Israel’s 8-month siege of Gaza Strip extends to Rafah
Starving Palestinians surviving on less than 3pc of daily water requirements
ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas leaders
Biden announces ceasefire plan which Hamas has responded to “positively”
Israel accused of mistreating Gaza detainees in shadowy hospital in desert
Ophir Falk, a foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has said a “lot of details” were yet to be worked out regarding a Gaza ceasefire deal, Al Jazeera reports.
Speaking to The Sunday Times about the latest ceasefire plan outlined by US President Joe Biden, Falk said “it’s not a good deal but we dearly want the hostages released, all of them”.
He also emphasised that reaching a permanent ceasefire — called for in the deal’s second phase — should be conditional.
“There are a lot of details to be worked out and that includes there will not be a permanent ceasefire until all our objectives are met,” said Falk.
Qatar’s foreign ministry has condemned Israel’s move to designate the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) as a “terrorist organisation”, Al Jazeera reports.
In a statement, the ministry called on the international community to stand firm in the face of Israel’s plans to “deprive” Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank of “its necessary services”.
The ministry also reiterated its full support for UNRWA.
An aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirms that Israel has accepted a framework deal advanced by US President Joe Biden for winding down operations in Gaza, though he described it as flawed and in need of much more work, Reuters reports.
In an interview with Britain’s Sunday Times, Ophir Falk, chief foreign policy advisor to Netanyahu, said Biden’s proposal was “a deal we agreed to […] it’s not a good deal but we dearly want the hostages released, all of them”.
“There are a lot of details to be worked out,” he said, adding that Israeli conditions, including “the release of the hostages and the destruction of Hamas as a genocidal terrorist organisation” have not changed.
The first phase of the three-phase plan entails a truce and the return of some hostages held by Hamas, after which the sides would negotiate on an open-ended cessation of hostilities for a second phase in which remaining live captives would go free, Biden said.
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The Gaza health ministry has said at least 36,439 people have been killed in the territory during more than seven months of fighting between Israel and Hamas, AFP reports.
The toll includes at least 60 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 82,627 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since October 7.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar received a phone call from Acting Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri, where they discussed the ongoing situation in Gaza.
According to the Foreign Office (FO), the two “discussed the situation in Gaza and unabated Israeli atrocities there”.
Dar reiterated Pakistan’s “full support for all initiatives aimed at ending the genocide in Gaza and for humanitarian relief to the Palestinian people”, the FO said on X.
Israeli forces have assaulted motorcyclists near the Nabi Musa shrine, located southwest of Jericho in the occupied West Bank, and detained a number of them, Wafa news agency reports.
Wafa correspondent, citing eyewitnesses, reported that Israeli forces stopped a group of young men riding motorcycles in the area and brutally attacked them, resulting in injuries to two of them.
He added that the Israeli forces detained several cyclists and took them to a military checkpoint at the southern entrance of Jericho.
Nasser Anani, the director of Jericho Governmental Hospital, told Wafa that the assault resulted in injuries to two young men from the town of Hazma, who were transferred to the hospital with bruises.
Israeli forces have demolished a house in the village of Al-Walaja, northwest of Bethlehem, Wafa news agency reports.
According to Al Jazeera, the village of Al-Walaja is carved into hillside terraces and olive farms between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
Khader Al-Araj, the head of the Al-Walaja Village Council, reported that a large contingent of Israeli soldiers, accompanied by a military bulldozer, broke into the Ain Juwaiza neighbourhood of the village Wafa said.
They proceeded to demolish the home of Ghassan Al-Atrash, a local resident, which measured approximately 120 square meters.
Israel has taken over some 32 per cent of Gaza’s area by “systematically demolishing neighbourhoods” to create a buffer zone and a central axis dividing it, according to Al Jazeera’s Sanad Verification Agency.
This does not include the area of the Philadelphi Corridor on Egypt’s border, which Israel declared it had taken control of on Thursday.
Sanad’s analysis of satellite imagery showed 80-90pc destruction rates in the 120sq.km Israel has taken.
A map constructed by Sanad shows that Gaza’s boundaries have been pushed inward and a 1.5km-wide strip that runs 6.5km across the middle in the Juhor ad-Dik area, known as the Nezarim axis.
