Live: Five Palestinian journalists killed, Gaza media office says

Spain’s defence ministry has suspended all its contracts to buy weapons from Israel, the country's defence ministry told the Spanish newspaper, El Pais. 

The contracts have been suspended since 7 October 2023, the paper reported, with the exception of maintenance work.

Only 1.7 percent of Spain's defence imports come from Israel.

At least four Palestinian women and children were killed by an Israeli strike on a house in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, southwest of Gaza City, according to Arabic media reports. 

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday that Israel was creating the next generation of Palestinian "insurgents" because of civilian casualties. 

Speaking to reporters in Rome, Austin said he raised the humanitarian crisis in Gaza with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant.

"Failure to do that will create a generation of Palestinians that really will continue to resist cooperating with Israel in the future. So you're actually increasing the numbers of insurgents ... if you fail to do that," Austin said.

At least 28 people were killed in Lebanon by Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours, the Lebanese government said on Wednesday.

The total killed by Israel's offensive since October 2023 now stands at 2,574. 

Arabic media said Israel launched fresh strikes on southern Lebanon on Wednesday. 

Hezbollah has for the first time confirmed that Hashem Safieddine, the head of it's executive council, was killed in an Israeli air strike. 

"He departed to his Lord with the best of his mujahideen brothers, satisfied, content, patient and hopeful, in a criminal, aggressive Zionist raid," the group said in a statement on Wednesday. 

Speculation about the fate of Safieddine, cousin of slain former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, has swirled around since early October, after heavy Israeli bombardment of Beirut's southern suburbs.

A swarm of journalists and cameramen opened drawers filled with scrubs and bed linens, rummaged through boxes of surgical tools, and meandered through the basement of Sahel Hospital, in southern Beirut, entering even its morgue and toxic waste closets. 

A warning from the Israeli army on Monday evening that Hezbollah was storing “hundreds of millions of dollars in paper currency and gold” underneath the hospital shocked its staff and invited the press on Tuesday to inspect the area. 

Israel provided no evidence for its claim that cash was being kept under the hospital. Instead, it circulated an animated graphic suggesting that a Hezbollah bunker was underneath the medical centre, where it said the group’s former secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike on 27 September, had sheltered. 

“When we first received the news we were in shock,” a nurse and educator at the hospital, Halimah el-Annan, told Middle East Eye from one of the ground floor examination rooms.

Annan has worked at the university hospital in Beirut’s southern neighbourhood of Haret Hreik for nearly 40 years. During this time, she said, she has never seen or felt any sort of construction or movement below her. 

“This is a private hospital belonging to the Alame family, which has no relation to Hezbollah, the Amal party, or any other political party,” Annan said.

Read more: No Hezbollah assets found in Lebanon hospital facing Israeli bombing

Layla Moran, the first and only British MP of Palestinian descent, will on Wednesday present a bill to UK parliament seeking to recognise Palestinianstatehood. 

Moran, who belongs to the Liberal Democrat party, has presented the bill in every parliamentary session since she was elected in 2017. 

It calls on the UK government to formally recognise Palestine as a sovereign and independent state on the basis of pre-1967 borders, and to recognise the inalieable right of Palestinians to self-determination. 

READ MORE: British MP Layla Moran puts forward new Palestine statehood bill

The Israeli army said that it is striking "Hezbollah command and control complexes, including the headquarters of the Southern Front Unit" in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, without providing evidence.

The army claims that Hezbollah uses these places to promote the implementation of "terrorist" operations against Israeli citizens and forces.

A Harvard University study has revealed that US-made MK-84 bombs were deployed by Israeli forces in areas "dangerously close" to hospitals in Gaza.

The study, which was based on satellite imagery, examined 36 hospitals and 592 craters caused by MK-84 explosions in Gaza between 7 October and 17 November. The bombs have a blast radius capable of killing people within 360 meters and causing injuries and building damage up to 800 meters away.

The researchers found 83 percent of hospitals were within 800 metres of at least one bomb impact, and that over 100 of the bombs exploded near a designanted "safe zone."

Dennis Kunichoff, a data and research analyst at the FXB Centre for Health and Human Rights told Anadolu news site that many countries have signed agreements not to deploy MK-84 bombs in densely populated areas.

"We hope the findings will serve as evidence that hospitals were not protected as required by international humanitarian law," he said.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told air crews at the Hatzerim Airbase in southern Israel that “after we strike in Iran, everyone will understand what you did in the preparation and training process," the Times of Israel is reporting.

“Everyone who dreamed a year ago of beating us and attacking us paid a heavy price and is no longer in that dream,” he said.

Israel has vowed to respond to Iran's ballistic missile attack on 1 October.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met Palestinians who have "lost loved ones" in Gaza on Tuesday, saying he was "humbled by their immeasurable grief".

This meeting was the first between a large Palestinian contingent and a British leader since Labour entered government in July.

Starmer met them in Downing Street alongside Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, Hamish Falconer, the Middle East minister, and Hussam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK.

"This horrific suffering must end, there must be an immediate ceasefire, and Israel must let unrestricted aid into Gaza now," Starmer said on social media platform X after the meeting.

The community members included those who had children and babies killed and wounded by Israel in the besieged strip.

Those attending urged the prime minister to evacuate injured children needing life-saving medical care in the form of a "Child Evacuation Scheme".

The project would initially provide life-saving medical treatment for 15 critically injured children from Gaza, based on Ireland's decision to take in 30 pediatric patients from Gaza. 

Under the plan, the British government would coordinate travel permits, medical visas, and safe transport, community members said.

Read more: Palestinians who lost family members in Gaza meet Keir Starmer

A Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) orthopaedic surgeon currently sheltering in the besieged Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza has reported that the situation in the medical facility is "disastrous".

“There is death in all types and forms in Kamal Adwan hospital and north Gaza. The bombardment does not stop. The artillery does not stop. The planes do not stop. There is heavy shelling, and the hospital is targeted too. It just looks like a movie; it does not seem real," Dr Mohammed Obeid said in a voice note shared by the NGO.

He reported that the hospital is overwhelmed, and has no medical or surgical equipment to treat the injured.

Ambulances "cannot move," and are therefore unable to reach bodies or injured people strewn across the streets.

"Many of them died before reaching the hospital, and others died inside the hospital as we could not treat their wounds," Obeid said.

He reported that there are currently 30 people dead inside the hospital, and around 130 injured patients who require urgent care.

"We feel hopeless. I just don’t have words," he said.

Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours have killed 74 Palestinians and injured 130, according to Gaza's health ministry.

This brings the total number of people killed since the start of the war to at least 42,792, with 100,412 wounded.

Thousands remain missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings, most of those killed are women and children.

The Palestinian Foreign Affairs Ministry released a statement holding the UN Security Council accountable for "the consequences of its continued failure to stop the war of genocide against our people."

The ministry called on the council to use its powers to protect Palestinians, particularly those suffering in the northern Gaza Strip.

It also warned of the risks posed by "any proposed plans aimed at perpetuating the separation" of Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The statement emphasised that international recognition of a legitimate Palestinian state is the only path to resolving the crisis.

The ministry added that the positions countries take "the day after" the war will reveal their true stance on the two-state solution.