Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 594

Israeli settlers have damaged water pipes supplying Palestinian families in the al-Auja waterfall area, located north of Jericho in the occupied West Bank, according to a local rights organisation, Al Jazeera reports.

Hassan Mleihat, general supervisor of the Al-Baidar Organisation for the Defence of Bedouin Rights, told Wafa news agency that settlers tampered with the water supply to force Palestinian residents into leaving their land.

Martin Griffiths, the former head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, says Israel’s recent attacks on Gaza are “the worst” that have been experienced in the conflict so far.

“It is worse than ever,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that this is visible in the daily death toll in the enclave.

He said what is going on in Gaza is “unequivocally weaponisation of aid to create starvation and children are dying because of it”.

“There is no way you can look at it in any other way,” Griffiths, who is currently with private diplomacy firm Mediation Group International, stressed.

He said the amount of aid that recently went into the enclave is “tiny”, and it was kept in the south, adding that it is part of Israel and the US’s new plan for aid distribution. He stressed that the aid is kept in the south to draw people from the north to make a “dangerous journey”.

“Surely IDF (Israeli army) will check identities, and actually it is going to be a one-way trip,” Griffiths said. “It is aid with displacement, it is aid with victimisation, and not enough aid anyway.”

The Israeli military claims its aircraft struck 100 targets in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, Al Jazeera reports.

An army update claims one of the targets was a rocket launcher that was used to fire at southern Israel.

Palestinian fighters, as well as tunnels and infrastructure used by them, were among the other targets hit, according to the statement.

The director of medical relief in Gaza has said only 92 aid trucks have entered the enclave in three days, according to Al Jazeera.

He added that the healthcare, water and food situation in Gaza is very difficult, and that no food or medical aid has reached northern Gaza.

The statement contradicts Israel’s claim of 83 trucks entering Gaza yesterday, and 107 trucks being allowed on Thursday.

Al-Awda Hospital’s director tells Al Jazeera that Israeli forces have bombed the perimeter of the facility in Gaza, with shrapnel scattering in the area.

He said the hospital has been targeted for days and also reported attacks against ambulances transporting the sick and wounded.

Al Jazeera correspondents reported artillery shelling in the vicinity of the hospital in northern Gaza.

The Israeli military has said its forces have “neutralised” an assailant who attempted to carry out a stabbing attack at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, Al Jazeera reports.

No casualties were reported, it said in a statement, without offering further details.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 11 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks since dawn across the territory, Al Jazeera reports.

Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat) has said it allowed “83 trucks belonging to the UN and the international community” to carry humanitarian aid into Gaza yesterday.

In a post on X, it said the trucks “carrying humanitarian aid, including flour, food, medical equipment and pharmaceutical drugs, were transferred today (Friday) via the Kerem Shalom Crossing into the Gaza Strip”.

“All aid was transferred only after a thorough security inspection by personnel from the Ministry of Defence’s Crossing Points Authority,” the statement added.

“The IDF will continue to facilitate humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip while making every effort to ensure that the aid does not reach the hands of the Hamas terrorist organisation,” Cogat vowed.

Hamas has called US House of Representatives member Randy Fine’s suggestion to use a nuclear bomb in Gaza “an incitement to genocide and a crime against humanity”, Al Jazeera reports.

Hamas said in a statement on Telegram that “this rhetoric is filled with hatred and incitement to genocide”.

“This extremist call is a full-fledged crime and evidence of the fascist racism that governs the thinking of some American politicians.”

In a statement yesterday, Republican legislator Randy Fine told Fox News: “In World War II, we did not negotiate a surrender with the Nazis. We did not negotiate a surrender with the Japanese. We nuked the Japanese twice in order to get [an] unconditional surrender. That needs to be the same here.”

At least eight people have been confirmed dead since midnight local time (2am PKT), an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent on the ground in Gaza reports.

A new poll, carried out by Israeli television network Channel 12, asked respondents whether Prime Minister Netanyahu was more interested in remaining in power than winning the Gaza offensive or freeing the remaining captives, Al Jazeera reports.

