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Patients scheduled for medical evacuation and their companions are transferred to vehicles to be taken to the Rafah border crossing, in Khan Yuis, Gaza, on February 03, 2026. [Saeed M. M. T. Jaras – Anadolu Agency]
The Israeli officials canceled the coordination for evacuating the third batch of patients and injured people from the Gaza Strip through the Rafah land crossing, leading to the postponement of their departure, which had been scheduled for Wednesday, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on Wednesday.
Raed Al-Nems, Red Crescent Society’s spokesman in Gaza, told Anadolu in a statement that the World Health Organization informed them of the cancellation without providing reasons.
Al-Nems said the Palestinian Red Crescent’s teams were fully prepared to evacuate patients from Al-Amal Hospital, affiliated with the society in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, but the last-minute cancellation of coordination prevented the operation from being carried out.
The society is awaiting the resumption of coordination in hopes that the third batch of patients and wounded can be evacuated on Thursday, given the difficult humanitarian and health conditions faced by patients inside the Gaza Strip, he added.
Early Wednesday, 40 Palestinians — including women and children — returned to the Gaza Strip via the Rafah land crossing with Egypt, while a similar number departed, on the third day since the crossing was partially reopened under strict Israeli restrictions.
On Monday, the Rafah crossing resumed operations. On the first day, 12 Palestinians returned to Gaza and 20 departed, while on the second day, Tuesday, 40 arrived and 40 departed, according to Anadolu’s correspondent, citing relevant sources.
The ceasefire ended an Israeli offensive that began in October 2023 and lasted two years, killing more than 71,000 Palestinians and wounding over 171,000 others, while destroying about 90% of Gaza’s infrastructure. Israel also continues to carry out attacks in violation of the ceasefire agreement.
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Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
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A view of the clashes that broke out Israeli soldiers and Palestinian youths protesting the raid of Israeli forces after Israeli army carried out a raid in Nablus, West Bank on August 27, 2025. [Nedal Eshtayah – Anadolu Agency]
The Israeli army stormed the northern West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday morning, injured 25 Palestinians and laying siege to its Old City, eyewitnesses told Anadolu.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement that its teams treated 25 people who suffered from tear gas inhalation during ongoing clashes in Nablus.
One person was transferred to the hospital, while the rest were treated on the spot, the organization said.
Witnesses said clashes erupted between dozens of Palestinians and Israeli army forces around the Old City of Nablus, where youths pelted the army with stones, which responded by live fire, rubber-coated bullets, and tear gas canisters to disperse protesters.
Witnesses said military reinforcements were deployed in and around the city, with troops forcing several families to evacuate their homes and turning them into military posts.
Israeli forces also began conducting house-to-house searches in multiple neighborhoods across Nablus.
On Tuesday, the Israeli army withdrew from the central West Bank city of Ramallah after an hours-long raid that left 58 Palestinians injured and three others detained, according to medical sources.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in separate statements that its teams treated and transported 58 injured people, including eight wounded by live fire, five by shrapnel, and 14 by rubber-coated bullets. Another 31 Palestinians suffered from tear gas inhalation.
Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, more than a thousand Palestinians have been killed and 7,000 injured in the occupied West Bank by Israeli forces and illegal settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal. It demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
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Members of the Palestine Red Crescent and other emergency services pray by the bodies of fellow rescuers killed a week earlier by Israeli forces, during a funeral procession at Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on March 31, 2025. [Photo by EYAD BABA/AFP via Getty Images]
An Israeli airstrike targeted the headquarters of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in southern Gaza early Sunday, killing a staff member and injuring two others, the organization said, Anadolu reports.
Red Crescent said Israeli fighter jets hit the first floor of its building in the city of Khan Younis, setting it on fire and causing significant damage.
“Our headquarters’ location is well known to the occupying forces and clearly marked with the protective red emblem. This was not a mistake,” the organization said. “This deliberate attack on a protected Red Crescent facility is a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law — it is a war crime.”
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa earlier reported that a staff member was killed and three others were injured in the attack.
The society renewed its call for “accountability and for the protection of all humanitarian and medical personnel.”
