The Gaza hospital where treatment is by torchlight and ’13 babies died of malnutrition on one day’
In a hospital in northern Gaza, it’s been claimed 13 babies died of malnutrition in a single day last week.
A Sky News camera team has filmed inside the hospital, where treatments are being carried out by the torchlight from mobile phones because the electricity isn’t working.
Mothers being treated there are said to be too malnourished to breastfeed newborn babies, further adding to the crisis.
It comes as Gazan families say they are starving, with aid agencies warning of a looming famine unless significantly more aid reaches the strip, with one charity saying up to 4,000 trucks of aid are needed every single day to make a difference.
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Children in Gaza stage hunger protest
Over the past fortnight, an average of just 102 food trucks have entered Gaza each day.
The United Nations has said hunger in Gaza has reached “catastrophic levels” and the US State Department has described the crisis as “horrific”.
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Although the Israeli government has said there is no “ceiling” on the amount of aid allowed into Gaza, the Israeli government body in charge of the Gaza border has told Sky News more border crossings could be opened for aid to access northern Gaza directly, if the Israeli cabinet gave them the order.
The US administration has publicly called for more crossings to be opened and the Israeli COGAT (Co-ordinator for Government Activities in the Territories) admitted that could be possible.
“That would be a decision that needs to be made by the government,” Shimon Freedman, a spokesman for COGAT told Sky News.
“If they were to make such a decision, then we would find a way to facilitate their decision. If the directive came from the government, then COGAT would find a way to fulfil that mission. As we’ve done with many different humanitarian initiatives throughout the war.”
It is a notable admission and puts into question the Israeli government’s claim it is doing all it can to allow aid into Gaza.
Shimon Freedman, spokesman for COGAT
‘I cannot feed my children’
Gazans in the southern town of Rafah have told Sky News their families are starving.
“When they distribute meals, a family of 10 gets one serving,” said Rami, a father waiting for food.
“True they are helping people, but it is not enough,” he said. “There are crowds wherever you go: queues to get water, bread, everything.
“Life is so difficult, we can barely get by. I cannot provide for myself.
“I don’t know what to do. I cannot feed my children.”
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Aid airdropped into Gaza
Another parent, Hanafi, described the aid as “a drop in the ocean”.
“Every day there are people who die out of starvation. Every day children are taken to hospitals, but there are no services available because hospitals have no medicine, no beds, no equipment, no treatment. The situation is very bad.”
In recent days Israel has come in for severe criticism by the US, UK and other Western countries over a lack of humanitarian aid being received in Gaza.
Lord Cameron, the UK’s foreign secretary, admonished the Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz in a London meeting on Wednesday – saying the warning was “tough but necessary”.
Israel insists it has sped up the process of checks on its side of the border, and says trucks are now backing up in a bottleneck. They blame aid organisations in Gaza for the crisis.
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Explosions seen on Gaza Strip skyline
Challenged on Israel’s responsibility as the occupying power in Gaza, COGAT said the United Nations distributed aid in war zones around the world and Gaza should be no different.
“What Israel is trying to do is work with the international community and with international organisations to make sure that as much humanitarian aid as is necessary is reaching the people in Gaza,” it said.
“The distribution itself is up to the organisations, but we are helping and we are doing what we can to help them do that in a better manner.
“And we’re also trying to find ways to overcome those challenges of distribution, for example, through the airdrops of aid, facilitating those with different countries who are wanting to do that.”
Ceasefire talks falter
A push for a ceasefire before Ramadan starts on 10 March seems to have faltered, with Israel and Hamas blaming each other for the impasse.
Without a ceasefire, it is likely to become increasingly hard to get aid to parts of Gaza and aid organisations are warning of imminent famine.
The French military has joined the Americans, Jordanians, Egyptians and Emiratis in carrying out aid drops, but they are only used as a last resort and it is difficult to ensure the aid gets to the right place.
Sea routes are being explored, with Cyprus being a possible staging post, but that will introduce further problems, with the port in Gaza being out of action and questions of how the ships would have secure and safe passage into Gaza.
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.
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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.”
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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.
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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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