Gaza live: Gaza death toll rises to 35,80

CIA chief Bill Burns is set to travel to Europe in the coming days to meet with his Mossad counterpart David Barnea, in a bid to restart collapsed hostage talks.

According to Axios, Qatari and Egyptian officials might also participate in the talks.

The meeting comes after Israeli media reported that Israel’s defence establishment has urged the war cabinet to make compromises with Hamas for a hostage deal.

Oxford University doubled down on its crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators, accusing students of using “direct action tactics” that required a police response.

In a letter sent to students and staff on Thursday, the university accused student protestors of making “inaccurate statements and claims” about the institution, and “forcibly overpowering” the receptionist at a section of the university offices in Wellington Square.

According to Oxford Action for Palestine, students launched a peaceful sit-in on Thursday morning in the office building to demand that the university administration - which has yet to negotiate - meet with the protesters.

The group said in a statement that instead of engaging in dialogue, the university's vice chancellor placed the building under lockdown and called the police.

Over a dozen students were arrested. 

Senior Israeli officials are concerned that the International Court of Justice could take a “hard line” against Israel in a ruling on Friday on whether Israel should stop its assault on Rafah, according to Haaretz.

The report cited unnamed Israeli officials who are weighing how the court might respond to South Africa’s request to order Rafah protected and more aid to surge into Gaza.

Yemen’s Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on Thursday that the group had targeted the Mediterranean Sea during an operation this week.

No maritime attacks were reported in the Mediterranean, but a senior US official told reporters that Washington believed the Houthis had the ability to launch attacks in the Mediterranean.

Also on Thursday, a Greek flagged ship was attacked off the coast of Yemen, with no reported damage.

Marine Traffic said the ship was traveling from Russia to Kenya and the owner and operator is Greek shipping firm Eastern Mediterranean Maritime Limited.

Israeli settlers attacked a truck loaded with flour near Beira, a town south of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus,according to Wafa news agency.

Israeli settlers have been attacking trucks with aid bound for Gaza.

Israeli media reports said the truck wasn’t carrying shipments for Gaza. 

The heads of Israel’s defence community urged Israel’s war cabinet to make additional compromises with Hamas to reach a hostage deal, according to a Walla News reporter.

After meeting last night, Israel’s war cabinet agreed to “expand the mandate” of its negotiating team.

Israel’s war cabinet met after the families of hostages released a video showing young female Israeli soldiers abducted by Palestinian fighters on 7 October.

At least nine Palestinians were killed on Thursday by an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced people in eastern Gaza City.

The strike on Fatima al-Zahraa school killed women and children who were sheltering there, according to Reuters.

The death toll from a separate Israeli strike on a social development aid store east of Deir al-Balah in Gaza rose to 12, according to Arabic media reports. 

Hungary says it will not enforce arrest warrants for Israeli leaders if they are issued by the International Criminal Court, underscoring divisions with other European countries.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff said that although Budapest ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC, it “was never made part of Hungarian law”.

At least six Palestinians were killed by an Israeli strike east of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, according to Arabic media reports.

The death toll of Palestinians killed in Gaza by Israeli forces since 7 October 2023 has reached at least 35,800, with 91 people killed in the last 24 hours, according to Gaza's health ministry.

Israel’s minister of housing and construction has called Palestinians “human animals”, using inflammatory rhetoric to reject a two-state solution.

Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, an ultra-orthodox Israeli minister who also heads the United Torah Judaism party, made the remarks in a video posted on X. 

“Brutal terror must be destroyed and certainly not given independent rule. We have no desire to rule over the residents of Gaza, but we cannot live next to a state of human animals," he said. 

Khalil al-Degran, Gaza health ministry spokesperson, lashed out at the UN for 'procrastinating' over the delivery of fuel to Gaza as he announced that Al-Aqsa hospital is shutting down.

He said the hospital received just 3,000 litres of fuel on Wednesday when it needs 5,000 to run.

The ministry said the shutdown puts 1,300 sick and wounded patients in the hospital at risk of death.

“We have launched so many appeals during the recent days to urgently have fuel in the hospital, but no concerned parties have responded,” he said.

The generators at Al-Aqsa Hospital in the Gaza Strip will stop running in four hours due to a lack of fuel, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced.

The shutdown puts wounded, sick people and premature babies at risk of death, the ministry added. 

Medical supplies and aid have slowed to a trickle in Gaza after Israel seized the Rafah border crossing.

Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, has said in a video message that it was holding Asaf Hamami, commander of the Israeli army’s Southern Brigade in the Gaza Strip, during its assault on southern Israel on 7 October.

The group said Hamami had been injured during his capture, but did not supply proof nor specify whether he was still alive.

Israeli media reported previously that Hamami, 41, was killed on 7 October fighting in the Nirim kibbutz.

Over a dozen students were arrested at Oxford University on Thursday, after police cracked down on a protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. 

For the past two weeks, Oxford students have launched protests and an encampment, demanding the university end investments in and partnerships with companies and institutions involved in Israel's war on Gaza, and its occupation of Palestinian land. 

According to Oxford Action for Palestine, students launched a peaceful sit-in on Thursday morning in the Wellington Square office building to demand that the university administration - which has yet to negotiate - meet with the protesters. 

The group said in a statement that instead of engaging in dialogue, the university's vice chancellor placed the building under lockdown and called the police. 

"When informed of the threat of arrest, the students willingly stood up and voluntar[ily] offered to vacate the premises," Oxford Action for Palestine said in a statement. "In an escalatory move, all students were arrested and their phones were confiscated, taking away their ability to record or film from inside."

READ MORE: Oxford students arrested after violent crackdown on pro-Palestine protest

Major General Diaa al-Din al-Sharafa was killed in an Israeli air strike, the Gaza Interior Ministry has said in a statement on its official Telegram channel.

According to the statement, al-Sharafa was killed “as a result of an assassination carried out by Israeli occupation aircraft” while on a tour of the Saraya area of central Gaza City in the northern Strip on Thursday morning.