Gaza live: Concerns about all-out regional war rise following Golan Heights deadly attack

Cairo is privately moving towards allowing Israeli forces to remain in the Philadelphi Corridor, a key strip along its border with Gaza, despite public declarations to the contrary, The Times of Israel is reporting, citing senior Israeli officials.

According to the report, this shift in Egypt's position could complicate Hamas's stance in truce negotiations, as the group has demanded that Israel withdraw its troops from the corridor.

Initially, Egypt had pushed for Israel's withdrawal from the border strip during negotiations. However, according to Israeli officials quoted by The Times of Israel, Cairo has relaxed this effort in recent weeks as Israel's stance has hardened.

“They, too, don’t want Hamas to resume smuggling on the border,” an Israeli official said, referring to Egypt.

The official clarified that while a deal has not yet been reached, Israel intends to remain in the corridor temporarily. 

Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said that Jewish people are allowed to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, contradicting a long-standing policy.

“I am in the political echelon, and the political echelon allows Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount,” he said .

Under a decades-long “status-quo” agreement, only Muslims have been permitted to pray at the holy site, with visits from non-Muslims only allowed at specific times.

His comments were refuted by Eyal Avraham, commander of the Israeli police’s holy sites unit.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group said Ben Gvir’s statement was a “recipe for bloodshed” and called on Palestinians to continue defending their nation’s holy places.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Berlin has not made a decision regarding its weapons sales to Israel, following last week's report by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Scholz was asked by reporters if Germany's support for Israel would change in light of the advisory opinion issued by the UN's top court, which declared Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories illegal.

In response, Scholz said his government had not yet reached a decision, adding that it would decide "on a case-by-case basis".

Hezbollah released the third episode of its "hoopoe" drone footage, claiming to show Israel's Ramat David Airbase, located 50km south of the Lebanese border.

The Lebanese group said the footage includes Iron Dome facilities, aeroplanes, and fuel and ammunition storage facilities.

⭕ #بالفيديو | الإعلام الحربي للمقاومة الإسلامية يعرض مشاهد ما عاد به "الهدد 3" في حلقة خاصة.#طوفان_الأقصى #الميادين pic.twitter.com/82zzfPp7R5

— قناة الميادين (@AlMayadeenNews) July 24, 2024

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on X that there is a "pyromaniac" in the Israeli government who is "trying to ignite the Middle East" in an apparent attack on far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

"I oppose any negotiations to bring him into the war cabinet - it would allow him to implement his plans," Gallant added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disbanded the war cabinet in June following the withdrawal of the National Unity party.

There were reports that Netanyahu was in talks to include Ben Gvir in a new war-managing forum, but Israeli media reported that these plans were scrapped to avoid embarrassment during Netanyahu's visit to the US.

יושב בממשלת ישראל פירומן שמנסה להצית את המזרח התיכון.

מתנגד לכל מו״מ להכניס אותו לקבינט המלחמה - זה יאפשר לו לממש את תוכניותיו.

— יואב גלנט - Yoav Gallant (@yoavgallant) July 24, 2024

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has postponed the issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, Al Jazeera reports.

The decision came after over 60 countries and organisations requested to postpone the issuance of the decision to present their objections regarding the arrest request.

States and objecting parties have until 6 August to submit their opinions to the Prosecutor's Office.

Um Yousef and her husband have lived in their home in the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarm in the occupied Palestinian West Bank ever since they married 43 years ago.

And they are still there today. Even though it’s in ruins. The furniture smashed. No outside wall. Rubble everywhere. We are sitting on plastic chairs in what used to be the kitchen. There’s no running water or electricity.

Um Yousef says she has no intention of moving out and nor has her husband.

“This is the investment of 40 years of our life.”

She says she misses her sons and grandchildren, whose school books can still be seen scattered amid the debris. They used to live on the top floor but Israeli soldiers destroyed the stairs so they had to move out.

READ MORE: Inside the West Bank camp terrorised by Israeli air strikes, bulldozers and snipers

An investigation by watchdog Airwars has found that the death toll reported by the Palestinian health ministry during the first weeks of the war is "largely reliable".

