Israel-Hamas LIVE: IDF tanks move in on Indonesia Hospital in Gaza as Qatar says mediators are inching closer to hostage release deal

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said Monday Israeli forces had struck the Indonesian Hospital and killed at least 12 people, including patients, in the north of the war-torn Palestinian territory.

Dozens more were wounded and around 700 people remained trapped inside the 'besieged' medical centre, said Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman of the ministry.

Israel did not immediately comment.

The latest reported blow to Gaza's devastated health sector came as hopes rose that 31 premature babies evacuated from another hospital, Al-Shifa, would be taken from a Gaza clinic to safety in Egypt through the Rafah crossing.

At least 14 Palestinians were killed in two Israeli air strikes on houses in the town of Rafah, near the border with Egypt, health officials said.

Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels said yesterday that they had seized in the Red Sea a ship owned by an Israeli businessman and rerouted it to Yemen's coast.

The Iran-backed rebels in Yemen seized the Galaxy Leader on Sunday.

The vessel is operated by a Japanese firm, prompting Tokyo to intervene and 'directly' approach the rebels.

The announcement came days after the rebel group threatened to target Israeli vessels in the waterway over Israel's war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the ship 'was hijacked with Iran guidance by the Yemenite Huthi militia'.

In response, Iran's foreign ministry said the Israeli accusations were 'invalid' and 'projection meant to escape from the situation they are facing'.

'We have repeatedly announced that the resistance groups in the region represent their countries and make decisions and act based on the interests of their countries.

'The Zionist regime (Israel) cannot accept that it suffered a major defeat in Palestine and wants to find a justification for the defeat it suffered by accusing the Islamic Republic of Iran,' Kanani added.

Thousands of family members of the roughly 240 hostages held in Gaza streamed into Jerusalem last night, criticising the Israeli government.

They castigated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his management of the war with Hamas, and pleaded with the government to do whatever it takes to bring their loved ones home.

As public pressure mounted, Netanyahu said Saturday that Israel's War Cabinet would meet with representatives of the families this week.

'I am marching with you. The Israeli people are marching with you,' he said. 'I promise, when we have something to say, we will inform you.'

The march capped a five-day trek from Tel Aviv and represented the largest protest on behalf of the hostages since they were dragged into Gaza by Hamas on October 7 as part of the terrorists' deadly attack in southern Israel.

Emily Hand turned nine on Friday. Like many little girls the world over, she loves to sing and to dance like Beyonce.

But unlike those other girls, Emily 'spent her birthday in the Gaza tunnels', one of the scores of hostages snatched by Hamas during its deadly October 7 attack on Israel, according to her father Thomas Hand.

'She wouldn't even know it was her birthday. She doesn't know what day it is, and what date it is,' Irish-born Hand told AFP news agency Sunday, making a heart-rending appeal to the UK to bring Emily home.

Based on initial information, the 63-year-old thought his daughter was dead.

'But that was mistaken identity,' he said on the sidelines of a protest for the release of the more than 200 people being held by the Palestinian Islamist group.

The DNA tests didn't match, he added.

Watch Mr Hand speak outside Downing Street on Sunday:

'Later on we had an eyewitness... (who) saw her being led away by the terrorists, into a van off to Gaza' after the attack on the Beeri kibbutz, Mr Hand said.

For the father, who moved to Israel at the age of 32, Beeri had been idyllic. 'Seriously it was paradise on earth... until it all came crushing down' on that 'terrifying day'.

The Beeri kibbutz saw some of the worst atrocities when Gaza-based Hamas militants stormed across the militarised border, killing around 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

Reporting by AFP.

Israeli tanks are positioned around a hospital in north Gaza where 12 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded, the territory's health ministry has said today.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Israeli military of the reports from the Indonesian Hospital but the Palestinian news agency WAFA said the facility had been hit by artillery fire.

At the other end of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, at least 14 Palestinians were killed in two Israeli air strikes on houses in the town of Rafah, health officials said.

Rafah is near the border with Egypt.

The Israeli military issued a statement with video of air strikes and troops going house-to-house, saying it killed three Hamas company commanders and a squad of Palestinian fighters, without giving specific locations.

Hello and welcome to MailOnline's live coverage of the on-going conflict in the Middle East between Israel and the Hamas terror group.

Israel launched its offensive against Hamas after a wave of brutal cross-border raids on October 7 left 1,200 people dead, the majority of them civilians.

The Hamas government says the death toll from Israel's aerial bombardment and ground operations in Gaza has reached 13,000, thousands of them children.

Six weeks into the war, Israel is facing intense international pressure to justify its bloody toll. Israel officials have warned a 'window of legitimacy' for the war to rout Hamas may be closing.

Here's what else you need to know on day 44 of the war: