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The first call came at 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 8. The recorded voice instructed doctor Hussam Abuouda, his wife and five children to get out. Leave Beit Hanoun, the city at the Israeli border in northern Gaza, Abuouda recalls the unidentified man saying in Arabic.

Persons: Hussam Abuouda, Abuouda Locations: Gaza

BEITUNIA, West Bank—After more than a year of detention, Azhar Assaf has finally returned to her home in the occupied West Bank. Although she doesn’t consider herself to be political, she says she owes her freedom to Hamas. Assaf and other freed prisoners, many of whom have been held without trial, are attributing their release to Hamas, with some openly praising the group. That is helping to boost Hamas’s public image among Palestinians amid a war with Israel that has left more than 15,000 dead in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to authorities in the enclave. The numbers don’t distinguish between militants and civilians.

Persons: Azhar Assaf, doesn’t, Assaf Organizations: West Bank —, West Bank Locations: Israel, Gaza

The Israeli military has stepped up its efforts to produce evidence that Gaza’s largest hospital was a Hamas command center, as the humanitarian fallout from war and seizure of Al-Shifa Hospital has heaped pressure on Israel. In recent days, the Israeli military has released a series of videos and photos from the hospital that show further details of a tunnel uncovered at the site and security-camera footage of two hostages who were brought there on Oct. 7, the day Israel says Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 200 hostages back to Gaza.

Organizations: Shifa Locations: Israel, Gaza

☆ Israeli Military Encircles Another Gaza Hospital, Doctors Say
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( Omar Abdel-Baqui | Chao Deng | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Patients and staff at a second hospital in Gaza, Indonesia Hospital, braced for Israeli troops to enter the complex Monday after tanks surrounded it and artillery shelling hit the building, killing about a dozen people including patients, according to Palestinian officials and doctors. The Israeli military said it targeted militants that opened fire at Israeli troops from within the hospital and that no shells were fired toward the facility. Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, denies using hospitals for military purposes.

Organizations: Indonesia Hospital Locations: Gaza, Indonesia, U.S

☆ Explosion Rocks Gaza Hospital After Clashes Intensify Outside
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( Omar Abdel-Baqui | Chao Deng | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

An explosion Monday rocked the second floor of a hospital in Gaza, killing about a dozen people, including patients, according to hospital staff and Palestinian officials. Gunfire and explosions around the Indonesia Hospital, in the northern part of the enclave and where thousands are seeking shelter, have intensified in recent days, the hospital’s medical director Marwan Al-Sultan said in a telephone interview. He said several Israeli tanks had been moving back and forth about 100 feet from the hospital entrance.

Persons: Marwan Al, Sultan Organizations: Indonesia Hospital Locations: Gaza, Indonesia

☆ Hundreds of Palestinians Evacuate Gaza’s Largest Hospital as Israel Tightens Control
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-18 | by ( Sune Engel Rasmussen | Omar Abdel-Baqui | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Hundreds of patients, medical staff and displaced people began evacuating the besieged Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Saturday, as the Israeli military tightens its control of the medical complex, which it says Hamas has used as a military command center. Hospital officials and Palestinian health authorities said the hospital was evacuated under orders from Israel’s armed forces, which Israel’s military disputed.

Organizations: Shifa Locations: Al, Gaza City

☆ Israel-Hamas War Puts Palestinians Back on Arab World’s Agenda
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-18 | by ( Stephen Kalin | Omar Abdel-Baqui | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

AMMAN, Jordan—Israel’s fierce response to last month’s cross-border assault by Hamas militants from Gaza has reinvigorated support for Palestinians in the Arab world and stirred popular anger—not just at Israel and its biggest ally, the U.S., but also at Arab governments. Some in the Arab and wider Muslim world joined global condemnations of Hamas, which carried out attacks on a music festival and agricultural communities in southern Israel. Authorities there say 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 were kidnapped and taken to Gaza.

