Israel-Hamas war: No help to be seen at ‘safe zone’ for Palestinians in Gaza
Iron dome interceptor missiles explode in the skies above us, halting the passage of Hamas rockets heading for southern Israel.
Moments later the rocket attack is followed by the deafening booms of an Israeli artillery battery just a few metres from where we had pulled over next to a bomb shelter.
We are deep in the south of the country. We haven’t been able to get this close to the Gaza border since the war began. We’re just 400 metres or so away.
The south of Gaza, clearly visible, is meant to be a safe zone for the people on the other side of the border fence. It doesn’t feel safe at all.
Follow live: Israel-Gaza latest
The roads to Israel’s south are eerily quiet, military vehicles pass us at high speed, among them lorries carrying cargos of neatly packed shells.
As we drive, we pass row after row of tanks and artillery pieces. In the north, Israel continues to hammer Hamas positions, engage its fighters, and track down their tunnels.
Tanks in southern Israel
The northern mission is far from finished. The southern mission has barely started but the air raids and artillery attacks are causing large numbers of casualties in Gaza.
Our teams on the ground in Gaza film, day in and day out, as the injured keep coming from across this huge battlefield.
Casualties arrive at Shuhada Al Aqsa Hospital in Gaza
The air strikes might be targeted – but the shrapnel and the shards of glass and pieces of flying masonry are not. Every hospital and clinic is overwhelmed now and short of absolutely everything; all they can do is patch people up.
The seriously injured often can’t be saved in this environment.
Inside Shuhada Al Aqsa Hospital
And so, the dead wrapped in white are placed together on the street, while the living pray for them. There are many constants in Gaza now – and mourning is just one of them.
Those who can are following Israeli military orders to move further south.
They leave with their families and whatever they can carry, many of them on foot. But few believe anywhere is safe.
Sky’s Stuart Ramsay
The Israel Defence Forces have been telling people to go further south, and to the southwest. And Israel’s ambassador to the UK told Sky News there is a safe zone for Palestinians, which she identified as a place called “Mawasi“.
“Israel made sure there is a place for the people of Gaza to have their shelters,” ambassador Tzipi Hotovely said.
“There is a place in Gaza called the Mawasi. The Mawasi is the place where they can all have shelters. Together with the aid organisations we have created shelters for the Palestinian people, so you cannot say Israel is not facilitating that, together with humanitarian aid,” she added.
Three days ago, we asked the Sky News team in Gaza to go to Al Mawasi to see if any preparations had been made for the evacuees.
A family in Al Mawasi
They sent back the pictures showing a desolate wasteland of sand dunes next to the Mediterranean Sea. Al Mawasi is an old Bedouin settlement and has little infrastructure, if any.
There is no aid, there are no agency tents, there are no food kitchens. Simply put, there is no help.
The team filmed as families set up tents, and young boys tried to light a fire in the sand next to their home – which is now a plastic-covered shack built by their father Mahmood Afghani.
Boys try to start a fire in Al Mawasi
The Afghani family has six children.
“You see this small tent? See how we made it. I did this to protect my children from the winter and we haven’t even entered the winter season yet,” Mr Afghani said, pointing at the family’s shack.
“Imagine when we reach the middle of winter – what are we going to do? I want the whole world to hear what I am saying. I want the whole world to feel our pain so they can press Israel to stop this war.”
Mahmood Afghani
When he was asked if he has received any aid, he reiterated what many have said, there isn’t any.
“No, not at all, nothing. I have to be honest; I have only received one bag of flour since October,” he answered.
We have since spoken to people who are there, and they have told us – as of Sunday 3 December – nothing has changed.
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
Read more:
Who is in Trump’s top team?
Trump’s cabinet signals tough stance on China
Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
Read more from Sky News:
Mass displacement in Gaza – people unsure where to go
Donald Trump picks vaccine sceptic as health secretary
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
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