Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip “will escalate”, the country’s chief military spokesperson has warned, as troops push deeper into the region.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israel Defence Forces (IDF) troops are deployed along the northern border and “prepared for any scenario”.
Dozens of militants were killed overnight, he added, but he refused to confirm the location of the ground forces after social media footage appeared to show tanks advancing on a main road in Gaza.
Israeli advances put their forces on both sides of Gaza City and surrounding areas of the north, in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “second stage” in the war.
“Our activities and operations will continue and escalate according to the stages of the war,” Mr Hagari said.
“This is an expanded ground operation into the strip. Ground forces, tanks, infantry forces, armoured corp forces are moving towards the terrorists.
“The terrorists grouped together in certain areas to try to target our forces and we attack them from the air, that’s how we managed to assault and target 20 terrorists.
“There is also direct contact between the ground forces and the terrorists. The fighting is going on inside the Gaza Strip.”
Image: Palestinians check damage to houses in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip
In other key developments: • A German-Israeli woman kidnapped from a music festival by Hamas fighters has been found dead, Israel’s foreign ministry says; • A 25-year-old man is in a critical condition after being stabbed in Jerusalem, with the attack understood to have been carried out by a Palestinian man; • Anti-Israel protesters stormed a runway in Russia, reportedly chanting antisemitic slogans and looking for passengers on a flight from Tel Aviv; • British citizens trapped in Gaza ‘could be classed as hostages’, a minister suggests.
UN and medical staff warned airstrikes are getting closer to hospitals, where thousands are wounded and tens of thousands have sought refuge.
According to UN figures, about 117,000 displaced people are staying in hospitals alongside thousands of patients and staff.
Image: The Israeli military said it was continuing ground operations in the Gaza Strip. Pic: AP
Meanwhile, talks to free the 239 hostages held by Hamas since the group’s 7 October attack in Israel have stalled, according to NBC News, Sky’s US partner network.
The report refers to a former US official with knowledge of the negotiations, who said the militant group had demanded Israel allow fuel deliveries into Gaza.
Tank ‘blocks key escape road’
As Israel presses ahead, video obtained by the Associated Press showed an Israeli tank and bulldozer in central Gaza.
They appear to be blocking the territory’s main north-south highway, which the Israeli military had told Palestinians to use to escape its ground offensive.
Asked if forces were on the road, Mr Hagari said Israel has “expanded” operations but would not comment on specific deployments.
The video shows a car approaching a barrier across the road, before turning around. The tank appears to open fire as it heads away and an explosion sets the car on fire.
The Gaza health ministry later said three people died – and it now reports 8,306 Palestinians have died in total.
More than 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, according to the country’s government, with mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack.
Stabbing in Jerusalem
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1:47
Man, 25, stabbed in Jerusalem
As the conflict in Gaza continues to cause tension elsewhere, a 25-year-old man was stabbed in Jerusalem on Monday, according to an Israeli volunteer emergency service.
Sky News correspondent Cordelia Lynch, who is in Jerusalem, said a “large crowd” had gathered, and a “number of security forces” arrived.
She understands the injured man was a border police officer and was stabbed by a Palestinian man, who is now dead.
A spokesperson for Ihud Hatzala said volunteers had provided the injured man with first aid.
The spokesperson added: “When we arrived at the scene we encountered a stab wound in his upper body, we gave him first medical aid at the scene and then he was taken in a police ambulance to the Hadassah Hera Tesov Hospital, where his condition at this stage is determined to be critical.”
There are multiple layers to this shocking act of extreme violence.
The presence of the US attorney general at a midnight news conference is a clear indication of the Trump administration’s shock and swift reaction. Pam Bondi had already visited the scene of the attack.
The president himself was quick to comment on social media, calling it out as antisemitism and saying: “Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”
Image: A man with an Israeli flag kneels at the scene. Pic: Reuters
There will be immediate questions for the US authorities about the security of Israeli diplomats. The shooting happened in the downtown area of DC, not far from the FBI field office and the FBI headquarters.
The two victims are understood to be junior aides and so probably not considered particular targets. But the shooting will prompt a fresh look at diplomatic security arrangements.
A video has emerged online said to show the gunman calmly shouting “free free Palestine” as he was detained by museum security.
