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

Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch told the heads of local authorities that students from northern kibbutzim will not be able to return to their schools in September and will remain in schools in other areas of Israel.

This is due to "security complexities" as Israel's clashes with Lebanon's Hezbollah are still ongoing.

Kisch said the decision to keep northern schools shut was "regrettable" and called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "act now and strongly against the state of Lebanon".

"There is no escaping the decision to wage a massive war against Lebanon in order to restore peace and stability to the residents of the north and for the future of the State of Israel," he said.

Hamas said in a statement that a commander of its armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, was killed alongside two members from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

"The assassination of a Qassam commander and two members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Tulkarm will not break the strength of the resistance," the group said.

Quoting two Israeli officials, Axios says that the US, Israel and the UAE held a secret meeting in Abu Dhabi last Thursday to discuss day-after plans for Gaza.

Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed (ABZ) hosted the meeting.

Axios says the meeting included US President Joe Biden's top Middle East adviser Brett McGurk, State Department counsellor Tom Sullivan, and Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, a close confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A day prior to the Israelis's arrival, the UAE laid out its proposal for a day-after plan through ABZ's special envoy Lana Nusseibeh.

Axios says "Nusseibeh advocated for deploying a temporary international mission to Gaza. She said this mission would respond to the humanitarian crisis, establish law and order, and lay the groundwork for governance."

She then told the Financial Times her country was willing to put boots on the ground in Gaza.

Emirati conditions include, however, that the troops should arrive at the invitation of a reformed Palestinian Authority, which would be governed by a new and independent prime minister.

Netanyahu is so far unwilling to end the war in Gaza or to involve the Palestinian Authority in the enclave's governance, but the meeting may signal some changes in attitude.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday there was a high risk of the polio virus spreading across Gaza and beyond its borders due to the dire health and sanitation situation in the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave.

Ayadil Saparbekov, team lead for health emergencies at WHO in Gaza and the West Bank, said circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 had been isolated from environmental samples from sewage in Gaza.

"There is a high risk of spreading of the circulating vaccine-derived polio virus in Gaza, not only because of the detection but because of the very dire situation with the water sanitation," he told reporters in Geneva via video link from Jerusalem.

"It may also spill over internationally, at a very high point."

Reporting by Reuters.

Gaza's health ministry said that 84 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 39,090 killed since 7 October.

Of them, 73 people were killed since Israel started its latest offensive on the former humanitarian zone in eastern Khan Younis, including 24 children and 15 women.

Additionally, 90,147 people have been wounded since the start of the war.

The Prisoners Affairs Authority, a prisoner affairs watchdog, said that many female detainees held in Israel's Damon prison are in need of hospital treatment.

The watchdog says at least one of the 78 women held there suffers from cancer, another deals with difficult health conditions and two others are held in solitary confinement cells.

"Rooms are very narrow in comparison with the number of detainees," the authority said, adding that they are "unventilated" and that detainees receive insufficient amounts of food.

One third of the total number of detainees are held under the administrative detention, which is a controversial practice used by Israel to detain someone who has not committed a crime, under the pretext that they were planning to break the law in the future.

Lebanese media reports that an Israeli drone strike has hit a pickup truck in Shaqra, southern Lebanon.

Ambulances are currently heading to the scene.

مراسل #الجديد: مسيرة اسرائيلية تستهدف سيارة (بيك اب) في بلدة شقرا وتوجه فرق الاسعاف إلى المكان المستهدف@farhat_muhamad1 pic.twitter.com/y6miaYM161

— Al Jadeed News (@ALJADEEDNEWS) July 23, 2024

Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories just over a week after Labour won a landslide election suggests the new UK government is placing renewed emphasis on the Gaza war.

At his meetings, with both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, separately, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mohammad Mustafa, Lammy called for an “immediate” ceasefire.

This is a departure from the previous Conservative government’s line, which called only for a “humanitarian pause" that would hopefully lead to a “long-term sustainable ceasefire”.

For those hoping that Labour’s election slogan of “change” might extend to foreign policy in the Middle East, such a shift is welcome.

READ MORE: Don't expect Labour to radically change the UK's position on Israel, opinion by Christopher Phillips

The Israeli army claims it has targeted over 50 sites used by Palestinian armed groups in its new operation in Khan Younis.

