BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia has been taken to Evercare Hospital in the capital for health check-up. She was taken to the hospital from her Gulshan-2 residence Firoza on Wednesday evening (May 1). BNP Chairperson's press wing member, Shairul Kabir Khan confirmed the matter to the reporters. Earlier on March 30, Khaleda Zia was admitted to Evercare Hospital. Doctors examined his health by keeping him in the CCU of Evercare Hospital. She returned home from the hospital on April 2.

Israel says its airstrike was targeting militants from the Islamic Jihad operating from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Amidst the fighting, a fresh round of negotiations about a possible truce is underway in Cairo. An Israeli airstrike hit a tent camp inside the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital compound in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza on Sunday. Israel's military said it targeted a command center operated by the Islamic Jihad group,  a militant group and ally of Hamas. "The command center and terrorists were struck precisely, intended on minimizing harm to uninvolved civilians in the area of the hospital," the military said. "The Al-Aqsa hospital building was not damaged and its functioning was not affected," it added. Thousands of people have been sheltering in tents in the hospital's courtyard to escape the fighting in Gaza. Reporters have also used the hospital courtyard as a safe place to work. A reporter for the AP news agency based in tents nearby filmed the aftermath of the strike and said people including women and children scattered and cried out. Two people were killed and 15 others wounded in the airstrike. Fighting also reported at other Gaza hospitals On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had "continued to eliminate" militants around the largest hospital, Al-Shifa in Gaza City, with around 200 reported killed after 13 days of fighting. The Red Crescent reported Israeli operations were also ongoing at Al-Amal Hospital, and Hamas reported fighting at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. Israel said hospitals in Gaza are used by Hamas and other militant groups as bases, Hamas and medical staff deny this. The UN World Health Organization warned that Gaza now has just 10 "minimally functioning" hospitals, down from 36 before the war. The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Sunday at least 32,782 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war,  including 77 whose bodies were brought to hospitals over the last 24 hours. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel launched a ground operation in Gaza in the wake of the terror attack by Hamas and other militants in southern Israel on October 7, in which 1,200 people were killed and some 250 hostages taken. Fresh round of talks in Cairo On Sunday, indirect cease-fire talks resumed in Cairo despite the ongoing fighting. Egypt, one of the mediators in the talks, hosted an Israeli delegation for the latest round of negotiations. According to the Reuters news agency, Hamas negotiators were not present at the talks in Cairo as they were waiting to hear what Israel proposed. The warring sides were discussing a six-week suspension of Israel's offensive in return for the proposed release of 40 of 130 hostages still held by Hamas militants in Gaza.

Popular actor and producer Zahid Hasan was admitted to the hospital this week with severe breathing problems. He returned home after receiving treatment from a hospital in Dhanmondi.   "Zahid was taken home on Tuesday (January 30) when his physical condition improved," Ahsan Habib Nasim, the President of 'Actors Equity' confirmed matter.   He said, "Zahid Hasan faced some breathing problems due to cold. Now he is healthy. He is following the doctor's advice at home."   According to some sources Zahid Hasan went to Nepal for the shooting of a drama on January 10. There he felt illness due to cold. However, actor Zahid is still active in the media. Apart from acting, he is also very busy in production.  

Renowned producer Mostafa Sarwar Farooqi was admitted to the hospital on January 22 with cerebral hemorrhage. After a few days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) there, he was transferred to the cabin. Farooqi is slowly recovering. So, doctors allowed him to return home from the hospital after the treatment. On Tuesday (January 30), a close relative of Tisha-Farooqi's family confirmed the matter in a media. In this context, he said that Faruqi's physical condition is gradually improving, so he was taken home on the afternoon of January 29. Notably, Farooqi has been involved in film for almost 25 years. His 'Something Like An Autobiography' was recently released on OTT.

