WHO decries 'extreme catastrophe' in Gaza hospitals

The World Health Organization expressed grave concern on Tuesday for hospitals still partly operating in war-stricken northern Gaza, where one hospital director described the situation as an "extreme catastrophe".

"We are very, very concerned, and it's getting harder and harder to get the aid in. It's getting harder and harder to get the specialist personnel in at a time when there is greater and greater need," WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told journalists in Geneva.

She said the organisation was "particularly concerned about Kamal Adwan Hospital" in Beit Lahia, where Israeli forces launched an offensive against Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups last month.

Kamal Adwan Hospital director Hossam Abu Safiyeh told AFP by phone: "The situation in northern Gaza is that of an extreme catastrophe.

"We're beginning to lose patients because we lack medical supplies and personnel," he said.

Abu Safiyeh added that his hospital had been "targeted many times by the occupation forces, most recently" on Monday.

"A large number of children and elderly people continue to arrive suffering from malnutrition," the doctor said.

He accused Israel of "blocking the entry of food, water, medical staff and materials destined for the north" of the Gaza Strip.

The WHO's Harris estimated that between November 8 and 16, "four WHO missions we were trying to get up to go were denied".

"There's a lack of food and drinking water, shortage of medical supplies. There's really only enough for two weeks at the very best," she said.

A statement from COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body responsible for civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said Tuesday: "COGAT-led humanitarian efforts in the medical field continue."

It said that on Monday, "1,000 blood units were transferred" to Al-Sahaba hospital in Gaza City, outside the area where Israel's military operations are taking place.

In its latest update on the situation in northern Gaza, the UN humanitarian office OCHA said Tuesday that "access to the Kamal Adwan, Al Awda and Indonesian hospitals remains severely restricted amid severe shortages of medical supplies, fuel and blood units".

US announces talks with Israel

Senior US and Israeli officials will meet in early December to address American concerns over harm to civilians caused by military operations in Gaza, the State Department said Tuesday.

The United States has regularly voiced concerns to key ally Israel over American-supplied weapons being used in strikes that have killed civilians in the Gaza Strip.

However, it has only once exercised the ultimate US leverage -- holding some of the billions of dollars in military aid to Israel.

The State Department has also opened several investigations into Israeli strikes using US-supplied weapons that killed Gaza civilians. But no conclusions have been made public, and US military aid has continued to flow.

The December meeting will be the first of a new channel designed to "inform the ongoing work that the State Department has to do to make assessments about the use of US-provided weapons," spokesman Matthew Miller said.

Israel's use of the weapons would breach US law if it were determined the country had deliberately targeted and killed civilians, and US authorities are looking at specific instances to see whether that is the case.

"There are a number of incidents that we have had questions about and we've had concerns about," Miller said.

He added that "we set up this new channel because we wanted to formalize a mechanism for getting answers to some of these questions."

Miller declined to specify where the meeting would take place.

The Biden administration has long called for such a channel, which was included in a letter Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent to Israel in mid-October.

The letter additionally gave Israel a month to allow more assistance into Gaza or face cutoffs of some US weapons.

However the United States ultimately decided not to take action, despite Israel not meeting metrics on the number of aid trucks and a new UN-backed assessment warning of imminent famine in Gaza.

Earlier Tuesday, a handful of left-leaning senators called on the Biden administration to halt arms sales to Israel, accusing the United States of playing a key role in the "atrocities" of the war in Gaza.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says the death toll from the ongoing war has reached 43,972 people, the majority civilians. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.

The war first began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, resulting in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

5 Palestinians killed in West Bank raids

Three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli military operation near Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, Israeli security forces said.

In Jenin itself, another two people were killed in an Israeli operation, the Palestinian health ministry and Red Crescent said, with another nine wounded by bullets or fire from drones.

The Israeli military has not yet acknowledged carrying out an operation in Jenin.

Earlier, a joint statement from the army, police and Shin Bet security agency said three militants died in an exchange of fire in Qabatiyah, where undercover border police attempted to arrest a wanted man.

The Israeli forces came under fire from a building where the suspect, Raed Hanaysha, was hiding, before killing him and "two armed terrorists", the statement said.

The Israeli army said it seized weapons from the scene, "destroyed two bomb-making labs", and that its forces were still active in the area.

AFP journalists on the scene said the Israelis used heavy machinery to destroy a farm building and a house.

"Around 20 Israeli vehicles came and surrounded the men, and they assassinated Raed, Suleiman and Bilal's son," relative Jamal Hanaysha, told AFP.

"They took them away, destroyed the house with everyone inside, and then left," he added.

Local governor Kamal Abu al-Rub, citing the liaison office between Israeli and Palestinian authorities in the West Bank, said: "There are three bodies of martyrs that are now with the Israeli side, after they killed them."

The Palestinian health ministry said the District Coordination Office had also informed it of the deaths of "three young men shot by Israeli forces near Qabatiyah", which is in the Jenin governorate.

The three men were aged between 24 and 32, a ministry statement said, identifying Raed Hanaysha as one of them.

Israeli security forces said Hanaysha had been involved "in shooting and bombing attacks" against the army.

Violence in the West Bank, particularly in the north, has soared since the war in Gaza broke out on October 7 last year.

Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 773 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.

Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 24 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.