Image source, EPA

Let's circle back to what's been happening on the Israel-Lebanon border, which in the last 24 hours has seen the deadliest exchange of fire since the war in Gaza began.

This morning, Israeli fighter jets hit several Hezbollah targets in Wadi Saluki in southern Lebanon, its military confirmed. It also said targets in Labouneh and Taybeh were hit.

Such attacks are not uncommon - since Hezbollah pledged support to Hamas and started launching rockets into Israel, the Israelis have responded with air strikes.

At least 10 people, including five children, were killed in an Israeli air strike yesterday after Lebanese militant group Hezbollah killed a soldier in Israel on Tuesday. Earlier this morning, Hezbollah announced that three of its fighters had been killed.

IDF chief of staff Lt Gen Herzi Halevi said the military made "great achievements striking Hezbollah in Lebanon" and will continue.

"We are intensifying the strikes all the time, and Hezbollah are paying an increasingly heavy price," he said.

In response, a senior Hezbollah official said Israel "will pay the price for these crimes".

Even before Israel confirmed its special forces had entered Nasser hospital, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief expressed alarm at the circumstances around the complex in Khan Younis.

"Nasser is the backbone of the health system in southern Gaza. It must be protected," he wrote on X on Wednesday, adding:

Separately yesterday, Lisa Macheiner, Médecins Sans Frontières project coordinator in Gaza, said “people have been forced into an impossible situation: stay at Nasser hospital against the Israeli military’s orders and become a potential target, or exit the compound into an apocalyptic landscape."

Over a million displaced Palestinians are sheltering in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, where the UN says humanitarian conditions are desperate.

"They have little to eat, hardly any access to medical care, nowhere to sleep, nowhere safe to go," aid chief Martin Griffiths reported.

Here are some of the latest pictures from Rafah.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, AFP

Image source, Reuters

We've just had a response from Hamas to Israel saying it had "credible information" that gunmen were hiding in Nasser hospital, had kept hostages there and that bodies of hostages may still be there.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri tells Reuters news agency that Israel's claims are "lies".

He adds that "all previous Israeli allegations against hospitals had proven to be false".

We reported earlier on the IDF statement that its forces were inside the Nasser hospital.

IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari says special forces are carrying out a "precise and limited mission".

Watch his statement announcing the operation below:

The Israeli military says it has assured Nasser hospital staff that they can continue treating Gazan patients - that is something contradicted by Dr Ashraf al-Quadra, a spokesperson for the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.

He says Israeli troops inside Nasser hospital have forced the management there to "keep intensive care patients without medical equipment, which puts their lives in grave danger".

Earlier, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said intensive patients at Nasser hospital were in "grave danger" after Israeli forces entered the medical complex.

But the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) insists that a "key objective" of its operation is to ensure that the hospital "continues its important function of treating Gazan patients".

In a statement, the IDF says this was communicated with hospital staff over the last few days - and it "emphasised that there is no obligation for patients or staff to evacuate the hospital".

Rushdi Abu Alouf
Gaza correspondent, reporting from Istanbul

These were the messages from a nurse in Nasser hospital before communication there was cut:

Video shows smoke or dust filling hospital corridorpublished at 11:46 Greenwich Mean Time 15 February

11:46 GMT 15 February

Footage that we have verified shows the aftermath of the claimed Israeli assault on Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.

In one video, a patient – who is still in their bed – is moved through a smoke- or dust-filled corridor where the ceiling is damaged.

Other patients can also be seen, including one person being carried away in what looks like a blanket.

Image source, UGC

We have verified the footage by identifying the hospital’s distinctive tilework as well as various signs.

Some of the videos have come from doctors working in the hospital. Recent social media posts show them in clearly recognisable areas of the hospital complex.

By observing timestamps of the material and searching for previous versions cached online, we know these videos only appeared online recently.

On 14 February we also verified a number of videos showing civilians being urged to leave the hospital by the IDF and departing the area.

Imogen Foulkes
Reporting from Geneva

Image source, Reuters

Heads of aid agencies are making impassioned appeals to UN member states in Geneva this morning to do their utmost to prevent an Israeli ground operation in Rafah.

The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, said she was "out of words to describe the human suffering" and warned that should Rafah be attacked the "carnage so far will reach unimaginable depths."

She told UN member states they should not "offload your responsibilities as parties to the Geneva conventions onto humanitarian actors", adding that it did not make sense to criticise aid agencies for not doing more - "you have us to enable us to do more, our staff are already risking their lives."

Martin Griffiths, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, described conditions in Gaza for effective aid delivery as "almost non-existent", and repeated the UN’s position that it would not participate in any forcible evacuation, which would be a violation of international law.

And, in a warning to Israel, he added "if you launch a ground operation in Rafah, do not look to us as the rescue party".

The head of the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Kate Forbes, who has just returned from Gaza, appeared close to tears as she described the situation as the worst she had seen in 43 years.

We've just received the latest casualty figures from the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.

It says 87 Palestinians were killed and 1,004 were injured by Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours.

That brings the total number killed to at least 28,663, while 68,395 have been injured, according to ministry figures.