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2:48
Tearful witness: ‘He shot this young couple’
Pro-Palestinian protests have been intense on college campuses, outside embassies and elsewhere; the Israeli embassy in Washington has been a particular focus of protesters.
Last year, a 25-year-old active duty US airman immolated himself in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington to protest the war in Gaza.
Israel’s diplomatic relations with close allies, including the UK, France and others, have become increasingly strained over the methods used in its continuing war in Gaza.
Image: Emergency services at the scene of the shooting. Pic: AP
Image: Pic: Reuters
Authorities will also be braced for how this incident plays in the days ahead.
There will be a concern within the Trump administration that this man’s actions will be given some glorification in parts of society, mainly online, in the same way Luigi Mangione became not just infamous but famous for allegedly shooting dead a healthcare executive in protest of corporate greed.
Expect prompt condemnation from the White House of any such glorification.
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There is also a deeply tragic twist to this shooting. The two young victims were a couple and were due to travel to Jerusalem in the days ahead to become engaged.
I’ve been in touch with contacts at the Israeli embassy where the entire team is in shock and reeling at the loss of two of their own on the streets of Washington.
Witnesses have told Sky News of the moments after a man shot two Israeli embassy staff members outside a Jewish museum in Washington DC.
Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgram, a couple who were about to become engaged, were shot dead as they left the Annual Young Diplomats reception at the Capital Jewish Museum in the US capital.
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0:30
Footage emerges of Washington suspect
The suspect, named as Elias Rodriguez by police, shot at a group of four people just over a mile from the White House and then chanted a pro-Palestinian slogan in custody.
The event organiser told Sky News she handed the suspect water, mistakenly believing him to be an “innocent bystander”.
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1:23
Shooting suspect shouted ‘free Palestine’
Jojo Drake Kalin said the event was wrapping up when she headed to the lobby to find “commotion and a frenzy” but at that time, no one was aware two people had lost their lives.
“The gunshots were heard, so security started locking the doors and that is when I saw who I now know is the… murderer of this Israeli-Jewish couple,” she said.
Ms Drake Kalin didn’t find out until “much later” who she was actually talking to.
“I see him [and] he seems very distraught. I now understand it’s because he killed two people point-blank. [I] offered him water, he accepted,” she said.
“The second I’ve handed him water, he whips out his keffiyeh [a scarf] and yells ‘Free Palestine’ and then he’s subdued by the officers on scene.”
Ms Drake Kalin said the event was themed around “bridge-building” between Israeli and Palestinian communities.
She called it “painfully ironic” that someone came in with “such hate and destruction”, considering the event’s theme.
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“A guy came up and… looked like [he had a] gun, I couldn’t tell what it was, but I heard it afterwards, the shots, and he shot this young couple,” he said.
“He ran inside and yelled something.
“It was terrible. It was terrible.”
Another eyewitness, Katie Kalisher, said it was around 9.07pm when she heard gunshots.
“Then a man comes in. He looks really distressed and people are talking to him and trying to calm him down,” she said.
“Eventually, he comes over to where I was and we were like, ‘Do you need any water?’, ‘Are you okay?'”
Ms Kalisher said the suspect asked her what kind of museum he was in and when she replied, “It’s a Jewish museum,” he said: “Do you think that’s why they did this?”
She told him she didn’t think so but he then reached into his bag and pulled out a keffiyeh.
“[He] says, ‘I did it. I did this for Gaza’ – and just starts shouting ‘free Palestine’ and that’s when the police came in and arrested him,” said Ms Kalisher.
The reaction to the shooting has been one of shock, with President Donald Trump condemning the “horrible killings” which he said were “based obviously on antisemitism”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his heart ached for the families of the victims, “whose lives were cut short in a moment by an abhorrent antisemitic murderer”.
In a simple breezeblock and cement building, cholera patients are attached to drips as they lie sprawled on hard, wooden beds.
In one section, two young boys stare into the distance through listless eyes. They are very poorly, the staff tell us, but now they are here, they will survive.
Image: Two boys at the Fontaine Hospital
Medical staff check on their patients in the relatively cool interior of the wards, while outside the sun beats down on the grounds of the rough and ready interconnected buildings of the Fontaine Hospital in Port-au-Prince.
The hospital is built amid the slums in an area of Haiti’s capital known as Cite Soleil – or Sun City.
