Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 582

Hamas has called on US President Donald Trump’s administration to “continue its efforts” to end the Israeli invasion of Gaza, after the group said it handed over US-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander, AFP reports.

“We affirm that serious and responsible negotiations yield results in the release of prisoners” and “urge President Trump’s administration to continue its efforts to end this brutal war”, Hamas said in a statement.

Israeli officials have put a brave face on President Donald Trump bypassing them on a Middle East trip this week, but his decision to do so is the latest to sow doubt in Israel about where the United States stands in Washington’s priorities.

On Sunday, a few days after announcing plans for an expanded military operation in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it had been informed by the US of an agreement to release American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander, after talks between Washington and Hamas that did not include Israel.

Trump, who will be visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, also caused consternation in Israel last week by abruptly announcing the US would stop bombing Houthis in Yemen, days after a Houthi missile hit near Israel’s main airport.

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At least 29 Palestinians have been killed and 94 injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the past 24 hours, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry, Al Jazeera reports.

Four bodies of people killed in previous Israeli attacks were also recovered over the past day, it added.

Israel’s military offensive against Gaza has killed 52,862 people and wounded 119,648 others since October 7, 2023, the ministry statement on Telegram said.

At least 2,749 Palestinians were killed and 7,607 others wounded since Israel broke the ceasefire on March 18 this year, it added.

A global hunger monitor has said the entire population of Gaza continues to face a critical risk of famine, Reuters reports.

The latest assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysed a period from April 1 to May 10 this year and projected the situation until the end of September, according to a summary of its key findings.

The IPC analysis found that 1.95 million people, or 93 per cent of the population in the Israeli-blockaded Palestinian enclave, are living through high levels of acute food insecurity, including 244,000 experiencing the most severe, or “catastrophic”, levels.

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Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suggested that Israel should begin to phase out the billions of dollars in military assistance it receives from the US, according to the Maariv daily, reports Al Jazeera.

Netanyahu told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee on Sunday evening that the country currently receives $4bn from the US annually.

“I think we will need to wean ourselves off American military aid,” he was quoted as saying.

While there were no further details on the motives behind Netanyahu’s statement, it comes amid reports of strained ties between the Israeli leader and US President Donald Trump, as well as direct talks between Hamas and the Americans on the release of captives.

Abu Obaidah, spokesman for the Qassam Brigades, says the armed wing of Hamas has decided to release US-Israeli captive Edan Alexander today, Al Jazeera reports.

The captive will be handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross and taken to Israel, where he will be reunited with his family members.

This move is seen as a part of ongoing efforts to restart dialogue, according to Al Jazeera.

In a message relayed by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the family of the captive urged Israel to secure the release of all remaining captives “without delay”.

Egypt and Qatar have welcomed an announcement by Hamas that it would release US-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander from Gaza, as part of direct talks with the United States towards a ceasefire, AFP reports.

In a joint statement, the countries, who along with the US have mediated talks between Hamas and Israel, called it “a gesture of goodwill and an encouraging step toward a return to the negotiating table to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, the release of prisoners and detainees, and ensure the safe and unhindered flow of aid to address the tragic conditions in the strip”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that his country would not stop fighting in Gaza even while negotiations with Hamas take place, after the group announced the release of a hostage following talks with the United States, AFP reports.

“According to Israel’s policy, the negotiations will take place under fire with a commitment to achieving all the objectives of the war,” said a statement from Netanyahu’s office.

Hamas has said it will release a US-Israeli hostage held in Gaza as the group revealed it was engaged in direct talks with the United States towards a ceasefire in the territory, AFP reports.

“Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, a dual US national, will be released as part of efforts towards a ceasefire” and the reopening of aid crossings, Hamas said in a statement.

The family of 21-year-old Alexander said they had been informed that he might be released “in the coming days”.

US President Donald Trump hailed the “monumental news” in a post on social media, describing it as a “good faith gesture”.

“Hopefully this is the first of those final steps necessary to end this brutal conflict,” he added.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has said that unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state would force Israel to take “unilateral actions”, following announcements by several countries, including France, that they plan to take such a step, AFP reports.

“There have been talks about an initiative to unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state… any attempt to do so unilaterally will only harm future prospects for a bilateral process and will push us for unilateral actions in response,” Saar said at a press conference in Jerusalem.