The report used open-source monitoring to independently identify nearly 3,000 names of civilians killed in the first 17 days of the war.

"This painstaking research provides strong validation for both the first Ministry of Health list of the dead and the reliability of social media posts from Palestinians collected by Airwars covering the same period," said Mike Spagat, a professor specialising in casualty figures at Royal Holloway, University of London.

"Neither list is complete, but the 75 percent matching rate demonstrates convincingly that both capture a large fraction of the underlying reality," he told Airwars.

While the evidence suggests that the accuracy of the Palestinian health ministry's figures declined after Israel essentially decimated the Palestinian enclave's healthcare system, Spagat says it adds to the consensus that their figures are broadly reliable.

NEW: Airwars investigation documents where and how 3,000 civilians were killed in the first weeks of the war in Gaza.

The findings show the initial Palestinian Ministry of Health death toll to be largely reliable.https://t.co/gbbPXPAp9i

— Airwars (@airwars) July 24, 2024

The Palestinian health ministry reported that 55 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 39,145 since 7 October.

Additionally, 90,257 people have been wounded since the start of the war.

Germany's interior ministry has banned the Shia association Islamic Centre Hamburg (IZH), which operates the "Blue Mosque" in Hamburg, accusing it of supporting terrorism.

The association is accused of supporting the Lebanese Shia political party and military group Hezbollah.

In a statement, the interior ministry said that it "banned the Hamburg Islamic Centre and its affiliated organisations throughout Germany to date, as it is an Islamist extremist organisation pursuing anti-constitutional objectives". The German ministry added that “searches” were being carried out on Wednesday morning in 53 properties associated with the group.

Hundreds of workers and trade unionists shut down access to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) headquarters in central London to demand that the UK's new Labour government ends arms exports to Israel.

In March, the FCDO was accused by then-Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Alicia Kearns of hiding legal advice that Israel is violating international humanitarian law in Gaza.

Several protesters were arrested.

The Israeli military said that one soldier was "was seriously injured as a result of projectiles launched from Lebanon at the Har Dov area".

The army had said on Tuesday evening that several projectiles were fired at the Har Dov area, along with some 15 rockets fired from Lebanon at Kiryat Shmona.

Hezbollah claimed several attacks on Israel on Tuesday.

French President Emmanuel Macron rejected calls from the Palestine Olympic Committee and some French left-wing lawmakers calling for a boycott of Israeli athletes at the Olympics.

"Israeli athletes are welcome in our country. They must be able to compete under their colours because the Olympic movement has decided it," he told French channel France 2.

Macron also said that Israel has "the right to defend itself" but called its assault on Gaza "unacceptable".

The Palestine Olympic Committee had previously sent a letter to the International Olympic Committee asking for Israel to be excluded from the games.

In the letter, Israel is accused of breaching the traditional Olympic truce, which should run from 19 July until after the Paralympics in mid-September, with its continued war on Gaza.

Former US President Donald Trump shared a letter he received from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemning the assassination attempt against him at a campaign event.

Abbas's letter said that "acts of violence must not have a place in a world of law and order".

The image Trump shared also showed his written response to Abbas's letter.

"Mahmoud – So nice – Thank you – Everything will be good," the former US president wrote.

The sharing of the letter comes hours after Trump announced he would host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago hotel in Florida.

BREAKING: Ahead of his meeting with Netanyahu on Friday, Trump posts a letter he received from Palestinian President Abbas about the assassination attempt against him and stresses he wants peace in the Middle East pic.twitter.com/WYIrsQmNro

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) July 24, 2024

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates:

• A dawn Israeli strike on a home in al-Jorn, northern Gaza, killed five people, according to the Wafa news agency
• Around 150,000 Palestinians fled Khan Younis on Tuesday as Israel intensified its attacks there
• Israeli forces have launched attacks across Gaza and are currently clashing with Hamas fighters in Khan Younis
• Around 200 people were arrested for protesting military aid to Israel at a congressional office building in Washington DC
• Tech mogul Elon Musk said that his Starlink satellite-based internet service is now active in a Gaza hospital with the backing of Israel and the UAE