Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital a ‘death zone,’ says WHO

Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa, has become a “death zone,” the World Health Organization says, announcing plans to evacuate the facility, as Israel’s army said it was expanding operations to destroy Hamas.

The assessment came after a visit by WHO and other UN officials to the hospital, which Israeli troops raided earlier this week. The Israeli military has been operating around the hospital over the past week, uncovering what it has said is evidence of Hamas’s use of the site for terrorist activities.

Israel says Hamas’s main command center is under the hospital in an underground network and its findings revealed tunnels shafts, weapons caches, and evidence that hostages were held there.

The military also recovered the bodies of two Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas during their October 7 massacre, from the area of Shifa Hospital this week.

As the military secures its control over Gaza City, it has begun warning residents of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis to evacuate, indicating that the ground operation will likely expand to southern areas of the strip in the days and weeks to come.

Report: Deal ‘close’ on release of dozens of women, kids held hostage in Gaza

Israel, the United States and Hamas are “close” to an agreement via Qatari intermediators that would free dozens of women and children hostages being held by terrorists in Gaza, in exchange for a five-day pause in fighting, the Washington Post reports.

The publication cites a “detailed, six-page agreement,” that says Israel and Hamas will freeze all hostilities for at least five days while an “initial 50 or more” of some 240 hostages taken from Israel during Hamas’s shock October 7 assault “are released in batches every 24 hours.”

The reported deal will also include a “significant increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance, including fuel” that will enter the Gaza Strip.

In response to a request for comment to The Times of Israel, a spokesperson for the United States National Security Council said: “We have not reached a deal yet, but we continue to work hard to get to a deal.”

In its report, the Washington Post cites Arab and other diplomats who said the deal has been in the works during weeks of talks in Doha, Qatar, which is leading mediation efforts toward a ceasefire and release of the hostages.

The outline of the deal was reported earlier this week. On Saturday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Israel wants families — parents and children — to be released together, and has been insisting on that in the talks.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday dismissed “a lot of incorrect reports” in recent days about imminent agreements to free at least some of the hostages and said there was no deal yet “as of now.”

In his briefing Saturday, Netanyahu was asked if Israel had passed up a serious deal first reported on Wednesday for the release of some 50 hostages, and if he was insisting that all the hostages be released.

He responded that “there was no deal on the table” and he could not elaborate further.

Canadian university fires head of sexual assault center who signed letter denying Oct. 7 rapes

The University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada indicates in a statement that it fired the head of the campus sexual assault center who had signed onto an open letter denying Hamas-led terrorists raped women during their devastating October 7 onslaught in southern Israel.

Samantha Pearson signed the letter, titled “Stand with Palestine: Call on Political Leaders to End Their Complicity in Genocide,” which slammed center-left National Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh for repeating “the unverified accusation that Palestinians were guilty of sexual violence,” among other critiques of the lawmaker on the issue.

The letter was authored by Susan Kim, a city councilor in Victoria, and Sarah Jama, a member of Ontario’s provincial parliament who was booted from the NDP over remarks only three days after the October 7 massacre calling Israel an “apartheid” state while ignoring Hamas’s atrocities.

In a letter posted to X, the University of Alberta says “the recent improper and unauthorized use of the name of the [university]’s Sexual Assault Centre in endorsing an open letter has raised understandable concerns from members of our community and the public.”

“Effective immediately, the director of the centre is no longer employed by the university, the letter reads. A new interim director was appointed to head the campus sexual assault center, the university says.

“I want to be clear that the former employee’s personal views and opinions do not in any way represent those of the University of Alberta,” writes university president Bill Flanagan. “The University of Alberta stands firmly and unequivocally against discrimination and hatred on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, national origin, and other protected categories. We recognize the historical and ongoing harms of antisemitism and commit to doing all we can as a university to advance a world free of prejudice and discrimination.”

Flanagan says the event has been “profoundly hurtful and may have compromised the trust of individuals in our community” and also negatively impacted the critical nature of the assault center’s work.

“On behalf of the university, I apologize for the hurt and distress this issue has caused members of our community and beyond,” he says.

Israeli police have begun building several sexual assault cases against terrorists, citing eyewitnesses, video evidence, testimony from terrorists and photographs of victims’ bodies that all point toward such offenses.

The police confirmed a Times of Israel investigation that found physical evidence of sexual assault was broadly not collected from October 7 victims, amid the still ongoing need to identify bodies and complications posed by an active warzone.