The conflict in Gaza cannot be solved with military means, and a political solution should be at the centre, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said in Jerusalem, Reuters reports.

He said that Germany would do whatever it takes to guarantee Israel’s security, but this does not mean that his country cannot criticise Israel’s course of action, adding that this “must not lead to antisemitism.”

The new foreign minister also said he is not sure whether military action in Gaza will serve Israel’s security.

The newly elected Pope Leo XIV said he was “profoundly saddened” by Israel’s offensive in Gaza in his first Sunday message since his election as pontiff, Reuters reports.

He called for an immediate ceasefire, humanitarian aid and the release of the remaining hostages.

“No more war!” the pope said, repeating a frequent call of the late Pope Francis.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees termed the starvation in Gaza “an expression of absolute cruelty”, calling it “man-made and politically motivated”.

“It has been over 9 weeks of siege on Gaza, with the State of Israel banning the entry of all humanitarian aid, medical, and commercial supplies,” the group said in a statement on X.

“The longer this blockade continues, the more irreversible harm is being done to countless lives. UNRWA has thousands of trucks ready to enter, and our teams in Gaza are ready to scale up the delivery.”

Gaza’s civil defence has reported eight deaths, including four young children, in an Israeli air strike on tents housing displaced people in the southern city of Khan Younis, AFP reports.

Israeli fighter jets targeted three tents housing dozens of displaced people overnight, killing “eight people, including four children aged two to five and two women”, civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

The Israeli military, which resumed its offensive in Gaza on March 18 after a two-month truce, did not immediately comment on the strike.

Video filmed by AFP shows rescuers in the dark evacuating bodies by ambulance, one of them in a white plastic body bag while the other was wrapped in a blanket, as well as a wounded baby.

Bassal said the Israeli military also destroyed five houses with explosives in the east of Gaza City, in the territory’s north, and fired artillery at the Abassa area east of Khan Yunis, without reporting any casualties.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his counterpart Saudi Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah, in Jeddah, where the two discussed regional issues and growing concerns over Israel’s war on Gaza, Middle East Eye reports.

According to a statement from Iran’s foreign ministry, the pair addressed bilateral relations and developments in the besieged Palestinian territory.

“The top Iranian diplomat underscored the necessity for the Muslim world to confront threats and challenges, particularly concerning the [sic] occupied Palestine, halting the ongoing genocide there, and preventing the colonial scheme to erase Palestine,” the ministry said.

A new documentary purports to name the Israeli soldier who killed Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, who was gunned down in the West Bank while reporting in 2022, AFP reports.

Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist known for her coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict, was shot dead in Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank while she worked, wearing a bulletproof vest marked “press.”

Produced by independent news site Zeteo, the documentary “Who killed Shireen?” names for the first time the suspect as Alon Scaggio, an elite soldier.

The documentary alleges that Scaggio, then 20, had completed training for the elite Duvdevan unit just three months prior.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said “it is the first time that a potential suspect has been named in connection with an Israeli killing of a journalist”, according to its records dating back to 1992.

Impunity in the case “has effectively given Israel permission to silence hundreds more” journalists, the CPJ said.

Hamas’s armed wing released a video showing two Israeli hostages alive in the Gaza Strip, with one of the two men calling for an end to the 19-month-long offensive, AFP reports.

The pair were identified by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group as Elkana Bohbot and Yosef Haim Ohana, who were kidnapped during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

The undated three-minute video footage released by Hamas’s Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades shows one of the hostages, 36-year-old Bohbot, visibly weak and lying on the floor wrapped in a blanket.

The second hostage, Ohana, 24, speaks in Hebrew, urging the Israeli government to end the military offensive in Gaza and secure the release of all remaining captives.

Israel may ban international media from entering Gaza, but the military campaign in the Palestinian territory will feature at the Cannes film festival this year, including in a documentary whose protagonist was killed in an Israeli strike, AFP reports.

Fatima Hassouna, a 25-year-old Gazan photojournalist, is the main character in Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi’s documentary ‘Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk’.

The filmmaker, a refugee from Iran, made ‘Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk’ from video phone calls with Hassouna over more than 200 days of conflict.

On April 15, she rang the young Palestinian to tell her the film had been selected for Cannes, and they immediately started trying to organise for her to attend the French festival.

