Main events on May 18th
- Israel’s military says it has begun a large-scale ground operation in Gaza as the death toll from Israeli attacks on Sunday rises to at least 144.
- Israeli forces have laid siege to the Indonesian Hospital, the main partially functioning hospital in North Gaza, trapping some 55 people and forcing it to shut down.
- Israel’s military issues forced displacement orders for central Gaza, including al-Qarara in Deir el-Balah, after Hamas fighters fired rockets at Israeli territory, citing the latest ground assault.
- Yemen’s Houthi rebels promise to launch more attacks on Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport and other airports over the “escalation against the Gaza Strip and the aggression against Yemen”.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel will allow a “basic amount” of humanitarian aid into Gaza, but it was not immediately clear when the supplies would enter the enclave.
- A senior Hamas official says negotiations for a ceasefire are continuing in Qatar, noting there are some “ideas that are unacceptable to us being put forward” and “we are also putting forward ideas”.
- More than 100,000 red-clad protesters have rallied in the Dutch city of The Hague, calling for the Netherlands to end support for Israel, as a group of Italian and European legislators demonstrated in front of Egypt’s Rafah border crossing with Gaza, calling for an end to the war.
Israeli forces bulldoze wall at besieged hospital
We are following the situation at the Indonesian Hospital in north Gaza.
Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondent is reporting that Israeli forces have attacked the hospital’s gate and demolished the northern wall of the besieged facility using a bulldozer.
As we’ve been reporting, at least 55 people are trapped inside, including four doctors and eight nurses.
Al Jazeera Arabic is also reporting that shelling and gun fire have been heard around the hospital.
Patients who were transferred from the Indonesian Hospital arrive at Kamal Adwan Hospital on Sunday
Huge crowd piles pressure on Dutch gov’t to blacklist Israel
Tens of thousands of red-clad protesters have marched through The Hague in the Netherlands to demand that their government do more to halt Israel’s war on Gaza, in what organizers called the country’s biggest demonstration in two decades.
Human rights groups and aid agencies – including Amnesty International, Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) – estimated the peaceful crowd at more than 100,000 people on the streets of The Hague.
“We are calling on the Dutch government: stop political, economic and military support to Israel as long as it blocks access to aid supplies and while it is guilty of genocide, war crimes and structural human rights violations in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories,” said Marjon Rozema of Amnesty.
Demonstrators at the Malieveld for the Red Line protest in The Hague, the Netherlands, on Sunday, May 18
