Gaza live: Israel strike kills 30 Palestinians, mostly children

Turkish Airlines delayed its scheduled flights to Iran tonight due to tensions between Israel and Iran, Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu news agency reported.

Flights scheduled to different Iranian cities shall resume on Saturday morning

Russian military intelligence officers are believed to have been deployed to Yemen to assist the Iran-backed Houthis with targeting commercial vessels in the Red Sea, Middle East Eye can reveal.

Members of Russia’s GRU military intelligence are operating in the Houthi-controlled territory of Yemen in an advisory role, a senior US official told MEE, speaking on condition of anonymity and citing US intelligence.

The exact nature of the Russians’ role is murky, but the US official said that GRU officers have been operating in Yemen for “several months” to assist the Houthis in their targeting of commercial shipping, which the Houthis say is in solidarity with besieged Palestinians in Gaza.

Read more: Exclusive: US intelligence suggests Russian military is advising Houthis inside Yemen

Israel's Channel 12 has reported that the website of Israeli Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv is down because of immense pressure from travellers, amid the current tensions and cancellation of several countries’ airline flights to Israel.

Several airlines have suspended their flights from and to Israel due to the ongoing tensions in the region

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called his Israeli counterpart Israel Katz a “monument to insolence”, in response to Katz’s statements in which he slammed Turkey.

“It is a complete sickness that Israel Katz, instead of serving as the minister of foreign affairs, constantly makes our country and our president the subject of his own delusions,” wrote Fidan in a post on X.

This comes after Katz has written a scathing post on X in which he accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of “turning Turkey into a dictatorship just because of his support for the murderers and rapists of Hamas, against the stance of the entire free world”.

He said that Erdogan is “threatening to invade a democratic country [Israel] with which Turkey has no military conflict, and cutting trade relations, harming Turkish exporters to the tune of $6 billion a year”.

Israeli army says it destroyed launchers that fired rockets at southern Israeli towns.

Earlier, the Israeli army said 18 rockets were launched from Gaza in one hour, with one intercepted and all others falling in open fields.

Lawyer Khalid Zabarqa was quoted as telling al-Jazeera that Israeli police had decided to release Al-Aqsa Mosque imam, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, after interrogation.

The former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was earlier arrested by Israeli police for delivering a sermon mourning and praising Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader.

An Israeli delegation on Gaza ceasefire talks will head to Cairo on Saturday night or Sunday, office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant that the US forces in the Middle East will be adjusted but didn’t specify which additional capabilities would be sent.

"[Austin] informed the minister of additional measures to include ongoing and future defensive force posture changes that the department will take to support the defence of Israel," Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters, following a call between Austin and Gallant.

She added that the move might include deploying additional troops to the region, but a decision has not been made.

US President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to rely on Washington’s support in case a regional escalation occurred, Axios has reported, citing unnamed US officials.

In a “tough” phone call, the US president said his country would only help Israel against an expected Iranian attack, following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, but there should be no more escalation from Israel and progress towards a Gaza ceasefire.

However, the White House has issued an official statement stating that Biden has “reaffirmed his commitment to Israel’s security against all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis”.

The Axios story also cited three anonymous Israeli officials as saying there was tension during Biden’s meeting with Netanyahu in the Oval Office last week, in which Biden “raised his voice and said he wants a deal reached within a week to two weeks”.

Around two-thirds of the buildings in the besieged Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed since the war broke out in Gaza on 7 October, said the UN.

“UNOSAT’s latest damage building assessment, based on satellite imagery … reveals that 151,265 structures have been affected in the Gaza Strip,” the UN satellite centre said.

It added: “of these, 30 percent were destroyed, 12 percent severely damaged, 36 percent moderately damaged, and 20 percent possibly damaged, representing approximately 63 percent of the total structures in the region.”

The Israeli media is reporting that ten rockets have been fired at southern Israeli towns, while one has been intercepted and the rest have fallen in open areas.

Earlier, Haaretz reported that rocket sirens were activated in southern Israel's Kibbutz Sufa.

The Israeli military says it has killed two members of the Lebanese Group, Hezbollah, in an air raid on the area of Bleida, located in southern Lebanon, earlier today.

It published what it says is aerial footage of the raid.

It also said that Israeli jets intercepted a “suspicious aerial target” that crossed from Lebanon into the occupied Golan Heights, adding that there were no casualties reported.

The Saudi newspaper of Asharq al-Awsat quoted two Hamas sources as saying that two senior officials of the group’s political bureau, along with another three military wing members, were killed in an Israeli air strike while in a tunnel in Gaza last week.

The Saudi newspaper named the two senior officials as Rawhi Mushtaha and Samah al-Sarrag, and the other three military members as Abdel Hadi Seyam, Samy Awdah, and Mohamed Hadid.

The report says Mushtaha is a close associate of the Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar.

According to the report, the strike hit southwest of Gaza City and targeted an area located above a tunnel where the five Hamas members were said to be residing.

It said the tunnel had already been damaged at the start of the war on Gaza.

The five Hamas members were buried on Thursday, according to Hamas sources cited in Asharq Al-Awsat.

MEE has not been able to independently verify the report.

German authorities have detained a man who set ablaze a pro-Palestinian protest camp in Munich, the German News Agency dpa reported.

The incident has been described as an “anti-Muslim” crime.

On Thursday night, the 26-year-old man set fire to stands, posters and flags in front of the camp using fuel, said the public prosecutor’s office on Friday.

The damage caused to the camp is worth hundreds of euros, according to the police.

No injuries were reported.

Three individuals who were in the heavily guarded building in Tehran where Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated have told Middle East Eye that the Hamas political chief was killed by a projectile fired at his room and not a planted bomb.

The individuals, one of whom was staying in a room near Haniyeh's, said on Friday that they heard sounds before an explosion shook the building, sounds they said appeared to be consistent with those made by a missile.

"This was definitely a projectile and not a planted bomb," one of the individuals told MEE, adding that they saw the aftermath of the explosion which appeared to be consistent with an attack by a missile.

The other two individuals, who were staying on separate floors, also witnessed the aftermath of the strike, which resulted in the partial collapse of the ceiling and exterior wall of Haniyeh's room.

Haniyeh, a veteran Hamas official who had played a key role in talks for a potential ceasefire in Gaza, was killed alongside his long-serving bodyguard Wasim Abu Shaaban on Wednesday, hours after they attended a swearing-in ceremony for Iran's new President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Read more: Haniyeh killed by a projectile fired at his room, eyewitnesses say