But the following day, an Israeli air strike killed her along with 10 relatives in her family home in Gaza. Only her mother survived. The Cannes Film Festival expressed “its horror and deep sorrow at this tragedy”.

Thousands of Israelis rallied in central Tel Aviv, calling on the government to end the Gaza offensive and secure the immediate release of Israeli captives held in the besieged Palestinian enclave, Al Jazeera reports.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that in Tel Aviv, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an Israeli campaign group, held its weekly rally Saturday in “Hostages Square”, while another demonstration by families of captives is taking place outside the Israeli military headquarters.

A separate antigovernment protest also occurred at Habima Square in Tel Aviv.

The Times of Israel reported that Shai Mozes, whose parents were held captive and released in separate exchange deals, told the crowd at the protest in Habima Square that Israel’s “real enemy is not Hamas, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is destroying Israel as a Jewish and democratic state”.

The United States is no longer demanding Saudi Arabia normalise ties with Israel as a condition for progress on civil nuclear cooperation talks, two sources with knowledge of the matter have told Reuters ahead of US President Donald Trump’s visit next week.

Dropping the demand that Saudi Arabia establish diplomatic relations with Israel would be a major concession by Washington.

The kingdom has repeatedly said it would not recognise Israel without a Palestinian state, frustrating the Joe Biden administration’s attempts to expand the Abraham Accords signed during Trump’s first term.

Under those accords, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco normalised relations with Israel. Progress towards Saudi recognition of Israel has been halted by fury in Arab countries over the conflict raging in Gaza. The nuclear talks had also stumbled over Washington’s non-proliferation concerns.

In a possible sign of a new approach, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that Saudi Arabia and the United States were on a “pathway” to a civil nuclear agreement when he visited the kingdom in April.

Saudi Arabia’s government media office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Governments must act now to stop the horrors in Gaza, and that the suffering there is reaching a point where it “questions the very foundations of our humanity”, Reuters reports quoting the director-general of the Red Cross.

Dozens of community kitchens in Gaza shut their doors due to a lack of supplies, closing off a lifeline used by hundreds of thousands of people and raising fears of further malnutrition-related deaths.

“Here is a moment of decision for states and for world actors and for parties to not allow this horror to continue uninterrupted,” Director General of the International Committee of the Red Cross Pierre Kraehenbuehl told reporters in Geneva.

“Everybody should feel deep indignation about what is happening in Gaza,” he said, without attributing blame. “I can’t reconcile myself with the human cost of this conflict and frankly if this is the future of warfare, we should all be terrified.

“We should all be aware that this questions the very foundations of our humanity,” he added.

The ICRC has already warned that its humanitarian response is on the verge of collapse in Gaza and Kraehenbuehl said on Thursday that the next few days would be “absolutely decisive”.

“There’s a moment when we will run out of everything that’s left,” he said.

Gaza’s civil defence agency has said that a lack of fuel has forced three-quarters of its emergency vehicles to stop operating, more than two months into an Israeli aid blockade, AFP reports.

“Seventy-five per cent of our vehicles have stopped operating due to a lack of diesel fuel,” the agency’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP, adding that its first responders were also facing a “severe shortage of electric generators and oxygen devices”.

Israeli strikes have killed at least 100 people in Gaza in the past 24 hours in attacks on homes, markets, and restaurants, Middle East Eye reports.

Beit Lahia strike kills 3: An Israeli air strike destroyed the Rayan family home near Tal al-Rabi’ School, raising the 24-hour death toll to 100, medical sources confirmed to Wafa.

Displaced targeted: Two Palestinians died when bombs hit a tent shelter east of Sheikh Radwan Lake, north of Gaza City, on Wednesday evening.

Drone attack in Al-Zeitoun: Israeli forces killed Fadi Azmi Abu Ajwa and Montaser Samir Abu Ajwa in a strike on civilians on Al-Sikka Street.

Nuseirat camp bombed: Warplanes fired heavily north of the camp, while a separate drone attack wounded civilians in a residential building. Al-Awda Hospital received a fisherman’s body recovered from the central Gaza shore.

Khan Yunis assault: A house bombing in Abasan al-Jadida injured multiple civilians.

Gaza City massacre: At least 32 killed and 86 wounded when strikes hit a restaurant and market in Al-Rimal. Journalist Yahya Subaih was among the dead.