Updates: 29 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza hospital

This live blog is now closed.

You can read our explainer on Amnesty International’s report accusing Israel of committing genocide here.

Read our piece on Gaza Soup Kitchen chef Mahmoud Almadhoun, who was killed in an Israeli drone attack here.

We will be closing this live page soon, but before we do, here’s a recap of the day’s major developments:

• An Israeli air strike targeted a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least 20 people, including six children and five women.
• At least 51 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn, according to medical sources in the besieged enclave.
• Gaza’s civil defence agency says 29 people have been killed in Israeli attacks around Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.
• Israel denied targeting or entering Kamal Adwan Hospital and said that it only attacks the vicinity or “adjacent” to the facility.
• A Hamas official says international mediators resumed negotiating with the group and Israel over a ceasefire in the enclave.
• The Israel Broadcasting Authority reports that the government has not yet agreed to send a delegation to discuss a deal to return the captives held in Gaza.
• Germany rejected Amnesty’s report that accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in its war on Gaza.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, warns Iran is poised to “quite dramatically” increase its stockpile of near weapons-grade uranium since it has started cascades of advanced centrifuges.

Cascades are a group of centrifuges that spin uranium gas together to enrich the uranium more quickly.

But Grossi told journalists in Bahrain on the sidelines of the International Institute of Strategic Studies Manama Dialogue that the escalation was “very concerning”.

Iran maintains its programme is peaceful, but the moves are likely to raise further tension in the region amid Israel’s war on Gaza and the ceasefire in Lebanon.

Earlier today, Israeli warplanes flew above Beirut and struck a target in southern Lebanon in the latest violations of a fragile ceasefire.

Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) said Israeli drones flew at a low altitude above Beirut’s southern suburb.

It added that Israeli warplanes struck an area near the Litani River between the towns of Yohmor al-Chaqif and Zawtar al-Sharqiyah in the Nabatieh district in southern Lebanon. In the Marjayoun district, also in southern Lebanon, Israel blew up more buildings in the town of Odaisseh.

Thousands of patients in Gaza are waiting for Israeli permission for urgently needed medical evacuation from Gaza in order to receive treatment for war wounds or chronic diseases, after the destruction of much of the territory’s healthcare system by Israel’s 15-month war.

Among them are at least 2,500 children who UNICEF says must be transported immediately.

“They cannot afford to wait. These children will die. They’re dying in waiting and I find it striking that the world is letting that happen,” Rosalia Bollen, a UNICEF official, told The Associated Press.

The Israeli military often takes months to respond to medical evacuation requests, and the number of evacuations has plunged in recent months. In some cases, the military rejects either the patient or, in the case of children, the caregivers accompanying them on vague security grounds or with no explanation.

Osaid Shaheen, who is nearly two, now faces having his eyes removed after Israel rejected his evacuation for treatment of stage 4 cancer in his retinas on security grounds with no further explanation.

Doctors have given the boy three doses of chemotherapy. But with supplies short in Gaza, they’re struggling to get more. If they can’t, they will have to remove Osaid’s eyes or the cancer will spread to other parts of his body, Abu Libda said.

Six-year-old Nasser Tanatra is scared of the rock-strewn hilltop where he used to play and pick flowers near his family home.

The boisterous child, the youngest of seven siblings, used to dash to the top of Jabal al-Ras with his 10-year-old sister Urood to gather wild sage and zaatar.

But in mid-September, about 20 Israeli settlers, protected by soldiers, erected tents and began living on the hilltop, about 50 metres (164ft) from the family’s two-storey home.

Ever since, they have attacked and harassed the Tanatras and their neighbours in the Palestinian village of Umm Safa. At night, the settlers fire bullets into the air and release aggressive dogs to roam outside villagers’ homes. From above, they flash bright lights onto the houses, blare music and sing loudly.

But, the worst incident for the Tanatras occurred soon after the new settlers arrived.

Read more here.

Palestinian activists have shared footage on Instagram showing the aftermath of an Israeli bombing that targeted a house in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.