Some 55 per cent of respondents said they believed Netanyahu saw staying in power as his main goal, while only 36pc said they believed returning the captives was paramount for the prime minister.

When returning the captives was exchanged for “winning the war”, responses remained roughly the same.

When asked why there hadn’t been another captives-for-ceasefire deal, some 53 pc of respondents said they believed it was due to political reasons.

The Israeli military carried out a drone strike targeting “several armed Palestinians” in central Gaza, The Times of Israel reports, citing an unnamed Israeli military source.

The source said some of those hit were “Hamas operatives, who were spotted next to humanitarian aid trucks”.

However, Gaza’s Government Media Office has confirmed six people were killed by Israeli air strikes in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, but denied the men were members of Hamas, Al Jazeera stated, citing Anadolu Agency and Middle East Monitor.

In a statement, the office said they were “aid security and protection teams … who were performing purely humanitarian tasks”.

The statement continued that the men were “securing two trucks carrying vital medicines and medical supplies for the health sector, to ensure their delivery to hospitals in devastated areas”.

It added that Israel “targeting them is a full-fledged crime”.

A spokesman for the UN’s World Food Programme tells Al Jazeera that Palestinians are travelling roughly 25 kilometres to get life-sustaining aid, two days after Israel allowed the first trucks into the enclave in months.

The aid, however, the spokesman said, is not nearly enough.

Gaza requires at least 500 trucks per day to adequately feed and care for the population.

Israeli forces have attacked a tent housing displaced Palestinians in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, wounding at least two people, Al Jazeera Arabic reports.

Two people have also been wounded after Israeli fighter jets bombed a location north of the town of Abasan al-Kabira near Khan Younis, according to AJA.

Israeli forces have also detonated explosive-laden robots in Khan Younis, the Quds News Network reports. No casualties have been reported so far.

Al Jazeera reports that two people have been killed and at least 10 others have been wounded in an Israeli strike in Gaza’s Jabalia area.

A new poll from Israeli newspaper Haaretz says that no less than 82 per cent of Israelis support the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

Among those secular Israelis polled, 69pc support the forced displacement.

The newspaper said 56pc of those Haaretz polled support the expulsion of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank.

Israeli settlers have torched Palestinian vehicles and houses in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s army and villagers said, the latest in a series of attacks on the village of Bruqin, close to the location where a pregnant settler was killed this month, Reuters reports.

Palestinian residents in Bruqin, who say they have faced constant attacks and abuse from Israeli settlers nearby, said a large group had shown up during the night, throwing Molotov cocktails and beating anyone in their way.

Akram Sabra, a resident of the village, said he had left his home to watch as dozens, possibly a hundred, people burned cars belonging to him and his family and threw a Molotov cocktail incendiary at his son’s house.

“I saw my vehicles were burned and then they beat me on the head and I am still dizzy,” he said.

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United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required” and again signalled that the UN won’t take part in a new US-backed distribution plan, Reuters reports.

“Without rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access, more people will die — and the long-term consequences on the entire population will be profound,” Guterres told reporters.

At least 66 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air attacks across the Gaza Strip since dawn, Al Jazeera reports citing Gaza’s health ministry.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), says the aid trickling into Gaza is “a needle in a haystack” amid dire conditions, Al Jazeera reports.

“The people of Gaza have been starved and deprived of the basics, including water and medicines for more than 11 weeks,” he wrote in a post on X. Mothers and fathers have run out of food for their children. Older people died because of [a] lack of medicines.“

“A meaningful and uninterrupted flow of aid is the only way to prevent the current disaster from spiralling further,” Lazzarini added.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has said, “Palestinians in Gaza are enduring what may be the cruellest phase of this cruel conflict” as Israel ramps up its military offensive, AFP reports.

“For nearly 80 days, Israel blocked the entry of life-saving international aid,” he said in a statement. “The entire population of Gaza is facing the risk of famine.

“The Israeli military offensive is intensifying with atrocious levels of death and destruction. “