Popular actor-producer of the 90s, Zahid Hasan, has been admitted to the hospital. He was admitted to a hospital in Dhanmondi in the capital this week. With severe breathing problems, he is under treatment in the hospital.   According to the hospital authorities, he was brought with the symptoms of asthma. He is admitted in a cabin in the C block of the institution.  But everything is under control now. Zahid Hasan is being cared for in the hospital by his wife actress Sadia Islam Mou and two children.   Moreover, actor Zahid is still active in the media. Apart from acting, he is also very busy in production. During Eid, in the past few years, his drama used to be one of the attractions of the TV program.

People who were trapped inside the hospital after a heavily armed gang surrounded the area in Port-au-Prince have been evacuated. The hospital director said three armored trucks were sent for the rescue. A heavily armed gang surrounded the Fontaine Hospital Center in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on Wednesday. The hospital is considered a lifeline to the community living in the Cite Soleil shantytown, which has been seeing violent attacks by gangs against each other as well as residents. The hospital founder and director, Jose Ulysse, told the AP news agency that gangs were setting homes around the hospital on fire, due to which people inside were unable to leave. Police help evacuate Ulysse had initially said some gang members entered the hospital, but later said none of them had come in, and denied reports that they had entered the facility and taken patients hostage. "There was no hostage-taking. There was a gang war, but the war is around the hospital. We've had neighboring houses burnt down," he told the AFP news agency. "All the health staff took cover... and we had to call the police to come and help us evacuate all the people who couldn't move on their own, among them women who had a caesarean yesterday and couldn't walk," he said. Ulysse said Haitian police arrived with three armored trucks and evacuated 40 children and 70 other patients to a safe space. Some patients fled the scene on their own. Ulysse said those responsible were members of the Brooklyn gang, led by Gabriel Jean-Pierre, also known as "Ti Gabriel." The gang has around 200 members and is involved in extortion, hijacking of goods and violence, according to a UN report. ean-Pierre is also the leader of a gang alliance called G-Pep, one of the two rival coalitions in Haiti. Haitian gangs have become more powerful since the assassination of  President Jovenel Moise, and the numbers of kidnappings and killings have risen. Earlier this year, at least 20 armed gang members burst into a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders and took away a patient in an operating room.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was highly critical of the failure of a UN Security Council resolution vetoed by the US concerning the conflict.  "The United Nations Security Council, which has become even more ineffective, has once again not fulfilled its mandate," Erdogan wrote in a very lengthy social media post.  "Western countries, which leave no stone unturned when it comes to human rights and freedoms, have taken no steps other than adding fuel to the fire," Erdogan alleged.  He also said "biased and two-faced" media organizations had "entered a race to whitewash human slaughter."  Erdogan had on Tuesday immediately blamed Israel for the al-Ahli hospital blast in Gaza City, alleging that the country's attacks were "devoid of the most basic human values." In his post on Wednesday, he made no mention of who the perpetrators were. However, he also said nothing about the now-disputed source of the explosion and wrote about the incident immediately after listing what he termed Israeli atrocities, leaving readers with a clear indication still of where he was assigning blame.  He said the attack "constitutes a crime against humanity and amounts to genocide against the people of Gaza."  Typically, Turkey and Erdogan are extremely sensitive about the use of the word genocide, particularly when governments use it in reference to the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in Anatolia during and also before World War I amid the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the founding of modern-day Turkey.  Following in the footsteps of several European governments, including France and Germany, US President Joe Biden recognized the event as a genocide in 2021.        