Image: ‘All the infants are malnourished’ at the Fontaine Hospital, writes Sky’s Stuart Ramsay
This suburb is widely regarded to be the birthplace of the gangs of Port-au-Prince, and this section of the city has been violent and dangerous for decades.
Civil society doesn’t function here. Indeed, the Fontaine Hospital is the only medical facility still operating in the gang-controlled areas of Cite Soleil.
Without it, the people who live here would have no access to doctors or medical care.
I’m standing in the cholera ward with Jose Ulysse, the hospital’s founder. He opened the hospital 32 years ago. It’s a charity, run purely on donations.
Mr Ulysse explained that the increasing gang violence across the whole of Port-au-Prince, and the chaos it is causing, means people are herded into displacement camps, which in turn means that cholera outbreaks are getting worse.
Image: Jose Ulysse, Fontaine Hospital founder
“Cholera is always present, but there’s a time when it’s more,” he told me.
“Lately because of all the displacement camps there is a great deal of promiscuity and rape, and we have an increase in cases.”
As we spoke, I asked him about the two young boys, and a small group of women on drips in the ward.
“Now they are here, they will be okay, but if they weren’t here and this hospital wasn’t here, they would be dead by now,” he replied when I asked him about their condition.
Image: Jose Ulysse and Sky’s Stuart Ramsay
We left the cholera ward, cleaning our hands and shoes with disinfectant, before moving on to the next part of the hospital under pressure – the malnutrition ward.
“Malnutrition and cholera go hand-in-hand,” Mr Ulysse explained as we walked.
In the clinic, we meet parents and their little ones – all the infants are malnourished.
The mothers – and important to note – one father, are given food to feed their babies.
Image: Distended tummies are ‘giveaway signs’ of malnutrition
Those who are in the worst condition are also fed by a drip. One of the giveaway signs of malnutrition is a distended tummy, and most of these babies have that.
Poverty and insecurity combine to cause this, Mr Ulysse tells me. And like cholera, malnutrition is getting worse.
He explained that when the violence increases, parents can’t go to work because it is too dangerous, so they end up not being able to make a living, which means that they can’t feed their children properly.
The medics and hospital workers risk their lives every day, crossing gang lines and territories to get to the hospital and care for their patients.
Image: Mothers and their children at the Fontaine Hospital in gang-controlled Cite Soleil
Image: NICU unit at Fontaine Hospital
The reason why this hospital is so popular is because staff show up, even when the fighting is at its worst.
Despite their meagre resources, the Fontaine Hospital’s intensive care unit for premature babies is busy – it is widely regarded as one of the best facilities of its kind in the country.
A team of nurses, masked and in scrubs, tenderly care for these tiny children, some of whom are only hours old.
They are some of the most incredibly vulnerable.
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I asked Mr Ulysse what would happen if his hospital wasn’t there.
“Just imagine, there isn’t a place where they can go, everyone comes here, normally the poorest people in the country”, he told me.
But he stressed that the only way the hospital can keep going is through donations, and the cuts to the US government’s USAID programme has had a direct impact on the hospital’s donors.
Image: The hospital is run by donations, which have been affected by cuts from the US government’s USAID programme
Attacks on hospitals and staff working in the toughest areas across Port-au-Prince have become common.
We filmed outside one of the two Médecins Sans Frontières facilities in the centre of the capital, where work has been suspended because their staff were threatened or attacked.
Medical personnel from the health ministry in Port-au-Prince tell us over 70 per cent of all medical facilities in Port-au-Prince have been shut. Only one major public hospital, the Le Paix Hospital, is open.
The Le Paix Hospital’s executive director, Dr Paul Junior Fontilus, says he is perplexed by the gang’s targeting of medical facilities.
“It makes no sense, it’s crazy, we don’t know what it is they want,” he said as we walked through the hospital.
The hospital is orderly and functioning well, considering the pressure it is under. They are dealing with more and more cases of cholera, an increase in gunshot wounds and sexual violence.
“We are overrun with demand, and this surpasses our capacity to respond,” he explained to me.
“But we are obliged to meet the challenge and offer services to the population.”
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7:17
Haiti: An eyewitness account
Gang violence is crushing the life out of Port-au-Prince, affecting all of society. And, as is often the case, the most vulnerable in society suffer the most.
Stuart Ramsay reports from Haiti with camera operator Toby Nash, senior foreign producer Dominique Van Heerden, and producers Brunelie Joseph and David Montgomery.