01:30 An Israeli airstrike on six multi-storey residential buildings near Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza killed 66 and wounded more than 100 in the late hours of Wednesday evening.
Families and emergency medical workers were frantically trying to pull the bodies of those killed and wounded - most of them women and children - up from under the rubble.
They were transporting the wounded - many of them in critical condition - to the under-siege Kamal Adwan Hospital for treatment, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al-Sharif in Gaza City.
In a phone call, Doctor Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, told Al Jazeera: "We received a huge number of wounded from the afflicted residential buildings that were home to more than 200 residents in no time."
"We have sent multiple pleas for the world to lift the blockade on medicine and medical supplies so we can deal with the level of injuries we are facing but to no avail."
"We will not leave our posts as medical workers - despite losing many of our staff to Israeli bombardment - in order to fulfil our human mission," he stressed.
"All we can do is provide first aid to seriously wounded people who are in need of serious medical care," Abu Safiya said.
"I am talking to you, and I am looking at wounded women, children, and seniors with limbs torn apart by Israeli bombs, they are lying on the floors of the hospital, and we are waiting for more victims," added Aby Safiya.
The latest massacre in Beit Lahia comes amid seven weeks of Israeli killing spree of hundreds of civilians in northern Gaza, as the army attempts to force the population into moving southwards in a heinous act of ethnic cleansing.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians who have refused to leave the north of the strip despite Israeli bombardment have been without food or water aid for more than 40 days amid a total blockade on the entry of aid to the area.
The Beit Lahia massacre also comes hours after Israeli airstrikes killed 58 Palestinians - mostly women and children - in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza and Gaza City in the north of the strip.
The massacres in Gaza capped a day in which the US vetoed another resolution in the UNSC to end the Israeli genocidal war on the Palestinians.
23:45 The Gaza Strip has become a “graveyard” for children amid relentless Israeli attacks on the enclave, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Wednesday.
The Israeli war on Gaza, deemed genocidal by the International Court of Justice, killed nearly 44,000 people, most of them women and children, and injured over 104,000.
“Gaza has become a graveyard for children,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement marking World Children’s Day.
“They are being killed, injured, forced to flee & deprived of safety, learning and play,” he said.
“They have been robbed of their childhood and are on the verge of becoming a lost generation as they lose another school year.”
Lazzarini said the world committed to respecting and upholding children’s rights by adopting the Convention on the Rights of the Child three decades ago.
“Today, the rights of Palestinian children are violated day in, day out,” he added.
22:45 Lebanese health authorities said Israeli bombardment in south Lebanon killed 15, including eight EMTs, on Saturday evening.
They also reported that four were four killed and 33 wounded following an Israeli airstrike earlier today on Maarka near Tyre in south Lebanon.
On the other side, Hezbollah targeted the Shraga military base near Ashkelon with missiles for the third time today.
The Israeli military said Wednesday that another soldier was killed in battles with Hezbollah in south Lebanon on Saturday.
The death brings the announced Israeli military's losses in Lebanon since the start of ground operations in late September to 50, with the number of those reported wounded over 1,000.
21:45 Ezzdin Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, posted a rare video of a face-to-face gun battle between its fighters and Israeli soldiers sneaking into the Al-Juwani district in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza amid fierce fighting between the two sides since the start of a massive Israeli onslaught on the area in early October.
The ongoing Israeli onslaught on Beit Lahia and Jabalia in northern Gaza has killed hundreds of civilians - primarily women and children - and destroyed hundreds of residential buildings as Israel attempts to cleanse the area ethnically.
However, recent Israeli ground forces attempts to advance into the towns have been met with fierce resistance from various Palestinian armed groups, with more than 30 Israeli soldiers killed and tens more wounded.
21:30 Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday called for a ceasefire in Gaza as he visited Brazil's capital, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The agency said Xi expressed concerns about the spread of the conflict in Gaza and "called for a ceasefire and an end to the war at an early date" as he met with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Earlier, China, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, voted Yes on a UNSC resolution calling for an immediate end to the Israeli war in Gaza.
The US vetoed the resolution.
20:30 Shortly after the latest US veto of a UNSC resolution demanding an end to the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, the fourth such veto since October 2023, Hamas' acting Gaza chief Khalil al-Hayya said in an interview with Al-Aqsa TV released that there would be no captives-for-prisoners swap deal without an end to the war.