The attack has killed at least 20 people, including children.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Momen Sameer | مؤمن القريناوي (@momen__sameer)

Palestinian rights advocates are calling for a day of fasting on December 12 to express solidarity with Palestinians experiencing hunger and bombardment in Gaza.

The effort, dubbed Hunger for Justice, is organised by former 1981 Maze Prison Hunger Strikers “to illustrate the kinship with Palestinians who are currently being forced into starvation”.

The organisers are urging people across the world to join them in their fast and share their experiences on social media using the hashtag #Fast4Palestine.

“Israel has imposed an inhumane siege on Gaza that has brought deadly hunger across the territory – a crime against humanity that has been widely documented by rights groups and United Nations experts,” they said in a statement.

“We cannot remain silent. We cannot remain complicit. Join us in spreading the word and taking a stance against the most well-documented genocide in history that is still ongoing.”

The Israel Broadcasting Authority is reporting that Netanyahu’s government has not yet agreed to send a delegation to discuss efforts to return the detainees, noting that the framework currently being discussed is “preliminary” without referring to efforts to stop the war.

On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy travelled to Qatar and Israel to kick-start the US president-elect’s diplomatic push to help reach a Gaza ceasefire and captive release deal before he takes office on January 20.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi met UN chief Antonio Guterres and discussed efforts to stop Israel’s war on Gaza and the humanitarian situation.

In a statement from the Jordanian Foreign Ministry, Safadi and Guterres stressed UNRWA’s importance and the need to reach an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The two officials also discussed cooperation between Jordan and UN organisations to deliver humanitarian aid to the enclave.

As we’ve been reporting, an Israeli air strike targeted a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

The Wafa news agency is reporting that the death toll has now reached 20, including six children and five women.

The report added that Israeli warplanes had targeted the house that had been evacuated prior to the attack. Several people in neighbouring homes were wounded by the strike.

At the same time, a young girl was killed when Israeli artillery shelled tents housing displaced families near the western part of Nuseirat.

Gaza’s civil defence agency spokesperson, Mahmoud Basal, told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces shot at the Indonesian Hospital and ambulances in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza.

Basal said Israeli forces shot at citizens in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoon, areas that have all been under intense Israeli siege since October.

He added that there are no more surgeons at Kamal Adwan Hospital, whose vicinity was attacked earlier today, that can perform necessary operations and that Israel has refused to allow aid into northern Gaza.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has described Israel’s war on Gaza as inflicting “collective punishment, which is against international humanitarian law” on Palestinians.

In an interview with US media personality Tucker Carlson, Lavrov also said Moscow was “very much concerned” with a recent escalation of violence in Syria, where rebels have seized swaths of territory from the government of Bashar al-Assad.

Russia is a key ally of Syria and its air force has been involved in years of bombing groups fighting to topple al-Assad’s rule.

Lavrov said he planned to hold talks today with Turkish and Iranian officials on the situation in Syria.

At least 51 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn, according to medical sources in the besieged enclave.

Of those killed, 35 of them were in the northern Gaza Strip, where Israel has been undertaking an intense bombing operation since October.

An Israeli attack on a house in Nuseirat refugee camp killed 14 people, including three children and two women, according to our colleagues on the ground.

The attack wounded at least 30 people.

Let’s bring you up to speed with some of the recent developments:

• Gaza’s Civil Defence agency says at least 29 people have been killed in Israeli attacks around Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.
• The Israeli military denies reports that it targeted or entered Kamal Adwan Hospital today.
• A Hamas official says international mediators have resumed negotiating with the group and Israel over a ceasefire in Gaza.
• A German Federal Foreign Office spokesman tells reporters Berlin rejects Amnesty International’s report that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
• Israeli forces detain three Palestinian journalists near the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

At least five people, including children, were killed during an Israeli air strike on a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

The Wafa news agency reported that Israeli warplanes targeted a house that had been evacuated before the attack, which resulted in the killing of five people and wounding of several others in neighbouring homes.

Three of those who were killed were transported to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah.

Since the war began in October 2023, at least 44,612 Palestinians have been killed and 105,834 wounded by Israeli attacks.