Evening recap

Hello MEE readers. Israel has again made the claim that a hospital is being used by Hamas, laying down justification for a raid on the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis. And just as in previous occasions, Israel has provided insufficient evidence to back those claims.

Israeli tanks rolled into the hospital on Thursday, and the few people who remained in the hospital, were ordered to gather in one building.

Hamas denied the accusation it was using the hospital for military operations, calling them a “new episode in the series of lies” Israel uses to commit war crimes.

After attacking an Al Jazeera news crew with an armed drone this week, leaving the reporter and cameraman injured, Israel claimed the reporter was a Hamas deputy commander - a claim that Al Jazeera vehemently rejected.

Here is what you need to know from today:

• US President Joe Biden reportedly spoke on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The call lasted around 40 minutes.

• US naval forces conducted a cyber attack on an Iranian spy ship in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea.

• After a rights group reported that Egypt was creating a buffer zone to possibly take in Palestinian refugees en masse, the Washington Post reported using satellite images that land was being cleared off in an area in the Sinai Peninsula near Gaza.

• Hezbollah said it fired several rockets at a northern Israeli town, in response to Israel's killing of 10 civilians in Lebanon. This week marks the most serious escalation in cross border attacks between Hezbollah and Israel.

• The UN is now estimating the cost of rebuilding Gaza to be around $20bn.