Between Monday and Friday afternoon, 252 Palestinians were reported killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and 753 were injured, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its latest situation report on the Palestinian territory.

Intense Israeli air strikes have targeted the Nuseirat, Bureij and Maghazi refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip, OCHA said.

A World Food Programme warehouse in Deir el-Balah was damaged on Thursday when an Israeli missile hit an adjoining flour mill, forcing the UN’s food agency to temporarily suspend operations at the site.

On the same day, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that nine out of 10 children in Gaza are experiencing severe food poverty, and are surviving on two or fewer food groups each day.

Military operations in Gaza “have significantly destabilized humanitarian aid flows, forcing UN and partners to reorganize the entire operation”, OCHA reports.

Israeli bombing kills six in Bureij refugee camp

Heartbreaking scenes at Al-Aqsa Hospital after Israeli attacks

Deadly Israeli air raids in Deir el-Balah

_{The bodies of Palestinians killed in the Israeli attack are brought to the morgue of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, Saturday}

The Israeli army has said in a short statement that it is targeting “militant” infrastructure in the Nuseirat area, where Gaza’s Health Ministry reported dozens of casualties.

Images from central Gaza show children and women being rushed to the hospital.

It is unusual for Israel’s military to inform about its actions while its operations are still under way.

‘Everyone is terrified’

Gaza’s Government Media Office says the Israeli forces have launched “an unprecedented brutal attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp”, leaving dozens of people killed and wounded in the streets.

“[It] continues its aggression against all areas of the Central Governorate [Deir el-Balah], and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital is in a catastrophic situation,” it said.

Israeli forces launched “a barbaric and brutal aggression” in the camp, directly targeting civilians, the office said, adding that ambulances and civil defence cannot reach the area due to the intensity of the bombing.

The office warned that Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital is the only hospital in Deir el-Balah currently working on only one electric generator; if the sole generator stops, “a real disaster” will ensue.

“This hospital provides health services to a million people and displaced persons, and it cannot accommodate this large number of martyrs and injuries,” it said.

It called on the international community, the UN and all international organisations “to intervene immediately and urgently save the hospital and save the health situation in the Central Governorate”.

“We hold the [Israeli] occupation and the American administration fully responsible for this catastrophic crime in which the blood of dozens of innocent civilians was shed,” it said.

“We call on the international community and all international organisations to stop this brutal aggression continued by the ‘Israeli’ occupation, and we demand that they stop the genocidal war immediately and urgently.”

What we’re hearing from the Israeli army in a very short statement is that they’re going after “terrorist infrastructure” in Nuseirat refugee camp. But that is a statement that’s very difficult to square with the pictures we’re seeing of women and children being rushed to the hospital.

A far bigger operation than we’ve seen perhaps in recent weeks. The Israeli military says it is going after terrorist infrastructure. A week ago they said that they’d hit terrorist infrastructure in Rafah but actually some 45 civilians were killed in what was called the Rafah massacre.

We don’t know how many people are dead arriving at Al-Aqsa Hospital but that number does seem to be rising.

The Israeli military says it rescued four captives this morning during an operation in Nuseirat.

A joint statement on Telegram by the army, police and the securities agency, said that Noa Argamani (25), Almog Meir Jan (21), Andrey Kozlov (27), and Shlomi Ziv (40), were found in “two separate locations in the heart of Nuseirat”.

It added that these four were taken to Gaza during the Nova music festival on October 7. “They are in good medical condition and have been transferred to the ‘Sheba’ Tel-HaShomer Medical Center for further medical examinations,” the army said.

Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care doctor with Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, says Al-Aqsa is too small a facility to be acting as Gaza’s main hospital.

“It has completely taken over Gaza’s healthcare system because every other major hospital has been destroyed,” Haj-Hassan told Al Jazeera. The doctor said she has been receiving “frantic messages of pure chaos in the last hour” from colleagues at Al-Asqa describing “horrific” scenes from the hospital.