The attack came after US envoy Steve Witkoff visited Gaza on Saturday to inspect efforts to get food into the devastated Palestinian territory, where deaths by hunger and starvation have climbed in recent days.
“Gaza is now on the brink of a full-scale famine. People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed, and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods,” said to Qu Dongyu, head of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal war on Gaza, killing more than 60,400 Palestinians since October 2023.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Healthcare workers at Al-Awda hospital. Photo: Al-Awda
The number of people infected with contagious diseases in Gaza continues to rise. The latest data from the World Health Organization (WHO) warns that 180,000 people are currently suffering from respiratory infections. Additionally, the UN’s health agency reports that 55,000 people have lice and scabies, 42,000 are experiencing various forms of skin rashes, and 136,000, half of whom are children under 5 years old, have contracted diarrhea.
While these diseases would not be deadly under conditions with a functioning health system and adequate living conditions, in the current situation, they could be life-threatening. “Unless something changes, the world faces the prospect of almost a quarter of Gaza’s 2 million population – close to half a million human beings – dying within a year. These would be largely deaths from preventable health causes and the collapse of the health system,” estimated Devi Sridhar, Chair in Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, at the end of 2023.
If a permanent ceasefire does not take immediate effect, though, things are unlikely to change, as reiterated by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement. WHO teams, now participating in fairly regular missions on the ground, are sending reports about overcrowding in Gaza’s hospitals and shelters. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, on January 4, only 9 out of 36 hospitals were partially functioning in the Strip, resulting in an average bed occupancy of 351% and 261% occupancy in intensive care units.
Israel’s attacks on healthcare in Palestine are affecting everyone, especially the most vulnerable. Cancer and dialysis patients cannot access the specific care they need, and most have not yet been transferred to hospitals abroad as announced. The Ministry of Health estimates that 5,300 patients need to be transferred abroad for treatment, but until January 5, less than 1,000 were moved. This number includes 571 people injured in the attacks and 401 patients who required distinct forms of care, including cancer patients.
Children and pregnant women are also groups most at risk from the attacks and their consequences. Over 5,000 babies were born in Gaza just last month, all requiring adequate care and nutrition. With mothers and families going hungry, it is evident that some of them are also lacking proper food. Among the newborns are about 130 premature babies dependent on incubators, yet most incubators are located in northern Gaza, which, in terms used by the WHO, has become a medical disaster zone.
In addition to going hungry and sleeping in overcrowded tents, newborns and children are also not getting vaccinated. Recounting the experience of a woman who recently gave birth, Nareman, who was “taken from her tent in a temporary camp by horse-drawn carriage to a hospital to give birth to her daughter, before returning to her makeshift home straight after,” the WHO warned that the health system in Gaza is struggling to ensure standard immunization routines. Nareman’s baby is among those who are yet to receive planned vaccines, and she is staying with her sisters and brothers at the camp, who are reportedly in ill health themselves.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has managed to deliver 600,000 key vaccines into Gaza in the period between December 25-29, 2023, and is planning to deliver some 960,000 more together with WHO and UNICEF. Yet, this is no easy feat as Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) continue to target health infrastructure and health workers. Since the beginning of the attacks on October 7, 326 health workers in Palestine were killed by Israeli attacks, 764 were injured, and 65 were arrested, according to Ministry of Health data.
Many more experienced violence and intimidation by the IOF, including ambulances and partners of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS). On January 4, Israeli soldiers attacked a PRCS ambulance. Not long before that, the organization reported attacks targeting the house of Anwar Abu Holi, Director of the Central Gaza Ambulance Center, as well as multiple attacks on the Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis.
As shelling in the proximity of the hospital began, Al-Amal offered shelter to approximately 14,000 forcibly displaced people. The attacks, said the PRCS, endangered the lives of thousands. “The displaced persons are living in an atmosphere of horror and panic.”
The attacks that have taken place since the beginning of January killed 7 people, including a days-old baby, injured 11 more, and were reported by the PRCS to be ongoing on January 5, without a meaningful indication they would stop anytime soon.
