After four failed attempts, the U.N. Security Council is trying for a fifth time to come up with a resolution on the Israel-Hamas war, but it remains to be seen whether serious divisions can be overcome to produce a consensus on wording.
The current draft under negotiation would demand "immediate extended humanitarian pauses" throughout the Gaza Strip to provide civilians with desperately needed aid. It also would demand that "all parties" comply with international humanitarian law that requires protection for civilians, calls for special protections for children, and bans hostage-taking.

Israeli forces entered Gaza's largest hospital Wednesday, allegedly targeting a suspected Hamas command center they say is located below thousands of ailing and sheltering civilians.
Israeli and Palestinian officials said military operations were taking place at Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, which has been the focal point of days of fighting and nearby aerial bombardments.

A senior Israeli political source said Tuesday that progress has been made on a hostage deal and a breakthrough could come in the next 48-72 hours.
The Israeli War Cabinet is meeting Tuesday night to discuss the deal, the source told U.S. network ABC News.

Israel is deliberately using “disproportionate force” in Gaza and targeting “civilian infrastructure” in an effort to limit its own losses and showcase its “military force,” according to a confidential memo from the Dutch Embassy in Tel Aviv.
The memo, drafted by the Dutch defense attaché in the embassy and seen by Dutch media outlet NRC, analyzes Israel’s military strategy in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been launching retaliatory airstrikes for over a month straight and conducting a ground invasion, killing more than 11,000 people according to the health ministry in Gaza.

The Israeli army said Tuesday it had captured parliament and other government institutions run by Hamas in Gaza City, as its forces deepened their offensive in the Palestinian territory.
Military units "took over the Hamas parliament, the government building, the Hamas police headquarters and an engineering faculty that served as an institute for the production and development of weapons," the army said in a statement.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday said Hamas has "lost control" of the Gaza Strip it has ruled for 16 years.
"Hamas has lost control of Gaza. Terrorists are fleeing southward. Civilians are looting Hamas bases," he said without providing evidence. "They don't have faith in the government anymore," Gallant added in a video broadcast on Israel's main TV stations.

A video broadcast on an Iraqi television station and circulated on pro-Iranian social media purported to show an Israeli-Russian researcher who was allegedly kidnapped in Iraq, the first sign of life since her disappearance nearly eight months ago.
No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of Elizabeth Tsurkov. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this year that she was being held by the powerful Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kataeb Hezbollah.

Gaza's Shifa Hospital has become the focus of a dayslong stalemate in Israel's war against the Hamas militant group.
Shifa is Gaza's largest and best-equipped hospital. Israel, without providing visual evidence, claims the facility also is used by Hamas for military purposes. It says Hamas has built a vast underground command complex center below the hospital, connected by tunnels, something Gaza health officials and Hamas deny.

Eight Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said on Tuesday.
Seven Palestinians were killed during an Israeli military raid on the northern city of Tulkarem, the health ministry and a local hospital said.

Another 200,000 people have fled northern Gaza since Nov. 5, the U.N. humanitarian office said Tuesday, as Israeli ground forces battle Palestinian militants around hospitals where patients, newborns and medics are stranded with no electricity and dwindling supplies.
The humanitarian office, known as OCHA, says only one hospital in the north is capable of receiving patients. All the others are no longer able to function and mostly serve as shelters from the fighting, including Gaza's largest, Shifa, which is surrounded by Israeli troops and where 36 babies are at risk of dying because there is no power for incubators.
