecedented assault on Israel from the Gaza Strip on 7 October killed 1,200 people.

In response, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive in Gaza, during which the Hamas-run government in Gaza says more than 16,200 people have been killed, including around 7,000 children

Image source, EPA

Israeli forces have encircled the home of Yahya Sinwar, head of the Hamas’s political wing in Gaza, according to Israel's PM.

Israel believes Sinwar is one of the masterminds behind the 7 October attacks, with IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari describing him as “a dead man”.

Sinwar’s whereabouts are unknown, but it’s possible he is cornered underground in Hamas’s warren of tunnels underneath the Gaza Strip.

Sinwar, 61, also known as Abu Ibrahim, was born in Khan Younis, after his parents were displaced from Ashkelon in what Palestinians call “al-Nakba” (the Catastrophe) – the mass displacement of Palestinians from their ancestral home in the war that followed Israel's founding in 1948.

Sinwar was first arrested by Israel in 1982, aged 19, for “Islamic activities”, and then again in 1985. It was around this time that he won the confidence of Hamas’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, eventually working his way up the group’s ranks.

• Read more about Sinwar here.

As we've just reported, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has given an update on Israeli actions in Gaza, in a video statement.

Netanyahu says his government is applying pressure for the Red Cross to be allowed to visit the hostages being held by Hamas.

He says he spoke with the organisation’s president, telling her to talk with Qatar “which has proven to have an impact over Hamas" to demand visits and for medicines to be supplied to them.

Image source, Benjamin Netanyahu/ X

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israeli forces are encircling the Gaza house of top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

"Last night I said that our forces can reach anywhere in the Gaza Strip. Now they are surrounding Sinwar's house," Netanyahu said in a recorded video statement.

"His house may not be his fortress and he can escape but it's only a matter of time before we get him."

As the BBC's Frank Gardner reports, Sinwar has disappeared. Thousands of Israeli troops backed by drones, electronic eavesdropping devices and human informants, are all trying to discover his whereabouts.

Intense fighting between Hamas and Israel in Gaza has prevented the distribution of aid in the southern city of Khan Younis, the UN has said.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the only governorate in Gaza where aid distribution is taking place is Rafah, near the Egyptian border. While in Khan Younis, aid distribution has "largely stopped due to the intensity of hostilities", it said.

The UN has struggled to receive incoming aid deliveries over the past three days because of a shortage of trucks in Gaza, the telecommunications blackout on Monday, and an increasing number of aid workers who were unable reach the Rafah crossing.

And access to the north of Gaza from areas in the south of the territory was severed on 1 December, when the temporary ceasefire expired.

According to the UN, nearly 1.9 million people in Gaza (nearly 85% of the population), are estimated to be displaced as of Sunday.

Image source, .

Israel has approved the building of more than 1,700 new homes in a settlement partly in East Jerusalem, according to media reports.

Jerusalem officials gave the go-ahead this week for the neighbourhood, known as the Lower Aqueduct project, the Times of Israel reported.

Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion has said the project is necessary to expand the supply of housing, but two Israeli NGOs have expressed concern.

The Ir Amim organisation, which tracks the construction of Jewish neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, said an access road to the site would have to be built over Palestinian land.

Image source, Getty Images

The AFP news agency quoted Hagit Ofran from Peace Now as saying: "If it weren't for the war [between Israel and Hamas], there would be a lot of noise.

"It's a highly problematic project for the continuity of a Palestinian state."

Israel considers the entire city of Jerusalem its capital, though this is not recognised by almost all the international community. Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as their future capital of a hoped-for independent state.

How missiles from Yemen could escalate Israel-Gaza warpublished at 16:31 Greenwich Mean Time 6 December 2023

16:31 GMT 6 December 2023

Frank Gardner
Security correspondent

Image source, EPA

It is well over 1,000 miles from the coast of Yemen to the Gaza Strip, and yet what happened last Sunday at the southern end of the Red Sea has the potential to dramatically escalate the war between Israel and Hamas.

According to US Central Command, the division of the US Department of Defence that covers the Middle East, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen carried out four attacks on three commercial ships operating in international waters. The attacks involved a combination of explosive drones and anti-ship ballistic missiles.

The US Navy already had a guided missile destroyer in the vicinity, the USS Carney, which managed to shoot down three of the drones. Others hit their targets, causing some damage but no casualties.

"These attacks" said the Pentagon, "represent a direct threat to international commerce and maritime security." In a further statement it added that it believed the attacks from Yemen were "enabled by Iran".

The location of the attacks is significant. They took place just north of the strategic chokepoint of the Bab El Mandeb Strait, a 20-mile wide channel that separates Africa from the Arabian Peninsula and through which about 17,000 ships and 10% of global trade pass every year.

Read our full analysis here.

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

Izzat Abdullah Al Jamal tells us he has been displaced twice since the war began and no longer trusts that there is any "safe place" in Gaza.

Izzat, 55, fled from his home in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia, seeking shelter in al-Shifa hospital before fleeing on foot to the southern city of Khan Younis.

