Live updates | Israeli tanks enter Gaza’s Shifa Hospital compound

Two and a half weeks after sending tanks and ground troops into northern Gaza, Israeli forces entered a hospital early Wednesday that they claim Hamas operates out of. Mohammed Zaqout, the director of hospitals in Gaza, said Israeli tanks were inside the medical compound and that soldiers had entered buildings, including the emergency and surgery departments, which house intensive care units.

Shifa Hospital has become a symbol of the widespread suffering of Palestinian civilians during the war between Israel and Hamas, which erupted after the militant group killed some 1,200 people and seized around 240 captives in a surprise Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel.

The Israeli army claims the militant group uses hospitals as cover for its fighters, and has set up its main command center in and beneath Shifa Hospital, the largest in the besieged territory. Both Hamas and Shifa Hospital staff deny the Israeli allegations.

More than 11,200 Palestinians — two-thirds of them women and minors — have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing.

Currently:

— The U.N. Security Council is trying for a fifth time to adopt a resolution on the Israel-Hamas war.

— ASEAN defense chiefs call for the fighting in Gaza to cease, but they struggle to address Myanmar.

— Thousands flee Gaza’s main hospital but hundreds, including babies, are still trapped by fighting.

— Israel supporters rally in Washington, crying ‘never again.’

— Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Here’s what’s happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:

GUN PERMIT REQUESTS SKYROCKET AFTER HAMAS INCURSION, ISRAELI MINISTRY SAYS

JERUSALEM — Requests for gun permits in Israel have skyrocketed since Hamas’ bloody Oct. 7 incursion, according to a press release from the Ministry of National Security.

More than 236,000 new requests for permits have been filed since the attack — a figure equal to the number filed over 20 years, the statement said.

A sense of insecurity gripped Israel following the attack and the army’s hourslong delay in responding, leading to a rush to buy guns. At least 1,200 people were killed and more than 240 taken hostage after Hamas militants breached Israel’s border fence and fanned out across the country’s south.

Armed civilian security squads entered the breach in the army’s absence to fight off some of the attackers. Shortly after, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir said he would expand and arm such squads with 10,000 assault rifles that would be distributed particularly in border towns, mixed Jewish-Arab cities and West Bank settlements. Ben-Gvir has a long record of anti-Arab rhetoric, and Palestinians feared these guns would be used against them.

Some 1,700 permits are being issued daily after the Ministry of National Security eased restrictions, the report said. By comparison, an average of 94 were issued daily in November 2022, and an average of 42 a year earlier.

UNICEF DIRECTOR SAYS HER VISIT TO THE GAZA STRIP WAS DEVASTATING AND CALLS FOR UNRESTRICTED AID

JERUSALEM — The United Nations children’s agency says its top official visited the Gaza Strip early Wednesday and met with children and their families in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the south of the territory.

“What I saw and heard was devastating. They have endured repeated bombardment, loss and displacement,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement sent to The Associated Press. “Inside the Strip, there is nowhere safe for Gaza’s one million children to turn.”

Russell is among the few international officials to have visited the Gaza Strip since the war began following a surprise attack by Hamas on Oct. 7.

In the statement she called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” and for aid to be allowed unrestricted, saying that “in the hospital’s neonatal ward, tiny babies were clinging to life in incubators, as doctors worried how they could keep the machines running without fuel,” Russell said in the statement.

She also met UNICEF staff and their families. Over 100 U.N. staff have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Israel launched a war aimed at destroying Hamas.

ISRAEL SAYS IT’S CARRYING OUT A ‘PRECISE AND TARGETED OPERATION’ INSIDE GAZA’S SHIFA HOSPITAL

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says its forces have entered Gaza’s Shifa hospital, the site of a lengthy standoff.

The army had surrounded the facility as part of its ground offensive against Hamas, claiming the militant group conceals military operations in the hospital complex. But with hundreds of patients and medical personnel inside, it had refrained from entering.

Early Wednesday, the army said its forces were carrying out “a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area” in the hospital. It gave no further details but said it was taking steps to avoid harm to civilians.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it had warned “the relevant authorities in Gaza once again that all military activities within the hospital must cease within 12 hours. Unfortunately, it did not.”

Hamas has denied the Israeli accusations that it uses the hospital for cover.

ISRAEL SAYS IT WILL ALLOW FUEL SHIPMENTS INTO GAZA FOR HUMANITARIAN OPERATIONS

JERUSALEM — Israeli defense officials say they have agreed to allow fuel shipments into the Gaza Strip for humanitarian operations.

It is the first time that Israel has allowed fuel into the besieged territory since the Hamas militant group’s bloody cross-border invasion on Oct. 7.

Israel declared war and barred fuel shipments after the attack, saying Hamas would divert supplies for military use. But fuel is key to operations at Gaza hospitals, which run on generators, and the shortages hindered the United Nations from delivering humanitarian aid.

Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian affairs, announced early Wednesday that it would allow United Nations trucks to refill at the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border later Wednesday. It said the decision was in response to a request from the United States, but gave no details on when the shipments are to be delivered, other than to say it’s allowing 24,000 liters (6,340 gallons) of fuel into Gaza.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees warned late Tuesday that its fuel storage facility in Gaza had run dry and that UNRWA would soon be forced to halt operations.