Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 646

Police in London arrested dozens of protesters on a second successive Saturday for supporting Palestine Action, a week after the UK government banned the activist group under anti-terror laws, AFP reports.

“Officers have made 41 arrests for showing support for a proscribed organisation,” the Metropolitan Police said on X, noting another person had been arrested for common assault.

“The area was cleared within the last hour,” it added in a mid-afternoon update.

The number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army in Gaza since dawn has risen to 87, Al Jazeera reports quoting hospital sources in the territory.

Among the victims were 34 people who were killed while waiting for aid, the sources said.

Police in London say they are making arrests at a protest in support of Palestine Action, a direct action protest group which was banned under anti-terrorism legislation last week, according to Al Jazeera.

Protesters gathered in central London for the second Saturday in a row since the group was proscribed under the Terrorism Act, making support for the group a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

London’s Metropolitan Police said in a post on X that its officers were “responding to a protest in support of Palestine Action” and were making arrests. It had earlier posted a warning that it would take action against anyone showing support for the group.

Gaza’s health ministry reports that 59 bodies were brought to hospitals across the enclave in the past 24 hours, nine of which were recovered from under the rubble, Al Jazeera reports.

Medical sources confirmed to Al Jazeera that at least 71 people have been killed since dawn today.

At least 57,882 Palestinians have been killed and 138,095 wounded by Israeli attacks across Gaza since October 2023.

Since March 18, when Israel broke the ceasefire reached with Hamas, at least 7,311 Palestinians have been killed and 26,054 wounded.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has warned in a statement that the fuel shortage in Gaza has reached critical levels, putting at risk essential services for 2.1 million people, according to Al Jazeera.

The statement said, “Fuel is the backbone of survival in Gaza. It powers hospitals, water systems, sanitation networks, ambulances, and every aspect of humanitarian operations.”

These operations include transporting essential goods across the Gaza Strip and operating bakeries that produce bread for the population that is “teetering on the edge of starvation”. The statement warned that without fuel, these lifelines will vanish.

“The UN agencies and humanitarian partners cannot overstate the urgency of this moment: fuel must be allowed into Gaza in sufficient quantities and consistently to sustain life-saving operations,” it said.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reports from Gaza that at least 30 people have been killed and 130 wounded at the only remaining food distribution point operated by GHF in southern Gaza.

Mahmoud reported that the Israeli army opened fire indiscriminately on a large crowd.

“Many desperate families in the north have been making dangerous journeys all the way to the south to reach the only operating distribution centre in Rafah,” he said.

He added that “many of the bodies are still on the ground”, and that the wounded have been transferred to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

On Wednesday, the GHF said it was closing its hub in Khan Younis for maintenance and renovation, leaving only one site open in Rafah. GHF-led operations are therefore forcing Palestinians to travel south if they want food, creating dangerous bottlenecks, according to Al Jazeera.

Talks aimed at securing a ceasefire in Gaza are stalling over the extent of Israeli forces’ withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave, Palestinian and Israeli sources familiar with the negotiations in Doha have said, Reuters reports.

The indirect talks over a US proposal for a 60-day ceasefire are nonetheless expected to continue, the sources said, despite the latest obstacles in clinching a deal.

A Palestinian source said that Hamas has rejected the withdrawal maps which Israel has proposed, as they would leave around 40 per cent of the territory under Israeli control, including all of the southern area of Rafah and further territories in northern and eastern Gaza.

Two Israeli sources said Hamas wants Israel to retreat to the lines it held in a previous ceasefire before it renewed its offensive in March.

The Palestinian source said matters regarding aid and guarantees for ending the conflict were also presenting a challenge, and added that the crisis may be resolved with more US intervention.

As the Gaza Strip marks 103 days of total blockade by Israel, government officials have said hundreds of thousands of people, including 650,000 children, are facing famine “amid shameful international silence”, according to Al Jazeera.

A government statement said that Israeli forces closed all crossings and prevented the entry of food, medicine, and fuel “in one of the most severe crimes of collective siege in modern times”.

“Over the past three days, we have recorded dozens of deaths due to shortages of food and essential medical supplies, in an extremely cruel humanitarian situation.”

The statement added that 67 children have died of famine so far and approximately 1.25 million people in Gaza are experiencing “catastrophic hunger”.

The Israeli army has said its forces attacked Gaza 250 times in the last 48 hours, claiming all its attacks were directed at “terrorist” targets, Al Jazeera reports.

In a statement, the Israeli army said that five divisions continue to invade the enclave and that its air force has killed “dozens” in support of its ground forces, including in the Shujayea and Zeitoun neighbourhoods in northern Gaza.

At least 60 Palestinians have now been confirmed killed in the Gaza Strip since dawn as Israeli forces ramp up their attacks.

The figure includes at least 27 aid seekers, about 800 of whom have been killed while trying to get flour to feed their starving families since the notorious Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started its operations.

Medical sources also confirmed to Al Jazeera that at least 180 Palestinians have been wounded so far today.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz has published a picture of the ruins of Gaza, saying, “After Rafah, Beit Hanoon”, according to Al Jazeera.

Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city that borders Egypt, has been almost entirely destroyed by the Israeli army. Beit Hanoon is a major city in the northern part of the enclave, which is now under heavy siege by Israeli forces.

At least 26 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip since dawn, including at least 13 in Gaza City in the north, Al Jazeera reports.

Four people were killed and 10 wounded in a strike on a residence on Jaffa Street in the Tuffah area, east of Gaza City.

Nasser Hospital said the death toll from the Israeli bombing of tents housing displaced people in the so-called “humanitarian” al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis, has risen to 11.