“I received a message from one of my colleagues in the emergency department saying, Dr Tanya, it’s a full-blown, comprehensive genocide site,” she said. “He kept repeating the word massacre, massacre, massacre over and over again.”

Haj-Hassan said her colleague then sent her video footage from the emergency department of the hospital. “There is blood everywhere. There are many people missing, extremities. It was so horrific.”

Here are some points made by Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari following news of the army rescuing four captives from Gaza:

• Information was gathered for weeks ahead of the operation.
• This was a high-risk mission conducted in daylight deep inside Gaza. A helicopter was part of this operation.
• The four were rescued from two separate buildings.
• 120 captives are still being held in Gaza.

_{Andrey Kozlov, 27, left, and Almog Meir Jan, 21, two of four hostages who were just rescued, arrive by helicopter to the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel, Saturday}

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital spokesperson Khalil al-Degran says 55 people have been killed and “tens of wounded people” have arrived at the hospital following the Israeli attack on Nuseirat.

The return of the captives is going to be spun as a real successful operation for the Israelis. We’re hearing that at least 47 Palestinians were killed but no mention of that from the Israeli army spokesperson, the PM or the foreign minister.

We don’t have an actual figure of how many people were injured in this raid that took place by air, land and sea with the involvement of at least one helicopter.

The cost of this operation? Well, the Israelis simply are not talking about it and will not talk about that because they want to spin this as a success story.

PM Netanyahu was under tremendous pressure from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum to commit to a ceasefire to bring all of these people back. The forum is very clear: The ceasefire is the best and the most sensible option to get all of the 120 captives that are still in Gaza.

More from the Al-Aqsa Hospital spokesman Khalil al-Degran:

• “A lot of martyrs and wounded” are still in the streets following the attack on the refugee camps.
• Israeli forces are committing “brutal massacres regularly” and “destroying” the health system across the Gaza Strip.
• This is the only hospital that can provide healthcare for the one million displaced people, and they “suffer” due to shortages of medical staff and supplies.
• The hospital is full of patients and there is no space for more people.
• Al-Aqsa Hospital is now running on one generator – if it stops working, a “catastrophe is waiting for every one of us”.
• He says the hospital needs an “urgent intervention” to save the hospital and urges Palestinians in the area to go to the hospital “immediately” to donate blood.
• “We condemn the Israeli attack against Al Nuseirat refugee camp and the central governate [Deir el-Balah], and we urge the international community [and] international organisations to do whatever it takes to stop this brutal by the Israeli forces.”

With just one generator operating at Al-Aqsa Hospital, Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care doctor with Doctors Without Borders (MSF), says this means the oxygen supply won’t work.

“The ventilators won’t function,” she told Al Jazeera. “The emergency department doesn’t have windows which means it’s dark and they don’t have light. People use the flash on their phones.”

She said this is all happening when the hospital has no internet connection. Her colleagues had been messaging her but her messages can no longer go through any more.

“This is all in a state when it’s already completely chaotic,” she said.

Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, a paediatric intensive care doctor with Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, says the emergency department at Al-Aqsa Hospital “is a complete bloodbath … it looks like a slaughterhouse”.

“The images and videos that I’ve received show patients lying everywhere in pools of blood … their limbs have been blown off,” she told Al Jazeera.

“That is what a massacre looks like. It means parents running around caring for their children who have blood running from their head trying to find a medic to treat them. But it’s so chaotic and there’s so many patients that is vastly outnumbering the healthcare ability to care for them.”

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum have lauded what they called a “heroic operation” by Israeli forces to rescue four captives.

However, the group reiterated that while it was a joyous moment, the government must remember its “commitment to bring back all 120 hostages still held by Hamas”.

“We continue to call upon the international community to apply the necessary pressure on Hamas to accept the proposed deal and release the other 120 hostages held in captivity; every day there is a day too far,” the group said on X.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel does not give in to “terrorism”, adding that forces were operating “creatively and bravely” to rescue the captives in Gaza.

