Israel-Hamas war live: Biden to visit Tel Aviv on Wednesday; 100,000 people remain in Gaza City, says IDF | Israel-Hamas war

Gaza’s main hospital overflows with the living and the dead

Ruth Michaelson

At Gaza City’s Dar Al Shifa hospital, the living sleep between beds filled with patients, in corridors, and even in the grounds, while the dead overflow the morgue.

The name Dar Al Shifa translates as “house of healing”, and tens of thousands have sought not just healing but shelter from the bombardments that rained down on Gaza City every hour, praying the hospital might provide some protection. Printed blankets have been hung from the entrance courtyard’s iron handrails to provide shade, while some people have gathered around the stairwells with their children and all that remains of their belongings.

Shifa is not just Gaza’s largest medical facility, but the nerve centre of its entire healthcare system, and the Israeli assault on the territory has brought it to breaking point. Local authorities and aid groups in Gaza estimate that between 35,000 and 40,000 people are sheltering there.

“The doctors have brought their families into the hospital for safety. I slept on an operating room table last night,” said Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, one of the surgeons, speaking to the Guardian by phone.

Hundreds of Israeli bodies still unidentified

Emma Graham-Harrison

More than a week on from Hamas’s massacres in Israel, over 350 bodies of suspected civilian victims still have not been identified, according to Dr Chen Kugel, the director of Israel’s national institute of forensic medicine. Some bodies were burned beyond recognition and others had decayed badly before they were found.

Thousands of people are desperately waiting for news of loved ones and for remains they can bury, a particularly urgent concern as Jewish tradition requires a rapid burial, and formal mourning can begin only after the funeral.

Kugel, speaking nine days after the attacks, fears that the rate at which they can give families answers may slow as they reach the most damaged bodies, and some victims may never be identified.

“We did a lot of work in the past nine days … Now we are at a peak, the rate of identification will decline as we are reaching the hard cases,” he said. “I’m afraid there will be some [victims] that we will never find, and we will never be able to identify … People have to be prepared for this.”

The scale of the work is overwhelming, with dozens of bodies – or in some cases collections of human remains so damaged they are barely recognisable – arriving at the forensic institute on Monday in a refrigerated truck.

600,000 Gazans have evacuated the Gaza City area, following warnings from Israel’s military on Friday, according to Israel Defence Forces spokesperson Jonathan Conricus.

In a daily update, Conricus said that more than 600,000 people have evacuated the Gaza City area, but that 100,000 people still had not left.

Israel has warned people to leave the Gaza City area ahead of what it says will be “enhanced military operations” in the coming days. Conricus said the operations will start “when the timing suits the goal”.

UNRWA said 170,000 people were sheltering at its schools in the north when the order to leave came early on Friday. But it couldn’t evacuate them and doesn’t know if they remained. More than 40,000 have crowded in the grounds of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital and surrounding streets, hoping it will be safe from bombardment.

UNRWA said Monday it received reports that the Hamas-run Ministry of Health removed fuel and medical equipment from its evacuated compound in Gaza City.

Hamas urged people to ignore the evacuation order. The Israeli military on Sunday released photos it said showed a Hamas roadblock preventing traffic from moving south.

US President Joe Biden will visit to Israel on Wednesday, in a significant show of US support.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken concluded hours of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv early on Tuesday by saying that Biden would visit Israel.

“The president will hear from Israel what it needs to defend its people as we continue to work with Congress to meet those needs,” Blinken told reporters.

Biden would meet with Netanyahu, reaffirm Washington’s commitment to Israel’s security, and receive a comprehensive brief on its war aims and strategy, Blinken said.

“(The) president will hear from Israel how it will conduct its operations in a way that minimizes civilian casualties and enables humanitarian assistance to flow to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not benefit Hamas,” Blinken added.

Blinken also said he and Netanyahu had agreed to develop a plan to get humanitarian aid to Gaza civilians. He did not provide details.

US officials said that a new US coordinator on humanitarian aid, David Satterfield, would work with Israel to develop more concrete plans.

This is the Guardian’s rolling coverage of the Israel-Hamas war with me, Helen Sullivan.

The top developments:

US President Joe Biden will travel to Israel and on to Jordan Wednesday to meet with both Israeli and Arab leadership, as concerns increase that the raging Israel-Hamas war could expand into a larger regional conflict. Biden said on X, “On Wednesday, I’ll travel to Israel to stand in solidarity in the face of Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack.”

Biden is looking to send the strongest message yet that the US is behind Israel. Blinken made the announcement early Tuesday after more than seven hours of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials.

Blinken said that the United States also secured assurances from Israel on working to bring foreign assistance into the impoverished and blockaded Gaza Strip as Israel prepares a ground offensive against the Hamas-ruled territory.

US officials said that a new US coordinator on humanitarian aid, David Satterfield, would work with Israel to develop more concrete plans.

Meanwhile 600,000 Gazans have evacuated the Gaza City area, following warnings from Israel’s military on Friday, according to Israel Defence Forces spokesperson Jonathan Conricus.

