Israel-Gaza crisis 2014 – story so far

The Channel 4 News team has been in Gaza since the crisis escalated at the end of June. Since then at least 800 Palestinians have been killed and 32 Israeli soldiers and two Israeli civilians.

Here is how the events have been covered by the news teams on the ground.

Warning: some of the footage may be distressing

9 July 2014

Khaled Abu Ghali, a journalist living in Rafah, Gaza, tells Channel 4 News it is mainly the children who suffer as Israel targets sites in his town and across the rest of Gaza.

10 July 2014

“If Gaza was located off the coast of Lincolnshire, people in Manchester and London would live in fear of Hamas rockets” – the PR battle between Israel and Hamas intensifies.

14 July 2014

Foreign Correspondent Jonathan Miller speaks to local health officials to assess the damage of the latest Israeli operation against Palestinian militants.

16 July 2014

As four boys die in a shell attack in Gaza, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev says: “The story with these four boys is a tragedy – let’s be clear, the Israeli military does not target civilians.”

17 July 2014

The Israeli army releases footage it says shows gunmen tunnelling into Israel. A military source says that Israeli forces repelled at least a dozen Hamas gunmen who tunnelled in from the Gaza Strip.

Four children playing football on a beach are killed by shells, allegedly from an Israeli gunboat.

18 July 2014

The Israeli military destroys el-Wafa hospital in the Gaza Strip, the Channel 4 News team hears, as they witnesses another strike on a 4-storey block elsewhere in Gaza.

20 July 2014

Professor Mads Gilbert, who is tending the wounded in Gaza, writes to Channel 4 News with an account of the effects of the Israeli shelling on Saturday night.

21 July 2014

For the first time in a major Arab-Israeli conflict, the world has access to non-traditional sources of reality such as Twitter – and it means Israel is losing the battle for hearts and minds, blogs Paul Mason.

Jon Snow arrives in Israel: “Welcome to Israel. We wish you a pleasant stay. If this is not your final destination, we wish you a pleasant onward journey.”

“I am always struck, when coming to places in turmoil, by the kindness and welcome I receive from the mothers and daughters affected,” writes Channel 4 News producer Anna-Lisa Fuglesang in Gaza.

As Tony Blair prepares to deliver a speech marking the 20th anniversary of his becoming Labour leader, Michael Crick asks the quartet’s middle east envoy why he is in London and not in the Middle East.

22 July 2014

Al-Shifa Hospital, the main medical facility in Gaza, opens its doors for thousands of Palestinians fleeing an ongoing Israeli shelling of eastern Gaza City.

Many residents in Gaza are running out of food and water, with no electricity. Efforts to broker a humanitarian ceasefire which would allow people out to find supplies have come to nothing.

Jonathan Miller’s friend is trapped in the middle of the fire zone. For four days and four nights now she has been under non-stop bombardment – here she writes about her experience.

Dr Medhat Abbas from al-Aqsa Hospital says that nobody is safe in Gaza. “If you want to stay alive, stay far from children, because these are the declared targets of the Israeli army,” he says.

24 July 2014

Women, children and UN staff are among the dead after a school where Palestinians were sheltering in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, is hit.

Jon Snow asks Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor why Israel does not cease its attacks on Gaza. Mr Palmor responds that Israel has already agreed to an Egyptian ceasefire.