Persons: Jordan —, — Organizations: Authorities Locations: AMMAN, Gaza, Israel, U.S

☆ Detained, Beaten, Underfed: Gazan Workers in Israel Describe Ordeal After Oct. 7 Attack
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( Omar Abdel-Baqui | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Palestinian workers, who were stranded in Israel following the Oct. 7 attack, return home to the Gaza Strip. Photo: Str/Zuma PressWhen Hamas launched the Oct. 7 attacks that killed some 1,200 people across southern Israel, Maher Skaik, a 62-year-old from the Gaza Strip, was working in the Tel Aviv neighborhood where he had been a pastry maker for more than two years. A week later, Skaik said police officers came to the apartment he shared with several other Palestinian workers and took them into custody. Skaik was detained for a few days in a small cell where a group of detainees, several of whom he said were beaten by guards, slept on the floor squeezed together.

Persons: Maher Skaik, Skaik Organizations: Press, Hamas Locations: Israel, Gaza, Tel Aviv

☆ Israel Warns of Wider War as It Presses On in Gaza
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-13 | by ( Omar Abdel-Baqui | Dov Lieber | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The chance of a full-scale war breaking out between Israel and forces in Lebanon increased in recent days, Israeli officials said, even as fighting continued around the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital, crippling the facility where doctors said hundreds of civilians were sheltering and more patients were dying. On Sunday, at least 10 Israeli civilians and seven soldiers were wounded by a combination of mortar, rocket and antitank missiles fired on northern Israel from Lebanon, according to Israeli military and medical authorities. The assault was the most serious incident involving civilians along the Lebanon-Israel border since an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon on Nov. 5 killed a woman and three children.

Locations: Israel, Lebanon, Gaza

☆ Israel, U.S. Warn of Wider War as Clashes Escalate
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-13 | by ( Omar Abdel-Baqui | Dov Lieber | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Israel and the U.S. have warned about the prospects for a wider war in the Middle East, as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Israeli military step up cross-border attacks against each other and other Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq strike American troops. The warnings came as Israeli forces continued their assault Monday on Gaza, where Palestinian doctors at besieged hospitals say they are watching patients die from a lack of supplies and electricity.

Organizations: U.S, Hezbollah Locations: Israel, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Gaza

Israeli forces said they were engaged in fierce fighting early Saturday around Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, where Israel says Hamas has positioned fighters near thousands of displaced people and hundreds of patients amid worsening conditions at the facility. Hospital officials said doctors were using scant remaining medical supplies to treat wounded people as the battle in the area intensified, the hospital largely operated without electricity and water ran desperately low. There were no indications that Israeli troops had entered the hospital complex as of Saturday morning or whether Hamas fighters were inside it.

Organizations: Shifa, Hamas Locations: Gaza, Al, Israel

Israeli forces said they were engaged in fierce fighting Saturday around Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, where Israel says Hamas has positioned fighters near thousands of displaced people and hundreds of patients amid worsening conditions at the facility. Hospital officials said that doctors at Al-Shifa were using scant remaining medical supplies to treat wounded people, that the hospital was largely operating without electricity and water was running desperately low.

Organizations: Shifa, Hamas, Al Locations: Gaza, Al, Israel

☆ Journalists in Gaza Become Part of the Story They Feel Compelled to Tell
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-09 | by ( Omar Abdel-Baqui | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Journalists in Gaza Become Part of the Story They Feel Compelled to TellPalestinian journalists carried mock coffins in a symbolic funeral procession toward a United Nations office in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday. (Nasser Nasser/Associated Press)The number of journalists killed while reporting on the war between Israel and Hamas has exceeded the highest monthly death toll previously recorded among those covering conflict, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Some 39 reporters, photographers and videographers and other media workers, have died during the latest outbreak of violence between Israel and the Palestinian militant group—the vast majority of whom were killed by airstrikes in Gaza. The number is more than half the death toll for those killed in conflicts worldwide last year, according to CPJ.

Persons: Nasser Nasser Organizations: United, West Bank, Associated Press, Hamas, Protect Journalists, Palestinian Locations: Gaza, United Nations, Ramallah, Israel

☆ Israel Steps Up Arrests in the West Bank in Wake of Hamas Attacks
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-05 | by ( Omar Abdel-Baqui | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Israel has more than doubled the rate at which it makes arrests across the occupied West Bank since it was attacked by Hamas militants from Gaza a month ago, an escalation that analysts say risks triggering wider unrest. The Israeli military says the arrests are part of counterterrorism measures meant to stamp out Hamas’s West Bank network, in an effort to eradicate the U.S.-designated terrorist group following the unprecedented Oct. 7 assault from the Palestinian enclave. More than half of those held since the attacks are associated with Hamas, said spokesmen from the Israeli military and Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service. Palestinians and rights groups say innocent people, including political figures, are being swept up by a broad detention campaign that is politically motivated and aimed at stifling dissent.

Persons: Shin Bet Organizations: West Bank, Hamas’s West Bank Locations: Israel, Gaza, U.S

☆ Israel Says Corridor Is Opening for Northern Gazans to Flee South
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-04 | by ( Omar Abdel-Baqui | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Israeli military said it is preparing to open a humanitarian corridor, allowing people in northern Gaza to flee south, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken toured the Middle East calling for a pause in the Israel-Hamas war and the United Nations warned its operations in the enclave were on the verge of shutting down. The Israel Defense Forces said it planned to allow traffic on Salah al-Din Road—a major north-south thoroughfare in the strip—for three hours Saturday afternoon. “If you care about yourself and your loved ones, head south according to our instructions,” an Israeli military spokesman said, addressing residents in Gaza.

Persons: Antony Blinken, Salah al, ” Organizations: United Nations, Israel Defense Forces Locations: Gaza, Israel

Israel said Tuesday it hit a Hamas command and tunnel network in northern Gaza, causing widespread damage in a crowded Palestinian refugee camp. Israel said it killed dozens of militants, including a commander who it said led the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. Hamas said hundreds were dead or wounded but didn’t say how many were militants, while hospital officials in Gaza reported receiving scores of bodies.

Persons: Israel Locations: Gaza, Israel

☆ Dozens Killed in Israeli Airstrikes in North Gaza
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-31 | by ( Margherita Stancati | Omar Abdel-Baqui | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Israeli airstrikes rocked a densely populated area north of Gaza City on Tuesday, flattening entire apartment blocks, leaving deep craters and causing hundreds of casualties, according to hospital officials, in what the Israeli military said was a strike targeting Hamas infrastructure and militants, including a commander. The Israeli military has been conducting frequent airstrikes on Jabalia as its ground offensive to topple Hamas picks up speed. The military Tuesday night said its ground troops have killed about 50 militants in Jabalia in the past day. It said the airstrike killed a commander that helped lead the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. A Hamas official didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Persons: didn’t Locations: Gaza City, Jabalia, Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday night that the second phase of Israel’s war in Gaza had begun, effectively signaling the start of a ground operation but stopping short of calling it an invasion. Israel’s ground forces continued to fight inside Gaza Saturday, after an intense wave of airstrikes and ground raids overnight Friday targeted Hamas’s extensive network of underground tunnels and killed leaders of the militant group involved in the planning of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that left more than 1,400 people dead.

Persons: Benjamin Netanyahu Organizations: Gaza Locations: Gaza, Israel

U.S. military forces struck two bases in Syria in what the Pentagon said was a move to deter Iran-backed militias from broadening the conflict in the Middle East, while Israeli ground forces conducted an incursion into the Gaza Strip for the second consecutive day ahead of a widely-anticipated ground war. The overnight U.S. strikes, authorized by President Biden, were the first American response to what Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said were a number of attacks against U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militias over the past two weeks. The Pentagon said the bases hit were used by such militias and described the strikes as self-defense measures separate from its military support for Israel.

