LIVE UPDATES

Israel-Gaza live updates: 3 premature babies die at Al-Shifa Hospital, doctor says

The hospital has been treating thousands of wounded people.

Thousands of people have died and thousands more have been injured since the militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel retaliated with a bombing campaign and total siege of the neighboring Gaza Strip, leaving the region on the verge of all-out war.

Click here for updates from previous days.


What we know about the conflict

The latest outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, has passed the four-month mark.

In the Gaza Strip, at least 30,228 people have been killed and 71,377 others have been wounded by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.

In Israel, at least 1,200 people have been killed and 6,900 others have been injured by Hamas and other Palestinian militants since Oct. 7, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

There has also been a surge in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli forces have killed at least 395 people in the territory since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The ongoing war began after Hamas-led militants launched an unprecedented incursion into southern Israel from neighboring Gaza via land, sea and air. Scores of people were killed while more than 200 others were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. The Israeli military subsequently launched retaliatory airstrikes followed by a ground invasion of Gaza, a 140-square-mile territory where more than 2 million Palestinians have lived under a blockade imposed by Israel and supported by Egypt since Hamas came to power in 2007. Gaza, unlike Israel, has no air raid sirens or bomb shelters.


0

Biden said he asked 'for a pause' during Monday call with Netanyahu

President Joe Biden told ABC News' Karen Travers that he asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "for a pause" in fighting during a phone call Monday.

"I didn't get a chance to talk to him today, but I did ask him for a pause…yesterday," Biden said.

When asked for a specific timeline of the pause, the president did not answer.

-ABC News' Justin Fishel and Karen Travers


Gaza City 'encircled,' IDF forces inside: Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel Defense Forces have "encircled" Gaza City and are "operating inside it."

"We are increasing pressure on Hamas every hour, every day," he said in remarks translated by Reuters. "We have killed thousands of terrorists, above ground and below ground."

Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, the commander of IDF's Southern Command, said Tuesday they are fighting in "significant centers of the Gaza Strip."

"For the first time in a decade, the IDF is fighting in the heart of Gaza City," Finkelman said in a statement. "Today, at this very hour, our soldiers are eliminating terrorists, discovering tunnels, destroying weapons and continuing to advance into the center of the enemy."


Doctor in Gaza says surgery 'medieval' due to dwindling supplies

Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a British-Palestinian plastic surgeon, called the conditions of working in a hospital in Gaza right now "medieval."

"There's no pain relief," he told ABC News in a phone interview on Tuesday. "I mean, we operate on patients and then we give them all paracetamol. We've run out of morphine two weeks ago."

Abu Sitta, who has been working at the Shifa and Ahli hospitals in Gaza, said they have had to perform surgery on some children without proper anesthesia.

"These kids are traumatized," he said.

He has seen children who come in with no surviving family, he said.

"It really is heart-wrenching," he said. "From the minute you see them in the emergency room with no one around them, you realize."

-ABC News' Zoe Magee


Netanyahu doubles down on no cease-fire without release of hostages

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on his position in brief remarks Tuesday, saying "there will be no cease-fire without the return of the hostages."

Netanyahu also said he has asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit the hostages and report on their well-being.

The prime minister offered a warning to both Hamas and Hezbollah, saying in Hebrew remarks, "Gaza will never be a threat to Israel again," and adding, "If Hezbollah chooses to join the war, it will make the mistake of its life."

Netanyahu said he speaks with President Joe Biden frequently and that he "deeply appreciates" his support, as well as the support of the US Congress and American people.

-ABC News' Jordana Miller


329 foreign passport holders left Gaza Monday, border crossing official says

The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt reopened on Monday allowing 329 foreign passport holders to leave Gaza, a Rafah border crossing official told ABC News. The border had been closed all weekend.

Twenty-nine Palestinians, including some critically injured and some cancer patients, as well as some of their relatives, also crossed from Gaza into Egypt Monday, the border crossing official said.

Out of the 29 Palestinians, eight people were critically injured and five people were their family members. Nine cancer patients and seven of their family members also crossed, the official said.