Gaza live: Gaza death toll rises to 35,80

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said that Israeli forces will intensify its assault on Rafah, where a ground invasion has been ongoing since 6 May.

“This action will go on and on, more forces from the ground, more forces from the air, and we will reach our goals,” Gallant said.

His comments come as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said it would rule on South Africa's request to order a halt to Israel's offensive on Rafah tomorrow.

Palestinians are assessing the damage inflicted by a two-day Israeli raid on Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, which killed 12 people, including four children.

AFP correspondents reported that dozens of buildings have been wrecked.

“Every time they come to Jenin, it is destroyed,” Fayza Abu Qutna, 60,  who has lived in the camp for decades, told AFP. “We live in sadness. We live in misery.”

Members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) disrupted US Vice President Kamala Harris's speech at a trade union conference in Philidelphia.

The protestors held Palestinian flags aloft and chanted, "Harris, Harris you can't hide we charge you with genocide."

The union members denounced the US government's complicity in the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza and called on their union, which represents nearly 1.9 million workers across the US and Canada, not to endorse Biden in the upcoming presidential election in November.

 

 

 

 

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Three children were wounded in the Israeli drone strike that killed a Hezbollah fighter in southern Lebanon earlier today, AFP is reporting.

According to the news agency, the school children were travelling in a minibus when the strike blew out the wind screen.

The three children were hospitalised with injuries from the shattered glass.

“At first, we didn’t understand what was happening, and there was panic among the children,” bus driver Ahmad Qubaisi, 57, said. “Suddenly, a strike hit the car in front of us” near the town of Nabatiyeh, about 13km (eight miles) from the Israeli border.

“The bus’s windshield shattered… I backed up, and that’s when the second strike hit the car.”

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

The ministry added that over 80,000 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli forces, with thousands more missing under the rubble.

The US is seeking to recruit a European organisation to manage the Rafah border crossing in order to boost aid flows to Gaza, Politico is reporting, citing a senior US administration official and another source.

US officials have been brokering talks between Israel and Egypt in the hopes of reaching a deal that would see the European organization manage the crossing, which has been closed since Israeli forces seized it ahead of their invasion of the city on 7 May.

Talks between Israel and Egypt regarding the management of the crossing had reach an impasse, as Egypt has said it wants the crossing to be managed by Gazans, as it had been previously.

However Israel has said that the group who previously managed the crossing included members of Hamas.

As a solution, the US has proposed introducing the European Union Border Assistance Mission as a neutral third party to manage the crossing.

The mission, which was created by the EU Council, previously worked at the crossing but suspended its operations in 2007 after Hamas took over Gaza.

An internal investigation into the killing of a UN worker by Israeli forces has concluded that the military breached regulations regarding humanitarian workers, Haaretz is reporting.

Waibhav Anil Kale, an Indian national who worked in the UN's Safety and Security Division, was shot and killed by Israeli forces in his vehicle despite it being marked with UN letters.

According to the investigation, the vehicle was travelling towards the UN's offices in Rafah, on a road where travel was prohibited without prior agreement with the Israeli military.

Israeli forces claimed he was accompanied by an armed individual.

However, the probe concluded that the vehicle came under fire, breaching protocols relating to humanitarian workers, which mandate extreme caution even if they are accompanied by armed individuals.

Kale is the first international UN worker to be killed in Gaza since 7 October.

On 1 April, the Israeli military killed seven aid workers in a World Central Kitchen convoy, sparking international condemnation.

Prior to the attack, at least 357 humanitarian-run sites and convoys in Gaza whose coordinates had been shared in advance with warring parties were targeted by Israeli fire.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards has called for Israel to investigate multiple allegations of torture and other abuses against detained Palestinians since 7 October 2023.

In a statement, Edwards said she has heard numerous reports of Palestinian detainees being beaten, kept in cells blindfolded and handcuffed for excessive periods, deprived of sleep, and threatened with physical and sexual violence. 

Additionally, many detainees have reported being subjected to acts of humiliation, including being photographed and filmed in degrading poses.

“I am particularly concerned that this emerging pattern of violations, coupled with an absence of accountability and transparency, is creating a permissive environment for further abusive and humiliating treatment of Palestinians.”

Since 7 October, it is estimated that thousands of Palestinians, including children have been detained by Israeli forces, with over 8,800 detained in the West Bank alone.

According to Edwards, the surge in the prison population has exacerbated already dire detention conditions.

“Official downgrading of conditions in certain places of detention is not acceptable. At all times, the minimum international standards must be adhered to,” she said.

An Israeli government spokesperson said on Thursday that Israel will not be deterred from 'going after Hamas' in Gaza.

The International Court of Justice is set to rule on Friday on South Africa's request for an order to halt military actions in the Gaza Strip.

"No power on Earth will stop Israel from protecting its citizens and going after Hamas in Gaza," the spokesperson, Avi Hyman told reporters, when asked whether Israel would comply if with possible measures issued by the court.

Reporting by Reuters

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said in a post on X that all EU donors have now resumed funding of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Borrell praised an initiative by the Slovenian Permanent Mission to the United Nations to support Unrwa's vital role in providing assistance to generations of Palestinian refugees.

Israel alleged that Unrwa staff had worked with Hamas on the 7 October attacks, resulting in close allies of Israel in Europe and the US cutting off aid without any evidence.

An independent report by the UN investigated the claims and found no evidence of Israel’s allegations then, and there is none now.

Because of the Israeli claims, Unrwa lost $450m of life-saving aid for Palestinians facing Israel’s genocide and starvation. 

A third of elected politicians in Britain’s ruling Conservative Party have received funding from pro-Israel lobby groups, it has emerged.

Declassified reported on Thursday that 126 of the party’s 344 Members of Parliament (MPs) have accepted funding from pro-Israel lobby groups.

The funds amount to over £430,000 ($547,000) in donations and hospitality. The lobby groups have paid for Conservative MPs to visit Israel on 187 occasions, some of which included trips to the occupied Palestinian territories.

Thirteen of those MPs have visited Israel during its ongoing war on Gaza. In January, six MPs went on a "solidarity visit" hosted by Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

Read more: Pro-Israel groups fund one-third of Conservative MPs, report reveals

Israeli forces have arrested at least 18 people across the occupied West Bank in less than 24 hours, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, bringing the total number of arrests since 7 October to 8,840.

Most of the latest arrests took place in Bethlehem governorate, while others were arrested in Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron and Jericho governorates.

At least 30 Israeli soldiers were wounded in fighting over the past two days, eight of them seriously, according to data published by the Israeli army. 

According to the army, 22 of the soldiers were wounded in the Gaza Strip and the rest elsewhere. The numbers could not be independently verified.