Al-Hayya said there are “ongoing calls with mediating countries” regarding negotiations, stressing that the group is ready to talk.
He blamed PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his government for stalling talks for “political reasons."
"The occupation has separated the northern Gaza Strip from Gaza City in a malicious plan aimed at displacing the population and starving them to force them into surrender. This is the plan of the generals, and today they are intensifying its implementation," noted Al-Hayya, about an intensified Israeli attempt to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza of its Palestinian residents since early October.
19:30 Hamas accused the United States of being "directly responsible" for Israel's "genocidal war" in Gaza after it vetoed the new resolution.
"Again, the United States demonstrates that it is a direct partner in the aggression against our people, that it is a criminal, kills children and women and destroys civilian life in Gaza, and that it is directly responsible for the genocidal war and ethnic cleansing, just like the occupation (Israel)," Hamas said in a statement.
18:30 The Palestinian Authority condemned the United States for vetoing a call for a ceasefire in Gaza at the UN Security Council, saying it "emboldens Israel to continue its crimes".
"The US decision to exercise its veto for the fourth time emboldens Israel to continue its crimes against innocent civilians in Palestine and Lebanon," it said in comments carried by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Ambassador Majed Bamya, Deputy Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the UN, speaks during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question at the UN headquarters. AFP
17:30 The United States on Wednesday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution for a ceasefire in Israel's war in Gaza, accusing council members of cynically rejecting attempts at reaching a compromise.
The 15-member council voted on a resolution put forward by its ten non-permanent members in a meeting that called for an "immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire" and separately demanded the release of hostages.
All four permanent members of the UNSC voted for the resolution.
A senior US official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity ahead of the vote, said the US would only support a resolution that explicitly calls for the immediate release of hostages as part of a ceasefire, according to France 24.
"As we stated many times before, we just can't support an unconditional ceasefire that does not call for the immediate release of hostages," the official said.
16:45 In a scathing Opinion published in the Washington Post on Tuesday, Senator Bernie Sanders, D, Vermont, wrote: "The United States government must stop blatantly violating the law about arms sales to Israel."
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist government has not simply waged war against Hamas. It has also waged an all-out war against the Palestinian people. Within Gaza’s population of just 2.2 million, more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 103,000 injured — probably 60 percent of whom are women, children or elderly people."
"All of this is unspeakable and immoral. But what makes it even more painful is that much of this death and destruction has been carried out with U.S. weaponry and paid for by American taxpayers. During the last year alone, the United States has provided $18 billion in military aid to Israel and delivered more than 50,000 tons of armaments and military equipment.
"In other words, as Americans, we are complicit in these horrific and illegal atrocities. Our complicity must end."
Sanders and three other left-leaning senators called on the Biden administration to halt arms sales to Israel, accusing the United States of playing a vital role in the "atrocities" of the Israeli war on Gaza.
The four senators gave a media conference on Tuesday ahead of a Wednesday vote on resolutions condemning the US weapons sales -- measures that are expected to fail given the large number of lawmakers who support Israel, a historic American ally.
16:30 The Israeli army announced on Wednesday that nine of its soldiers were wounded in fighting in the Gaza Strip and four killed in fighting in south Lebanon.
Hezbollah targeted the Israeli military base of Shraga near Ashkelon in a missile attack.
Israeli soldiers at the base posted footage showing the damage caused by the strike to its infrastructure.
15:30 The Jordanian army said Wednesday it sent eight helicopters loaded with more than seven tons of aid to Gaza as more than 2.3 million Palestinians face the spectre of starvation amid a protracted Israeli embargo on most food, water, and medicine to the strip.
The helicopters carrying food, medicine, and supplies for children took off from Jordan and headed toward Palestinian territory, where the aid would be handed over to the World Food Programme.
14:45 Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said Wednesday his group would not accept any truce that violates Lebanese sovereignty.
Hezbollah seeks a "complete and comprehensive end to the aggression" and "the preservation of Lebanon's sovereignty ... the Israeli enemy cannot enter (Lebanese territory) whenever it wants," Qassem said in a pre-recorded speech.
"Israel cannot defeat us and cannot impose its conditions on us," he added in his third televised speech since assuming the helm of the Lebanese group after the Israeli assassination of Hassan Nasrallah in mid-September.
"The Israeli occupation will not leave and will not be defeated except through resistance."
"We will remain in the field and fight to raise the cost on the enemy as well."
"We are facing Israeli monsters supported by major American monsters," he added.