In a daily update, Conricus said that more than 600,000 people have evacuated the Gaza City area, but that 100,000 people still had not left.

Israel has warned people to leave the Gaza City area ahead of what it says will be “enhanced military operations” in the coming days. Conricus said the operations will start “when the timing suits the goal”.

Here is a summary of other recent developments:

• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States and Israel had agreed to develop a plan to get humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza without benefiting Hamas, and that President Joe Biden would visit Israel this week to hear how it would minimize civilian casualties in its war effort. Blinken made the announcement after hours of negotiations with Netanyahu that stretched into the early hours of Tuesday.

• IDF spokeperson Jonathan Conricus said that 199 families have now been notified that their loved ones are being held hostage. It is an increase of 40 families, from 155 notified at the time of the last update, he said. He did not say how many hostages this translates to. The increase is not because more hostages being taken but because new information comes to light allowing people to be taken off the list of missing and confirmed as hostages.

• Asked whether Biden’s visit will delay ground operations, Conricus said that he does not know, but that he does not think it will. The aim of Biden’s visit is not to “hinder” Israeli operations, he said. “It is to minimise the chances of a regional escalation.”

• Conricus said he does not believe that there is any plan for Israel to ultimately “hold onto the Gaza strip”.

• The IDF spokesperson was asked during that briefing what there is to stop Hamas fighters going south, too. He said this is “very difficult” and is “one of the downsides” of Israel advertising that it is going to commence enhanced military operations and telling civilians where to go.

• 600,000 Palestinians have moved south and that there are still 100,000 people who need to go, the IDF spokesperson said.

• The “enhanced military operations” will commence “when the timing suits the goal” said Conricus. The aim of the war remains to “completely dismantle Hamas and its military capabilities”. He said, “our preparations continue in the south”, that the IDF is “actively searching for the places where Hammas commanders are hiding” and, “We continue to prepare ourselves for enhanced military operations in Gaza”. The IDF is active on the northern border, the border with Lebanon, but “not escalating” the situation, he said.

• US president Joe Biden is strongly considering a trip to Israel as early as this week, NBC reported, citing three US officials. The officials said planning is under way, including on the ground in Israel, for a potential visit from the US president. It is unclear if Biden would make any additional stops while in the region.

• Hamas demanded the release of “6,000 male and female prisoners in Israeli prisons” in exchange for hostages it took during its attacks on 7 October. The group’s captives include “high-ranking officers” of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Khaled Meshaal, head of Hamas’s diaspora office, said. A Hamas spokesperson said there were “about 200-250” Israeli captives in Gaza, contradicting an earlier statement from the Israeli military that said it had confirmed 199 hostages.

• Hamas released a video on Monday showing a statement from one of the captives seized in last week’s attack. In the footage, the woman, whose injured arm is shown being treated by an unidentified medical worker, asks to be returned to her family as quickly as possible.

• Iran warned Monday of a possible “pre-emptive action” against Israel “in the coming hours”, as Israel readies for a ground offensive on the Gaza Strip. Tehran has repeatedly warned that a ground invasion of the long-blockaded Gaza would be met with a response from other fronts – prompting fears of a wider conflict that could draw in other countries. “The possibility of pre-emptive action by the resistance axis is expected in the coming hours,” Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a live broadcast to state TV, as he referred to his meeting with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Saturday.

• US defence secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday spoke to his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, and reiterated the United States’ commitment to avoiding an escalation of the Israel-Hamas conflict and emphasised civilian safety, the Pentagon said in a readout.

• The head of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency took responsibility for the Hamas attacks that killed more than 1,400 people on 7 October. “There will be time for investigations. Now we fight,” Shin Bet director Ronen Bar said in a statement.

• An intense US-led diplomatic effort failed to ease the plight of two million Palestinians trapped under bombardment in Gaza, with supplies of water, food and medicine all running out, raising the prospect of a humanitarian disaster.

• At least 2,808 Palestinians have been killed and 10,850 injured since Israel launched attacks on the Gaza Strip, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate has said that Israel has killed 11 Palestinian journalists in its airstrikes on Gaza.

• The World Health Organization (WHO) warned Gaza faces an imminent public health crisis as the Palestinian enclave is “running out of water”. The UN agency said the lives of more than 3,500 patients in 35 hospitals in Gaza are at immediate risk, and called for the unobstructed access for humanitarian aid into the enclave.

• The UN relief and works agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) said “there are not enough body bags for the dead in Gaza”. It noted that Gaza had been without electricity for five days, there was limited access to clean drinking water, and more than 1 million people had been displaced.

• The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, sheltered in a bunker for five minutes when air sirens went off during their meeting in Tel Aviv on Monday. In a joint press conference, Blinken said Israel will “always have the support of the United States”, while Gallant warned “a long war” lies ahead.

• Israel activated a plan to evacuate residents within 2km (1.2 miles) of Lebanon, the military said on Monday. It followed exchanges of fire with Hezbollah in parallel to the conflict in southern Israel with Hamas. In a statement, the Israel Defence Forces said the plan included the evacuation of 28 villages.