"The people in Khan Younis are very kind and generous but the area is overcrowded with refugees and there is strong bombing," he says.

Like others we've been speaking to there, Izzat says he "won’t move" again.

"I don't have any place to go - they told us to move from the north and we came to the south... Where should we go? There is no safe place to go."

As we've been reporting, Israeli tanks are pushing deeper into Khan Younis, where Israel believes Hamas leaders could be hiding.

How close was strike to IDF-declared evacuation route in Gaza?published at 15:54 Greenwich Mean Time 6 December 2023

15:54 GMT 6 December 2023

Video footage has emerged of a strike on Tuesday close to an IDF-declared evacuation route for civilians fleeing targeted areas in Gaza.

The highly graphic footage shows severe damage to several buildings, one of which has partially collapsed, and many casualties – some covered by blankets or lying motionless on the ground. Several children appear to be among the victims.

The BBC has verified the location of this strike in the town a Deir al-Balah, north of Khan Younis, from footage posted on X, formerly Twitter, yesterday evening.

Comparing the layout of the buildings with satellite imagery of the area, the strike occurred about 250m from the IDF evacuation route along al-Shuhadaa Street.

Each day this week, the IDF has issued statements in Arabic on X, with a map showing these designated "safe routes for the evacuation of civilians from Khan Younis", including along al-Shuhadaa Street. In the same message, the IDF made it clear the main Salah al-Din route north out of Khan Younis was no longer safe to travel.

When we approached the IDF for comment, providing the location of the strike, we were directed to their earlier post on X, external, identifying the designated evacuation routes.

Image source, Reuters

When Moshe Leimberg saw his daughter, Mia, emerge from Hamas captivity last week, he was surprised to see her holding Bella, her shih tzu dog.

"She was very determined to bring the dog back, and one of the expressions that she has now about the dog is: 'I love you to Gaza and back'," he said.

Mia and her mother Gabriela were visiting family in a kibbutz near the Gaza border when they were taken hostage by Hamas during the 7 October attacks.

They were released last week.

"Luckily for me, Bella is unlike other small dogs, she’s rather quiet… so they didn’t notice her," Mia, 17, told Reuters news agency of her captors.

Once they noticed the dog, an argument took place, but she was ultimately allowed to keep Bella.

Image source, Reuters

Bella survived on the hostages’ leftover food.

Mia said she does not feel traumatised by the experience, but that it is taking time for it all to sink in.

She also said it feels "wrong" to be free when her relatives and other people are still being held captive.

"It is so important that we bring back everybody. As much as I am happy to be back, we're still not done," she said.

Image source, Reuters

The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Mirjana Spoljaric, who visited Gaza on Monday, has responded to criticism of their role in facilitating the release of Israeli hostages.

She told the BBC's Newshour: "[The hostages are] at the very top of our priority list - but under current circumstances access is difficult and very dangerous for the hostages themselves.

"It requires an agreement between both the parties and that agreement is lacking at the moment. We speak to both sides all the time and we are demanding that Hamas gives us access - from day one I have always clearly said that taking hostages is against international humanitarian law."

A phrase that has gained some traction on social media in Israel is that the ICRC is a mere "uber service" for the hostages.

She responded: "This is profoundly unjust, unfair, and wrong - these operations are extremely complex and have to be planned - we are working around the clock with the authorities on the Israeli side and Israel knows that we use all our available resources whenever we can facilitate a release or access to hostages."

Hugo Bachega
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

Israel has been under renewed pressure to protect civilians in Gaza as it carries out its war against Hamas in the southern part of the territory. Notably, the country's main ally, the US, has said it should not repeat there what it did in the north, where its campaign destroyed entire neighbourhoods, killed thousands of people and displaced tens of thousands.

The Israeli military says its attacks are more precise and that it has taken steps to alert the population. But the offensive has dramatically worsened Gaza's humanitarian crisis. Hospitals are overwhelmed with large numbers of casualties, many of them children, and doctors are having to operate with ever shrinking resources.

As more people are forced to flee, many not for the first time, they are being pushed into smaller and smaller areas in the south. The designated shelters, already crowded, are unable to cope amid acute shortages of food and water, as just a fraction of the aid that is needed is entering Gaza.

Image source, Reuters

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said humanitarian assistance had been "reduced virtually to nothing", raising fears of widescale hunger and disease for Gaza's 2.2 million people. And, despite the pressure on Israel, it said it had seen "no recalibration" of the country’s tactics, describing a "barrage of attacks on residential and other civilian infrastructures", including hospitals, mosques, government buildings and schools across the territory.

"The pattern of attacks that target or impact on civilian infrastructure raises serious concerns about Israel's compliance with international humanitarian law and significantly raises the risk of atrocity crimes," the agency said in a strongly worded statement.

Israel has repeatedly said its actions are within international law and accuses Hamas of positioning its infrastructure in residential areas and using the population as human shields. As more civilians are killed and the suffering of those who survive gets worse, the Israeli military's actions will continue to be under scrutiny.