A source at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said two people were killed and many wounded in an Israeli drone attack on a tent housing displaced people south of Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.

The Wafa news agency reported that a mother and her three children were killed in a bombing of Jamal Abdel Nasser Street, opposite the Islamic University, west of Gaza City.

In a statement posted on X, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees urged Israel to allow the resumption of the delivery of humanitarian aid to the estimated two million people living in Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

“No soap, no clean water. Children in Gaza can’t be bathed properly because of the ongoing siege,” the UNRWA statement said. “This, coupled with overcrowded shelters and summer heat, can lead to dire health consequences. The siege must be lifted.”

Palestinians in Gaza are facing a joint assault by Israel and the United States, Palestinian Ambassador to India Abdullah M. Abu Shawesh has said, The Hindu reports.

At a press conference in New Delhi yesterday, Mr. Abu Shawesh said Israel was “committing genocide” and said that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) had destroyed two schools and a university library that were built with funding from India.

“Israel is not fighting alone. It is a joint Israel-US war that we are facing in Gaza. Israel is not just killing, it’s committing genocide.”

“Israel also has the support of many other Western countries, including the United Kingdom, which is also supporting Israel in its killing of innocent people,” Abu Shawesh was quoted as saying.

Power has gone out in parts of Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, once the largest health facility in the enclave, Al Jazeera reports.

Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the hospital’s director, told Al Jazeera late last night: “We have been warning for days and weeks about fuel shortages, and we are living in a state of emergency.”

“We don’t have enough fuel left until morning.”

He said blood banks, nurseries and oxygen stations were not able to operate because of a lack of fuel. “Patients will be doomed to certain death if fuel is not provided to hospitals,” Salmiya warned.

He noted that Meningitis was spreading in Gaza because of the lack of clean drinking water.

Four seafarers onboard the Liberian-flagged and Greek-owned Eternity C bulk carrier have now been confirmed killed, Al Jazeera reports, citing an unidentified official who spoke to Reuters.

This brings the total death toll of maritime attacks by the Houthis in Yemen in opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza to eight, with the latest deaths before the attack on Monday having occurred in June 2024.

The ship is now reportedly adrift and listing as a result of the Houthi attack, which used sea drones and rocket-propelled grenades, Al Jazeera added.

After the Houthis showed video footage of sinking the Magic Seas, another ship attacked on Sunday, UK maritime security firm Ambrey has confirmed the sinking of the ship as well.

Hamas has released a short statement in reaction to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks that he will release all those held in Gaza and force Hamas to surrender, Al Jazeera reports.

Hamas said that such statements reflect “psychological defeat” as they do not match realities on the ground. It added that Israeli army leaders have admitted they have not managed to retrieve Israeli captives through military action.

“Gaza will not surrender,” Hamas said.

“It has become clear that there is no way to secure the release [of the captives] except through a serious deal with the resistance.”

Human rights group Euro-Med Monitor has said Palestinians in Gaza have less space than detainees in the notorious US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Al Jazeera reports.

“After 21 months of continuous Israeli assault, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are confined to less than 15 per cent of the enclave,” the Euro-Med Monitor said in a statement.

“Approximately 2.3 million people are crammed into suffocating conditions, each with less space than that allocated to detainees in Guantanamo Bay.”

Gaza’s population is trapped under constant bombardment and a blockade, deprived of water, food, shelter and healthcare, and effectively barred from returning to their destroyed or restricted areas of origin, it added.

“This is part of a deliberate policy that reflects a genocidal process by Israel to uproot the people and erase their physical and demographic presence through mass killing, forced displacement, starvation, and systematic destruction of life.”

The US State Department has said it was aware of the reported death of a US citizen in the Israeli-occupied West Bank after reports emerged of Israeli settlers fatally beating a Palestinian American, according to Reuters.

Palestinian news agency Wafa, citing the local health ministry, said Saif al-Din Kamel Abdul Karim Musallat, aged in his 20s, died after he was beaten by Israeli settlers yesterday evening in an attack that also injured many people in a town north of Ramallah.

Relatives of Musallat, who was from Tampa, Florida, were also quoted by the Washington Post as saying he was beaten to death by Israeli settlers.

“We are aware of reports of the death of a US citizen in the West Bank,” a State Department spokesperson said, adding the department had no further comment “out of respect for the privacy of the family and loved ones” of the reported victim.

The Israeli military said Israel was probing the incident in the town of Sinjil. It said rocks were hurled at Israelis near Sinjil and that “a violent confrontation developed in the area”.

The Palestinian health ministry has said a 23-year-old man was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank on Friday, in the latest deadly assault as violence surges in the territory, AFP reports.

A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority ministry, Annas Abu El Ezz, told AFP that 23-year-old Saif al-Din Kamil Abdul Karim Musalat “died after being severely beaten all over his body by settlers in the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, this afternoon”.

AFP footage from Ramallah showed his body being carried through the streets draped in a Palestinian flag and flanked by around a hundred mourners.

In a statement, the Israeli military said clashes broke out between Palestinians and Israelis on Friday after rocks were thrown at Israeli civilians adjacent to the village of Sinjil, lightly injuring two.

It said the ensuing “violent confrontation … included vandalism of Palestinian property, arson, physical clashes, and rock hurling”.

An official with the Gaza Water Authority has spoken to Al Jazeera about the lack of fuel in the besieged enclave.

A 70 per cent drop in well production has been recorded due to Israel’s ban on diesel fuel supplies and no fuel has reached Gaza’s wells since Israel resumed attacks in March.

“If fuel is not allowed in soon, people in Gaza will face a disaster,” the official said. “Israel also continues to block water supplies to the central governorate and has reduced access in Gaza City and Khan Younis.”