Middle East: Israel strikes Al-Aqsa Hospital complex in Gaza

At least four people were killed on Monday morning, according to Palestinian medics, after an Israeli airstrike on the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital courtyard in the Gaza Strip.

The airstrike sent flames through a packed tent camp for displaced people, with more than two dozen people suffering from severe burns.

Footage published by the Associated Press showed children among the wounded.

The Israeli military said it had targeted militants that had been hiding among civilians.

Hospital records showed that four people were killed and 40 wounded. Up to 25 people were transferred to the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza after suffering severe burns.

Located in the central city of Deir al-Balah, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital was already struggling to treat many wounded people from an earlier strike on a school-turned-shelter nearby.

The second round of polio vaccinations for children, coordinated by the United Nations, is set to begin Monday in the Gaza Strip.

About 590,000 children under the age of ten will be vaccinated, according to UN agencies. Israel and the organizers have agreed to area-specific humanitarian truces.

The first round of two-dose polio vaccinations in Gaza took place in early September. Weeks earlier, the first case of polio in 25 years was discovered in the closed Palestinian territory. 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 90% of children need to be vaccinated to prevent the spread of the disease.

The mass vaccination campaign is being carried out by local health authorities, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA).

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy will meet with EU ministers to discuss the Middle East crisis and the war in Ukraine.

Lammy will underline closer UK-EU cooperation on global issues by attending the Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg on Monday.

It will be the first time in two years that a UK foreign secretary will join the group of 27 EU ministers, with the British government keen to signal its renewed commitment to European relations.

An Israeli airstrike has killed at least 20 people, including children in a school-turned-shelter in central Gaza, according to local hospitals.

The Sunday night strike also killed two women in Nuseirat. The school was sheltering some of the many Palestinians displaced by the year-long war in Gaza.

The bodies were taken to Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.

Some one million people have taken shelter in the city of Deir al-Balah after fleeing fighting elsewhere during more than a year of war.

US Vice President Kamala Harris urged Israel to do more to facilitate the flow of aid into northern Gaza.

"The UN reports that no food has entered northern Gaza in nearly 2 weeks. Israel must urgently do more to facilitate the flow of aid to those in need," she wrote on social media.

She added that civilians must be protected and have access to food, water and medicine and that international humanitarian law must be respected.

Four Israeli soldiers were killed and seven seriously wounded when a drone attack by Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia hit an army base about 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Tel Aviv on Sunday, the military said.

Israeli media reported that at least 67 people were wounded in the attack on the base, which is near the Israeli town of Binyamina in central Israel.

Hezbollah claimed responsibility, saying it had fired a "squadron of attack drones" at an Israeli military training camp in the town. 

Israeli broadcasters reported that many emergency services were at the scene and that no warning sirens had been activated before the projectile hit. 

Israel's sophisticated air defense system usually prevents such mass casualty incidents, although Hezbollah and other groups regularly launch barrages of drones and other projectiles.

Israel, the US, Germany and several other countries consider Hezbollah to be a terror organization, while the EU deems Hezbollah's military wing a terror group.  

dh/wd,zc (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)