The analysis shows that areas in the embattled and besieged strip have been “completely bulldozed and demolished” and that “removal operations took place in a regular pattern” to turn what the UN once called “danger zones” into a buffer zone.
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Sirens warning of suspected infiltration by drones have sounded in several areas along Israel’s border with Lebanon, Al Jazeera quotes Israeli media outlets as reporting.
At least two of the drones — launched by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group — were not intercepted and exploded in the Katzrin area in Israeli territory, causing a fire to break out, the station reported.
A third was intercepted in the skies over the town of Metula, it added.
Bodies of three people were brought to the al-Ahli Arab Hospital following an Israeli attack on an apartment belonging to the Nabi family in Gaza City’s al-Darraj neighbourhood., Al Jazeera says citing Wafa news agency.
The victims included a woman and an infant, Wafa said.
Dutch Defence Minister Kajsa Ollongren has told Al Jazeera that the Netherlands has not transferred any F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel since a Dutch court ruling in February.
“The ruling says we cannot transfer parts for the F-35 from the Netherlands to Israel and since the ruling, there have been no transfers,” Ollongren, attending the Shanghai-La Dialogue in Singapore, said.
She added that the F-35 is an “important asset” for Israel’s air defence, “as we’ve seen when the attack happened from Iran”. The Dutch government appealed the decision almost immediately.
“We comply, of course, by the court ruling”, Ollongren said, adding that another court is “still considering the case” and “of course, we will wait for the outcome of that court”.
Ollongren also told Al Jazeera that “the offensive in Rafah has to stop immediately and there has to be an immediate ceasefire”.
The US’s Centcom has said its forces “successfully engaged” two antiship ballistic missiles fired by Yemen’s Houthis at the USS Gravely in the southern Red Sea on Saturday, Al Jazeera reports.
Centcom said the missiles’ launch did not cause any damage or injuries.
It added that its forces destroyed one Houthi drone in the southern Red Sea and observed two other drones crash into the water.
The statement comes after the Houthis announced it had conducted six operations targeting a US aircraft carrier, a US destroyer and three vessels in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, Al Jazeera noted.
Several people were killed and wounded after Israeli forces launched air and artillery attacks on the cities of Gaza and Rafah overnight, Al Jazeera reports citing Wafa news agency.
Wafa did not give an exact toll for the attacks.
It reported deaths and injuries from Israeli air raids on homes in Gaza City’s Daraj neighbourhood and Old City, as well as artillery shelling of areas near the University College in the Sabra neighbourhood.
In Rafah, it said several people were wounded and several homes destroyed when Israeli forces carried air raids on the city’s Brazil neighbourhood.
Israeli forces targeting the Hezbollah group bombarded villages in southern and eastern Lebanon on Saturday after attacks inside northern Israel, AFP quoted sources on both sides as saying.
A Hezbollah-affiliated medical organisation said 16 children aged between four and 14 were wounded in one Israeli air strike on the south Lebanon town of Siddikine.
The Israeli army said in a statement released on Saturday that it had staged more than 40 airstrikes over the past 72 hours against Hezbollah “military targets” in Lebanon.
The Islamic Health Committee said that the injured children from Siddikine had been taken to different hospitals in the region. Lebanon’s state-run ANI news agency said seven people were injured in an Israeli strike on the town, inland from the coastal city of Tyre.
A source close to Hezbollah also reported that two Israeli air strikes on the militant group’s positions injured two people west of the city of Baalbek, in a remote area of eastern Lebanon far from the border.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric has said his country was joining South Africa in its case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of “genocide” in Gaza in the offensive against Hamas, AFP reports.
Speaking to the National Congress, Boric decried the “catastrophic humanitarian situation” in Gaza and called for “a firm response from the international community”.
“Chile will become a party to and support the case that South Africa presented against Israel before the International Court of Justice in The Hague,” Boric said.
The ICJ is considering South Africa’s case, but in the interim has brought in “preliminary measures” ordering Israel to do everything it could to prevent acts of genocide during its campaign against Hamas.
Chile has recognised Palestine as a state since 2011, and Boric has previously said the offensive in Gaza has “no justification” and is “unacceptable.”
Tehran has summoned Sweden’s temporary charge d’affaires over “baseless & spiteful accusations”, the foreign ministry said, after Stockholm’s intelligence agency said Iran was “using criminal networks” inside the Scandinavian country to attack Israel and its interests.