The army says its air force hit weapons depots, sniper positions, buildings and tunnels used by Hamas.

Israel says Hamas was trying to regroup in the area.

The military claims it gave civilians evacuation warnings prior to the operation, but Palestinians say they were given mere minutes before the bombings began.

At least 70 Palestinians were killed in Khan Younis on Monday.

The Israeli army has killed 17 Palestinians in attacks on the Gaza Strip since dawn, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

Several Palestinian factions, including Hamas and rival Fatah, have signed the Beijing Declaration in China on Tuesday, essentially agreeing to end their divisions and strengthen Palestinian unity, according to Chinese state media.

The signing concludes three days of reconciliation dialogue between 14 Palestinian groups in the Chinese capital.

“Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national unity. We are committed to national unity and we call for it,” senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk said.

In Gaza, Israeli forces killed several Palestinians in separate attacks on the northern areas, while its latest attacks on Khan Younis, southern Gaza, killed at least 70 people in what once was a humanitarian zone.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces raided the city of Tulkarem on Tuesday morning and hit it with a drone strike, killing three Palestinian armed groups' commanders along with a mother and daughter.

READ MORE: Hamas, Fatah and other Palestinian groups sign 'national unity' deal in China

Our live coverage from Gaza will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are some of the day's key developments:

• At least 39,006 people have been killed and 89,818 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, the enclave's health ministry says

• The Gaza health ministry reports that at least 70 bodies have arrived at the Nasser medical complex since this morning after Israeli forces resumed their attacks on Khan Younis

• Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (Unrwa), said that Israeli forces shot at a UN convoy heading towards Gaza City on Sunday

• Lazzarini posted photos on X showing the aftermath of a visit to the agency's headquarters in Gaza City. A week ago, Unrwa announced that its headquarters had been "flattened and turned into a battlefield"

• The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) said that "one Palestinian child was killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, every two days since October 2023"

• Israel's parliament has passed three bills, in their first readings, to close the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) and designate it a "terrorist organisation"

• The UN's Palestinian refugee agency (Unwra) stated on X that Israel's new evacuation orders, issued earlier today, will cause "more suffering and displacement" for the already exhausted population of the Gaza Strip

• The Israeli army struck a tent sheltering journalists in Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in central Gaza, killing one journalist and wounding several others

• The Israeli army has admitted that a Palestinian man with Down syndrome who died after being attacked and injured by an army dog was abandoned by its soldiers

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has requested an in-person meeting with former President Donald Trump during his visit to the US this week, according to a report from Politico on Monday, citing sources familiar with the matter

• The Palestinian Olympic Committee has urged the exclusion of Israel from the games in an open letter to IOC President Thomas Bach

The Republican Jewish Coalition criticised Vice President Kamala Harris, calling it "disgraceful" that her "first official act as the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States" was to snub Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It stated: "Kamala Harris would be a total disaster for the US-Israel relationship."

Before Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race, Harris was scheduled to campaign for him during Netanyahu's address to Congress. She was also set to meet with the Israeli prime minister, though it is unclear if this meeting will still take place.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump's running mate, Republican Senator JD Vance from Ohio, has chosen to campaign instead of attending Netanyahu's speech. It remains uncertain whether he or Trump will meet with the Israeli prime minister during his US visit.

The UN's Palestinian refugee agency (Unwra) stated on X that Israel's new evacuation orders, issued earlier today, will cause "more suffering and displacement" for the already exhausted population of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army's orders impact around 400,000 people in Khan Younis and were swiftly followed by a massive assault on the city, resulting in at least 70 deaths since this morning.

The agency shared a video of the latest evacuation, noting that the people forced to flee have "nowhere safe to go."

The Palestinian Olympic Committee has urged the exclusion of Israel from the games in an open letter to IOC President Thomas Bach.

The letter accused Israel of breaching the Olympic truce, set from 19 July to mid-September, by continuing its war on Gaza.

It highlighted that Palestinian athletes, particularly in Gaza, are denied safe passage and have suffered due to the conflict, with around 400 athletes killed and sports facilities destroyed.

The committee also referenced the UN's recent opinion deeming Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory illegal.