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina denounced the attack on a hospital in Gaza that killed innocent people including children, reiterating her call to global leaders to stop the war and arms race for the wellbeing of mankind. "We saw killing of people and children by bombing on a hospital in Gaza and blood stained faces of the children yesterday. I am urging the world leaders to stop the war and arms race," she said. The prime minister was addressing a programme marking the Sheikh Russel Day-2023 and distribution of Sheikh Russel Padak-2023 and Smart Bangladesh Padak-2023 coinciding with 60th birthday of Sheikh Russel, the youngest son of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Sheikh Russel Jatiyo Shishu Kishore Parishad and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division jointly organized the programme at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC). The prime minister said the war and arms race never brought welfare for the mankind except destruction and the women and children are the worst sufferers of the conflicts. She urged the world leaders to spend the money, used in producing arms, for food, health and development of the children. "We want peace as it gives prosperity while the war brings destruction. So, we don't want war rather peace. We always work for establishing the peace," she said. She also said the world witnessed beginning of Russia-Ukraine war last year and now sees the Israeli attack on Palestine. People and children are being killed both in the Palestine and Israel, the premier said. In such way, she said the children are becoming orphans losing their parents and the parents are losing their children in the war.   "We know their pain as we two sisters had become orphans in 1975," she said. The prime minister said they had seen the dreadfulness of the war for themselves during the War of Liberation in 1971. "I had seen by my own eyes the bodies lying down at different parts of Dhaka city," she said. She said she and her younger sister Sheikh Rehana were in forced exile abroad six years. "Spending time as refugee, without knowing when we could return to our country, was the most painful. So, we don't want war rather peace" she said. At the function, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun and five Deputy Commissioners (DCs) from Chattogram, Cox's Bazar, Dhaka, Panchagar and Thakurgaon districts received the Smart Bangladesh Padak-2023 from the premier. Sheikh Hasina also distributed Sheikh Russel awards among the winners of the competitions in different categories including education, painting, sports and cultural. At the same programme, the prime minister also inaugurated and laid foundation stone of some development schemes including Sheikh Russel Animation Lab and Sheikh Kamal IT Training and Incubation Centers under the ICT Division by swiping a smart card. She, as well, unveiled the cover of a book titled "Swaroner Aborone Sheikh Russel" edited by ICT Division State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak. A video message regarding Sheikh Russel's memory of Indian Army's Col (rtd) Ashok Kuma Tara was broadcast at the programme. Tara rescued the family members of Bangladesh's Father of the Nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from the captivity of the Pakistani occupation forces. Presided over by ICT Division's State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak, the programme was also addressed, among others, by ICT Division Secretary Md. Shamsul Arefin, Sheikh Russel Jatiyo Shishu Kishore Parishad Acting Chairman Chowdhury Nafeez Sarafat, Secretary General KM Shahidullah, Organising Secretary Fariduddin Ahmed Raton and child speaker Amira Nayer Chowdhury.

US President Joe Biden is on his way to Tel Aviv to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a show of support for Israel in the aftermath of the Hamas terror attacks on October 7. Biden's short visit was also supposed to include a summit with Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordanian King Abdullah II in Amman, Jordan, but this was canceled after a hospital blast in Gaza enflamed tensions even further.  Tuesday's blast at the hospital killed more than 500 people and sparked outrage with the Hamas-led Health Ministry in the enclave pointing the finger at Israel.  The Israeli military said it had no involvement and pinned the blame on a misfired Palestinian rocket. Biden will meet with Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet and seek a sense of Israel's plans in the days and weeks ahead, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Air Force One during the flight to Tel Aviv. "He'll be asking some tough questions, he'll be asking them as a friend, as a true friend of Israel, but he'll be asking some questions of them," Kirby said. Biden's trip to Israel follows German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's visit to Israel on Tuesday. Scholz stressed the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip during his visit. This was before the hospital attack in Gaza. "In contrast to Hamas, who use the citizens of Gaza as human shields, we are concerned about them. We want to protect civilians and avoid civilian victims," he told Netanyahu on Tuesday. Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the European Union, United States, Israel, Germany and others. 

At least 500 people have been killed as a result of an Israeli airstrike on the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, the Hamas-run Health Ministry claimed. Hundreds of victims were still under the rubble, it said. If confirmed, the attack on the al-Ahli Hospital would be by far the deadliest Israeli airstrike in five wars fought since 2008. The Israeli military says it is looking into the report.  Several hospitals in Gaza City have become refuges for hundreds of people, hoping they would be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all city residents and surrounding areas to evacuate to the south of the Gaza Strip. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning following a deadly air strike on a hospital in Gaza, state media reported. Around 3,000 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes across the densely-populated enclave since the war erupted on October 7. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, the majority gunned down by Hamas militants who crossed from Gaza and attacked border communities.