“We are committed to do so in the future as well. We will not let up until we complete the mission and return home all the hostages – both those alive and dead,” Netanyahu said.

Israeli officer killed in Nuseirat operation, says police

According to Axios, citing a US administration official, the American hostages unit in Israel assisted in the release of the four Israeli captives in Gaza.

We reported earlier that US President Joe Biden is expected to be making remarks in France in this coming hour about the captives.

Palestinian Deputy Ambassador to the UN Majed Bamya has said that as people rejoice for the reunification of families in Israel, the world must not forget that more than 100 Palestinians have been killed.

“Scores of civilians and many children were killed today in the Israeli operation and they may not be mentioned or will be a footnote in today’s news at best,” he said in a post on X.

“As you smile seeing a father finally embracing his daughter in Tel Aviv, shed a tear for the father having to bury his daughter in Gaza,” he added.

He said that there is a way for Palestinian and Israeli families to be “reunited in life not in death”.

“That is the success we should all be striving for. After eight months of massacres, Israel will use today’s images to try and justify the killing of 36,000 Palestinians and the destruction of the lives of 2.3 million Palestinians. Don’t let it.”

According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, “the Israeli massacre that took place in Nuseirat refugee camp has led to the killing of 210 Palestinians and the injury of more than 400”.

In a statement on its official Telegram channel, the media office said the injured were taken to al-Awda Hospital in the camp and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah.

The US president is speaking in Paris where he is on a five-day visit to France. He said, “We won’t stop working until all the hostages come home and a ceasefire is reached. It is essential that it happens”, he said in a presser with his French counterpart Macron.

Netanyahu says the operation to rescue four Israeli captives from the Nuseirat refugee camp, where at least 210 Palestinians were killed, was “successful”, and the country will “do our best to get back the whole of them”.

“They said that this operation will be [under] very complicated and dangerous circumstances. I knew that, but without hesitation, I decided to do this operation because they were Israeli captives, and I trusted the heroes in Yamam and Shabak [special police commandos and internal security] who attacked and freed the captives,” Netanyahu said at a news conference in the hospital the captives are being treated at.

“Now the captives are with us. The captives are the gold and the diamond we are keen to return back. It is an operation that will be written in history, yes we know that we have to pay the price but I also know the heroes will be always mentioned in the book and the history of Israel.”

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says the US commends the work of Israeli forces for rescuing the four captives from the Nuseirat area, where Israeli attacks killed at least 210 Palestinians and wounded 400.

“The United States is supporting all efforts to secure the release of hostages still held by Hamas, including American citizens. This includes through ongoing negotiations or other means,” Sullivan said, adding the ceasefire proposal would secure the release of all the remaining captives.

“Together with security assurances for Israel and relief for the innocent civilians in Gaza. This deal has the full backing of the United States and has been endorsed by countries from around the world.”

The Palestinian president instructed Palestine’s envoy to the UN to call for an emergency session of the Security Council following what he called a “bloody massacre” by Israeli forces in Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza, Palestine’s official news agency Wafa reports.

According to a statement, “President Abbas is engaged in intensive diplomatic efforts with Arab and international stakeholders to convene an emergency session of the UN Security Council.”

“The aim is to address the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and compel the Israeli occupation to comply with international legitimacy resolutions, including those calling for an immediate ceasefire,” the statement said.

The masked spokesman for the Qassam Brigades, who goes by nom de guerre Abu Obeida, says that the attacks carried out today by the Israeli military in central Gaza represent a “complex war crime”.

He also said that ” the first to be harmed by [the Israeli army] are its prisoners”, in a reference to the around 120 captives still held in the Gaza Strip.

• The enemy was able, by committing horrific massacres, to free some of his captives, but at the same time, it killed some of them during the operation.
• The operation will pose a great danger to the enemy prisoners and will have a devastating impact on their conditions and lives