Gaza live: Israeli protesters demand ceasefire as war enters 10th month

At least three Palestinians have been shot and wounded by Israeli gunfire in the town of Beita just south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian news agency Wafa has reported.

A child is among those wounded, it added.

Israeli forces have been carrying out near-daily raids on towns and villages across the occupied West Bank. 

 At least four people were killed in an Israeli drone strike in the Nur Shams camp near Tulkarem.

The deaths bring the number of Palestinians killed in Nur Shams to six in the past 24 hours, including a woman and a child on Monday. An Israeli soldier was also killed in Nur Shams on Monday.

US President Joe Biden threatened to withdraw support from Israel if it conducted a significant strike against Iran, following Tehran's retaliation against an attack on its embassy in Syria, The New York Times reported.

In April, Iran launched hundreds of ballistic and cruise missiles at Israel after its embassy was struck, killing several Iranian officials.

"Let me be crystal clear... If you launch a big attack on Iran, you're on your own," Biden is quoted as telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a call described by the paper as a "lecture" following the successfully thwarted April 18 attack.

According to the account, Netanyahu pushed Biden hard over the need to retaliate against Iran and avoid appearing weak.

"You do this, and I'm out," Biden is quoted as telling Netanyahu. "Take the win."

The Palestinian Authority health ministry in the occupied West Bank said at least four people were killed in an Israeli drone strike in the Nur Shams camp near Tulkarem.

Palestinian media named the four as Yazid Saad al-Shafi, Nimr Anwar Hamarsheh, Mohamed Yasser Shehadeh and Mohamed Hassan Ghannam.

A Biden political appointee in the Department of the Interior has resigned in protest against the president’s support for Israel's war on Gaza.

Maryam Hassanein said in her resignation statement that she could not continue to work for an administration that ignores its staff.

“After months of Israel’s brutal violence, including the murders of over 37,000 Palestinians and the intentional starvation of millions of Palestinians, the only way I know how to make my voice heard and meaningfully represent my community is to leave,” said Hassanein, who is also a Muslim American.

“Arab and Muslim communities in the US have watched in horror as the Israeli military has struck mosques, churches, hospitals, playgrounds, and schools, destroying entire cities in Gaza while killing thousands of people in Gaza of all religions and ethnicities with US-supplied munitions,” Hassanein added.

“Instead of using US leverage to stop the killing, President Biden has continued funding this violence, while fueling hate crimes against Palestinian Americans by repeating anti-Arab tropes and outright lies,” said Hassanein.

The Houthis in Yemen said on Tuesday that a missile attack had been conducted in cooperation with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, targeting a "vital target" in the Israeli city of Haifa.

A group of Republican lawmakers has introduced legislation that seeks to force US universities to fully disclose how they will manage Gaza solidarity encampments that have swept the nation's schools over the past several months.

If it passes, the legislation will change some language within the Higher Education Act of 1965 to mandate that universities receiving federal funds disclose the measures it takes to "respond to incidents of civil disturbance occurring on the campus".

The legislation, introduced by Elise Stefanik and Jim Banks, joins a chorus of other bills and attempts by Republicans in Congress to stifle pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses, which has spiked since Israel's war on Gaza began last October.

“This legislation would prevent the disgraceful mob riots we saw overtake campuses across the country including Columbia University and make sure school leaders are enforcing policies against hostile campus takeovers,” Stefanik said in a statement announcing the legislation.

Read more: Republicans introduce bill attacking Gaza solidarity encampments at US universities

A US-built pier which the Pentagon says is meant to transfer aid to Gaza has not been re-anchored to the Gaza Strip. 

The pier will remain in the Israeli port of Ashdod, US Defence department spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters.

The US Central Command removed the temporary pier from its anchored position off the coast of Gaza and towed it back to Ashdod last week. 

“We’re still assessing when it can be re-anchored when sea states calm a bit,” Singh said.

“In terms of the distribution, you did see that some distribution did start back up over the weekend. It is going to take a few days to move some of that aid out of the marshalling area that had built up over time,” added Singh. 

The pier which cost at least $230m to build has been beset by failures. Last month it was damaged and repaired two times. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said no regional state could feel safe as long as “Israeli aggression under Netanyahu’s administration is not stopped”, Turkey’s Anadolu Agency has reported. 

Erdogan also referred to Turkey not being safe in his comments after a cabinet meeting in Ankara.

Israel’s rhetoric, as well as its attacks on Lebanon, were seriously concerning for the future of the region, added Erdogan. 

The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) regional director for the eastern Mediterranean, Hanan Balkhy, has warned that the environment for aid groups in the besieged Gaza Strip is  “increasingly volatile”.

“The safety and security of our teams, and the dignity and rights of Gazans must be restored and protected at all costs,” Balkhy said on X.

In a separate post, Balkhy said current efforts are “insufficient and unsustainable”.

“Member States must do more to initiate solutions for this political crisis. We need peace, and we need sustained humanitarian access,” she said.

Meta, the social media giant that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, said that the use of the word "shaheed" – Arabic for "martyr" – should be permitted in "all instances unless the content otherwise violates our policies or is shared with one or more of three signals of violence".

"Meta announced it will implement our key recommendations, effectively ending the blanket ban on the use of 'shaheed' to refer to designated dangerous organizations and individuals. This policy change aims for a more nuanced moderation of the term," the Meta oversight board said in a statement.

Rights groups have in the past accused Meta of systematically silencing and censoring pro-Palestine voices on their platforms. This issue has become particularly acute following Israel's war on Gaza.

The forced displacement of Palestinians from parts of Khan Younis and Rafah is the largest in the Gaza Strip since 1.1 million people were forced to leave the north of the enclave in October, the UN said on Tuesday.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that the Israeli order on Monday of "such a massive scale will only heighten the suffering of civilians and drive humanitarian needs even higher”.

“People are left with the impossible choice of having to relocate, some most likely for the second or third time, to areas that have barely any spaces or services, or staying in areas where they know heavy fighting will take place,” he said.

Eight firefighting crews are combating a blaze in northern Israel, which was ignited by a barrage of rockets launched from Lebanon earlier today, according to the Israeli fire service.

Teams have been working for several hours to prevent the flames from reaching homes but have not yet brought the fire under control.

A group of 14 Israeli soldiers were targeted in a neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City said Hamas’s armed wing on Tuesday.

According to a statement on Telegram, the troops were barricaded inside a house, which was hit by a thermobaric rocket.

An Israeli Merkava 4 tank was also targeted, said the group. 

In an interview with The Associated Press, Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, said, "If there is a cease-fire in Gaza, we will stop without any discussion."

Hezbollah is only involved as a "support front" following Israel's war on Gaza, Kassem said, adding, "If the war stops, this military support will no longer exist."

Without a permanent and formal ceasefire in Gaza, Hezbollah will not commit to anything, said Kassem.

"If what happens in Gaza is a mix between ceasefire and no ceasefire, war and no war, we can't answer [how we would react] now, because we don't know its shape, its results, its impacts," added Kassem.

The US based NGO, Freedom House, which focuses on political rights and civil liberties, urged US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to investigate Israel's usage of US military weapons abides by international humanitarian law.

"We urge you to make clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that the Israeli government must do more to protect and facilitate humanitarian relief to Palestinian civilians," wrote interim president Nicole Bibbins Sedaca.

"We urge you to make clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu during his visit next month that the United States will fully uphold US law and suspend aid to anyone involved in violations," she added.