A snapshot of Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem speaking on Wednesday.
15:50 Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that "the condition for any political settlement in Lebanon is the preservation of the intelligence capability and the preservation of the Israeli military's right to act and protect the citizens of Israel from Hezbollah."
Israel insists that it will strike Hezbollah even if a ceasefire is signed "if it is attacked or if it observes attempts by Hezbollah to send forces south of the Litani River or rearm."
Lebanese officials mediating between Israel and Hezbollah have called for a return to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between the sides.
It calls for Hezbollah fighters and Israeli forces to withdraw from a buffer zone in southern Lebanon patrolled by UN peacekeepers and Lebanese troops.
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Khiam near the border. AFP
15:15 UN atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said there is no indication that an Israeli strike on Iran's Parchin military complex last month hit a nuclear facility or that there was any atomic material present.
On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the strike had hit "a specific component in their nuclear program."
Speaking to reporters in Vienna, Grossi also praised Iran's "concrete step" in agreeing to cap its stockpile of highly enriched uranium after Tehran implemented preparatory steps to stop adding to its supply.
Iran has indicated that it could scrap the limit if the IAEA goes ahead with plans to pass a Western resolution censuring Tehran over its poor cooperation with inspectors.
14:45 US envoy Amos Hochstein said in Beirut that he would travel to Israel later on Wednesday to try to close truce talks after making "additional progress" in a second meeting with Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri.
According to US news site Axios, Hochstein is slated to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.
US special envoy Amos Hochstein. AFP
13:00 Syrian state media said an Israeli attack targeted the central city of Palmyra, reporting an unspecified number of wounded in the attack.
State news agency SANA said an "Israeli attack ... targeted residential buildings and the industrial area" of the city, renowned for its ancient ruins, while state television reported unspecified "wounded due to the Israeli attack that targeted the city of Palmyra."
12:30 Israeli occupation forces have arrested at least 770 Palestinian children from the occupied West Bank since the beginning of the Israeli war on Gaza over a year ago, The Palestinian Prisoners' Club and the Palestinian Prisoners' Authority said.
In a joint statement, the two organizations noted that there is no precise data on the number of children from the Gaza Strip who have been arrested due to the "ongoing crime of enforced disappearance against them."
They also highlighted that some children had been subjected to field executions during the arrest raids, as well as severe physical abuse, threats at various levels, and multiple forms of physical and psychological torture.
11:58 Gaza's civil defence agency said that at least 17 people, including a baby, were killed in Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian Strip.
The baby was killed in nighttime shelling of the Nuseirat refugee camp, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said, adding that a shell killed two other people west of the camp in central Gaza.
A drone strike killed two people, including a 15-year-old girl, at a school-turned-shelter for displaced people in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, he said.
In Jabalia, also in Gaza's far north, emergency workers recovered the bodies of seven people from under the rubble of a house hit by an air strike the night before, Bassal said.
In southern Gaza, a person was killed when a group of Palestinians was targeted near another school in the city of Rafah on Wednesday, he said.
Strikes on a residential building in Gaza City killed two people, Bassal said, and a first responder from the agency was killed while trying to evacuate wounded people in the same area.
In the city's Zeitun neighbourhood, an air strike killed another person and wounded several others, Bassal added.
Palestinians pray over the bodies during a funeral of people killed in an Israeli airstrike in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip. AFP
11:45 A French force working within the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was targeted by gunfire on Tuesday, with no casualties reported, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs revealed in a statement.
"France calls for an immediate ceasefire and full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 by all parties," the statement read.
A United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) convoy drives through the southern Lebanese area of Marjayoun. AFP
11:00 A group of White House staffers sent a letter of dissent over the Biden administration's decision not to enforce its request over the Israeli government's restriction of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The letter pleads President Joe Biden to "take simple and immediate action to mitigate the humanitarian crisis drastically."
The letter said, "You are running out of time to do the right thing, but decisive action could save precious lives in the next two months. "
Twenty current, full-time employees of the White House, who were not named for fear of professional retaliation, drafted the letter.
10:30 Sources told Al-Arabiya that Some critical points in the US proposal for a ceasefire in Lebanon remain unresolved after US envoy Amos Hochstein's visit to Beirut.
The most contentious issues include "the right to self-defence" and border demarcation.
The sources said that Hochstein decided to stay in Lebanon to continue discussions on the points of contention before heading to Tel Aviv for talks with the Israeli side.