Rushdi Abu Alouf
Gaza correspondent, reporting from Istanbul

The situation in Nasser hospital is very complicated and it's no longer possible to accurately verify the information there.

A short while ago, three journalists who had in the hospital arrived in Rafah - two of them had sustained injuries.

They told fellow reporters an Israeli bulldozer demolished the southern wall of the medical complex and soldiers entered the emergency departments.

Israeli soldiers told doctors and nurses to transfer the sick and injured people in the old surgical department, and they asked the displaced to gather in the outer courtyard.

The journalists left the hospital before 07:00 local time (05:00 GMT), which is the time set by the Israeli army as the last chance for anyone who wants to leave.

Soldiers checked the identities of those leaving through a military checkpoint set up near the hospital, and more than 20 people were arrested.

In a new statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it has apprehended a number of suspects in the Nasser hospital operation.

It repeats that the goal of the "precise and limited operation" if to find Hamas operatives, included those suspected of involvement in the 7 October attacks on Israel.

The IDF says it officially contacted the director of the hospital on Tuesday, calling for the immediate cessation of all Hamas "terrorist activity from within the hospital and the immediate evacuation of all Hamas terrorists from within".

It adds that the operational activity around the hospital complex is ongoing.

Image source, Reuters

Today's operation at the Nasser hospital comes after days of warnings from the IDF that it is considering invading Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to defeat Hamas battalions he says are hiding in the city on the Egyptian border with the strip.

The city of Rafah is about 5 miles (9km) from the Nasser hospital and where many people displaced from the hospital after the evacuation have fled.

Over a million people are sheltering in the city, according to the United Nations, which warns an assault could lead to "slaughter".

A spokesperson for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has told the BBC that the UN has not received any Rafah evacuation plans from Israel and will not participate in any forced evacuation.

Pressure has been ramping up on Israel in recent days, from both aid agencies and allied countries like the US and UK, to avoid a full-scale ground operation in Rafah.

UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Israel should "stop and think seriously" before taking further action in Rafah.

We have a response now to the operation in the Nasser hospital from Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.

Spokesman Dr Ashraf al-Qudra says the IDF "forced the remaining displaced persons and families of medical teams to forcibly move from Nasser Medical Complex at dawn today under bombardment and threats".

He says the Israeli army has asked hospital staff to transfer all patients, including those in intensive care, to a separate building in the hospital complex.

Al-Qudra accuses the IDF of demolishing the southern wall of the hospital with a bulldozer, as well as targeting ambulance headquarters, the tents of displaced people and mass graves at the hospital.

Sebastian Usher
BBC Arab Affairs Editor

In a cloud of smoke and dust, amid the sound of gunfire and the screams of patients, medical staff are seen trying to rush the wounded on stretchers for urgent treatment at Nasser hospital.

The latest footage of the chaotic scenes inside the hospital come after days in which Palestinian sources have been saying that the medical facility, where many displaced people are taking refuge, has come under attack by Israeli forces.

Now, the Israeli army has confirmed that it’s carrying out an operation inside the hospital, saying it believes that hostages have been held there and their bodies may still be there.

The army says it "seeks no harm to innocent civilians".

Medical sources inside Nasser hospital say Israeli forces have opened fire, killing a patient this morning and wounding several other people.

David Gritten
BBC News

Image source, MO_ELHELO21

Nasser hospital has been both overwhelmed by huge numbers of casualties and thousands of sheltering Palestinians for weeks.

Palestinians said Israeli forces ordered thousands of displaced people to evacuate the facility in the southern city of Khan Younis on Wednesday.

Videos showed an announcement via loudspeaker and a crowd leaving the Nasser Medical Complex.

Israel's military said it had opened a secure route for civilians, but did not intend to evacuate patients and medics.

Doctors and health officials also say a number of people there have been killed by Israeli sniper fire in recent days.

Khan Younis has been the focus of Israel's invasion of the south of Gaza, which began in early December after troops largely took control of Hamas strongholds in the north.

More on this here.

We can bring you more detail on what Israel says is happening inside the Nasser hospital at the moment.

Israeli special forces have entered the besieged hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson says.

The purpose of the operation, according to the IDF, is to find and return the bodies of hostages it believes are inside the hospital.

It’s unclear from the statement whether the IDF believe any hostages are still alive.

"Sadly, we know that some hostages are no longer alive. We are committed to finding and returning the bodies of those hostages in Gaza," IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari says.

Hagari describes the operation as "precise and limited".

He says the operation was launched following intelligence from released hostages that indicates the hospital was being used to hold other hostages.

A humanitarian corridor has been opened to allow civilians to leave the area and the hospital remains functional, according to the IDF statement.

Israel’s military has confirmed its special forces have entered Gaza’s Nasser hospital.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it has credible information that the bodies of hostages taken during Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel may be in the facility in Khan Younis.

"We conduct precise rescue operations - as we have in the past - where our intelligence indicates that the bodies of hostages may be held," it adds.

Yesterday, Israeli forces ordered the evacuation of thousands of displaced people from Nasser hospital – the largest medical facility in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Image source, .