According to AFP, the Swedish diplomat was summoned by the assistant of the foreign ministry’s general directorate for Western Europe, the ministry posted on the social media platform X.
Sweden’s intelligence agency, commonly known as Sapo, that Iran was “using criminal networks in Sweden to carry out acts of violence against other states, groups or people in Sweden that it considers a threat”
“Sweden will not be a platform where state actors use criminal networks to promote their own interests,” Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said Thursday in remarks emailed to AFP. The Iranian embassy on Friday rejected the accusations.
“Unfortunately, some Swedish media have quoted the false and baseless claims of media and institutions affiliated with this brutal regime (Israel) and published false and fabricated reports against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the embassy said in a statement.
The embassy said it “expects the Swedish media not to trust the claims and reports published by the Israeli regime” and to work for “an end to the crimes of the Zionist regime in Palestine.”
Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators have called on Israel and Hamas to “finalise” the truce deal outlined by US President Joe Biden, as Israeli forces pounded Rafah in southern Gaza, AFP reports.
Fighting has raged in the besieged Gaza Strip since Biden said Israel was offering a new roadmap towards a full ceasefire. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since insisted his country would pursue the offensive until it had achieved all its aims.
In a joint statement, Qatar, the United States and Egypt said that “as mediators in the ongoing discussions to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages and detainees”, they “call on both Hamas and Israel to finalise the agreement embodying the principles outlined by President Joe Biden”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called foreign ministers from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye on Friday to press the deal, and on Saturday spoke with the Qatari, Egyptian and Emirati ministers.
UN chief Antonio Guterres “strongly hopes” the latest development “will lead to an agreement by the parties for lasting peace”, a spokesman said.
Thousands of Israelis have rallied in Tel Aviv to demand acceptance of a ceasefire and hostage release deal outlined by US President Joe Biden, with many fearing the premier would reject the proposal.
Israeli and US flags dotted the crowd in the central plaza they have dubbed Hostages Square, alongside banners urging: “Bring them home!”
“Biden is our only hope,” protester Abigail Zur, 34, told AFP.
Demonstrators told AFP they were worried that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would disown the deal.
“Biden cares about our hostages more than Netanyahu does,” said Karen, a protester in her early fifties, as others chanted: “Now, Now”.
Netanyahu was more concerned about his political future, said protester Diti Kapuano, 46.
“I hope that somehow Biden puts enough pressure so the government and Netanyahu will take the deal,” she said.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has said that mediators hope all parties will deal positively with the principles of a Gaza ceasefire proposal that US President Joe Biden has laid out, Reuters reports.
Al Thani made the remarks during a phone call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Qatar’s state news agency said.
New York City police say 34 people are being held in custody following a pro-Palestinian protest at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City yesterday, Al Jazeera reports.
They reported damage to some artwork and harassment of security staff by demonstrators.
During Friday’s demonstration, pro-Palestine demonstrators set up tents in the lobby and unfurled a “Free Palestine” banner from the building’s roof before police moved in to make arrests.
City police said the 34 people in custody were being processed, and charges were being determined.
Organisers, including the group Within Our Lifetime, called on supporters to “flood” and “de-occupy” the museum, saying they wanted to take over the building until officials “disclose and divest” from any investments linked to Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Jonas Gahr Støre took to X to urge all parties at in Gaza bombardment to engage with a ceasefire proposal presented by US President Joe Biden this week, Al Jazeera reports.
Mohammed Al-Najjar, a 33-year-old Gazan, has said he was “shocked” and feeling “lost” as he returned home, only to find much of Jabalia refugee camp in ruins after an Israeli offensive.
“All the houses have been reduced to rubble,” Najjar told AFP in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip.
“You are lost, you do not know where exactly your house is in the middle of this massive destruction.”
“I was shocked by the extent of the destruction in the latest aggression on Jabalia camp,” said Najjar.
In recent days, AFP correspondents have seen scores of Palestinians streaming into the area, trying to find their homes and salvage whatever belongings are left.
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Belgium Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib has said her country “condemns the Israeli parliament’s attempts to classify UNRWA as a terrorist organisation and to remove the immunity of its staff,” referring to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Al Jazeera reports.
“UNWRA’s activities are essential for the Palestinians in the face of the dramatic humanitarian situation in Gaza,” she said on X.