Persons: Biden, Lloyd Austin Organizations: Pentagon, Defense, U.S, Israel Locations: Syria, Iran, Gaza, Iraq, Iranian

☆ Israel Battles on Multiple Fronts as Conflict Risks Spreading
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-25 | by ( Omar Abdel-Baqui | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Israeli forces battled on four fronts Wednesday, hitting targets in Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza and fighting off a sea incursion, in a new sign the war with Hamas was slowly expanding to Iran-backed forces around the region. The Israeli Air Force bombed roadblocks in Gaza that it said Hamas used to stop civilians fleeing from Gaza City to the south. Israeli jet fighters struck Syrian military sites and the Aleppo International airport after two rockets were fired at Israel, killing eight Syrian soldiers, Syrian state media said. Neither claim could be immediately verified.

Organizations: West Bank, Hamas, Israeli Air Force Locations: Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, Iran, Gaza City, Israeli, Aleppo, Israel

Israel ramped up its bombing of targets on three fronts, including a rare airstrike in the West Bank, as humanitarian aid trickled into the Gaza Strip in an international effort to ease the hardship the conflict has wrought on the two million civilians trapped there. An Israeli soldier died during an operation in Gaza, and the Israeli military struck a mosque compound in the West Bank’s city of Jenin that it said was being used by militants to plan attacks. It also struck a target in southern Lebanon, where it said militants were attempting to launch antitank missiles at the Israeli side of the border.

Persons: Israel ramped Organizations: West Bank Locations: Gaza, Israeli, West Bank’s, Jenin, Lebanon

☆ Israel Intensifies Gaza Bombing, Targets West Bank Militants With Airstrike
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-22 | by ( Omar Abdel-Baqui | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Israel intensified its bombing of targets on three fronts, including a rare airstrike in the West Bank, as Palestinian casualties mounted and the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip deepened. The Israeli military struck a mosque compound in the West Bank’s city of Jenin that it said was being used by militants to plan attacks. It was one of few airstrikes since 2006 in the West Bank, where the Israeli military has recently tended to rely on ground troops to conduct raids, which have escalated in the past few years.

Persons: Israel Organizations: West Bank Locations: Gaza, West Bank’s, Jenin

A convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered Gaza for the first time since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel by Hamas militants. Egyptian officials said 20 trucks filled with medical supplies and some food crossed into Gaza on Saturday morning before Egypt closed the border again. Citizens of the U.S. and other foreign countries stuck in Gaza weren’t able to enter Egypt, the officials said.

Organizations: Hamas Locations: Gaza, Israel, Egypt

☆ Gaza Hospital Blast Reverberates Across Muslim World
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-18 | by ( Omar Abdel-Baqui | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Police in Lebanon fired tear gas at protesters near the U.S. embassy in Beirut as protests erupted across the Middle East, including in Turkey and Jordan, following a blast at a hospital compound in Gaza. Photo: Bilal Hussein/Associated PressThe explosion at a Gaza hospital Tuesday night set off a wave of protests across much of the Middle East and the broader Muslim world, some of them calling for death to Israel. Hamas immediately blamed Israeli air strikes for the blast at the Al-Ahli Arab hospital and said 500 people had been killed. Israel, the U.S. and independent security experts on Wednesday cast doubt on Hamas claims, saying the preliminary evidence pointed to a Palestinian militant group. The amount of damage also appears inconsistent with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry’s assertion on Wednesday that 471 people were killed, experts said.

Persons: Bilal Hussein Organizations: Associated Press, Al, Hamas Locations: Lebanon, U.S, Beirut, Turkey, Jordan, Gaza, Israel, Ahli, Palestinian

An explosion rocked a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday, killing hundreds in one of the deadliest single incidents of violence in the strip—hours before President Biden was expected to visit Israel in a show of support. Hamas and Palestinian officials blamed Israel and said at least 500 people were killed. Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office said there were “clear indications” that the blast was a misfire by the militant Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the group denied. The source of the explosion couldn’t be immediately verified.

Persons: Biden, Israel Organizations: Israel, Minister’s Locations: Gaza

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