Other sources informed Al-Arabiya that some previously contentious points have been agreed upon, including the British and German participation in the oversight committee for implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
It was decided that only America, France, an Arab country, and the United Nations would participate.
However, the issue of border demarcation remains unresolved, as Lebanon opposes it, claiming that the borders are already defined.
According to the sources, Lebanese commitments and assurances regarding the area south of the Litani River will not be included in the written agreement.
10:20 The Lebanese army said Israeli fire killed a soldier on Wednesday.
A soldier "died of his wounds sustained due to the Israel army targeting of an army vehicle" in south Lebanon, a statement on X said, after reporting two personnel wounded in the incident near Qlayaa in south Lebanon.
On Tuesday, the military said three soldiers were killed when "the Israeli enemy targeted an army position in the town of Sarafand," where the health ministry said eight people were wounded.
AFP images showed destruction at the site in Sarafand on the Mediterranean coast, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the southern border, with a concrete structure destroyed and a vehicle among the debris.
Lebanon's official National News Agency reported Israeli shelling and air strikes in south Lebanon overnight and on Wednesday, saying Israeli troops were seeking to advance further near the town of Khiam.
A Lebanese army inspection team check destruction at the site of an overnight Israeli airstrike that targeted one of their positions in the southern Lebanese coastal town of Sarafand. AFP
10:15 Palestinian media reported that Israeli settlers torched several Palestinian vehicles in the village of Al-Mazra'a Al-Gharbiya north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
Moreover, settlers attacked residents in the Bariyat Al-Minya, east of Bethlehem.
Local sources said that the settlers threatened the locals, demanding they evacuate the area within 10 days.
Israeli army vehicles are pictured during a military raid in the Jenin camp in the occupied West Bank. AFP
10:00 Two Palestinians were killed, and others were injured in Israeli strikes on the northern and southern Gaza Strip, WAFA news agency reported.
Local sources also reported injuries in an Israeli drone strike at the entrance of Nuseirat camp, central Gaza.
Israeli artillery shelling also hit the Al-Sabra and Tel Al-Hawa neighbourhoods in Gaza City.
9:45 The Israeli army said three drones were launched from Lebanon into northern Israel.
Drone alert sirens sounded in communities stretching from the Lebanon border down Israel's coast to areas southeast of Haifa before the army announced that the incident had ended, according to Israeli media.
9:30 An Israeli reserves soldier was killed, and another senior officer was seriously wounded during fighting in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the Israeli army announced.
According to Israeli media reports, 800 Israeli soldiers have been killed in fighting since the war on Gaza started on 7 October 2023.
9:15 The UN Security Council is expected to vote Wednesday on another draft resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in its latest attempt to exert pressure to end the war.
However, the United States, Israel's main ally, could block the draft.
The latest draft of the resolution demands "an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire" in the war and "the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages."
"For us, it has to be a linkage between a ceasefire and the release of hostages," said Robert Wood, the deputy US ambassador. "It has been our principal position from the beginning and remains."
Since the beginning of the war, the Security Council has struggled to speak with one voice, as the United States used its veto power several times.
The few resolutions that the United States did allow to pass by abstaining stopped short of calling for an unconditional and permanent ceasefire.
9:00 A group of US senators called on the Biden administration to halt arms sales to Israel, accusing the United States of playing a vital role in the "atrocities" of the war in Gaza.
The four senators gave the media conference ahead of a Wednesday vote on resolutions condemning the US weapons sales — measures that are expected to fail given the large number of lawmakers who support Israel, a historic American ally.
The resolutions were put forth by Senator Bernie Sanders, alongside several other Democrats.
The Vermont representative told reporters that "what is happening in Gaza today is unspeakable."
"What makes it even more painful is that much of what is happening there has been done with US weapons and with American taxpayer support," he said.
"The United States of America is complicit in these atrocities," Sanders said. "That complicity must end, and that is what these resolutions are about."
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, also speaking at the media conference, questioned whether America's foreign policy and commitment to Israel had forced the United States to "be blind to the suffering before our very eyes."
However, two US officials told The Times of Israel that the Biden administration is lobbying Democratic senators to vote against legislation that would block more than $20 billion in weapon shipments to Israel.
According to The Times of Israel, the resolutions aim to block six weapon transfers to Israel, which include guided missiles, tank rounds, mortars, tactical vehicles, and F-15 fighter jets.
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