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

Israeli forces bombed Jenin on Friday amid a raid on the occupied West Bank city, according to Palestinian and Israel media. 

Clashes between Palestinian fighters and Israeli forces erupted after Israeli special forces were discovered operating in the city. 

The Jenin Brigades, a local armed group associated with the Islamic Jihad, said its members were exchanging fire with Israeli troops in the city. 

Israeli Army Radio said a drone carried out a strike on house in the city. 

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

تغطية صحفية: إطلاق نار كثيف في حرش السعادة في جنين بعد محاصرة قوات الاحتلال لمنزل واندلاع اشتباكات pic.twitter.com/w11OUSFohn

— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) July 5, 2024

Independent pro-Gaza candidate Shockat Adam unseated Labour's shadow cabinet minister Jon Ashworth in the East Midlands constituency of Leicester South on Friday, in one of the biggest shocks in the UK general election.

Adam, a 51-year-old local, won with 14,739 votes, beating Ashworth, who received 13,760.

Leicester South has been a safe Labour seat for decades. Apart from a brief Liberal Democrat interlude in 2004-2005 after a by-election, widely seen as a protest against the Iraq war, the East Midlands constituency has had a Labour MP since 1987. 

Jon Ashworth won the 2019 election with a thumping majority of more than 26,000.

Around 30 percent of Leicester South's population are Muslim - more than 30,000 people.

During the campaign, Adam told MEE he decided to stand for parliament in an effort to disrupt the two-party system and represent people who feel they’re not being heard by the political class. 

“This is my home, this is my children’s home,” he told MEE. “I love Leicester. I love this country and that is why we have to make sure that we have a voice representing everybody.”

Read more: Labour shadow cabinet member loses seat to pro-Palestine independent in shock result

Here are the latest updates from the Israeli war on Gaza, now in its 273rd day:

• Friday in Gaza started with deadly Israeli air strikes, as has been the case for the past nine months. Several people were killed, including at least three children, in air strikes in Gaza City and Jabalia, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa. 

• Indirect ceasefire negotiations are set to resume on Friday in Doha with the presence of a high-level Israeli delegation, led by the Mossad chief. 

• In the occupied West Bank, armed settlers opened fire at Palestinian homes near Hebron and Nablus in the latest settler attack. No injuries were reported.   

• The US military said on Thursday night it destroyed two Houthi uncrewed surface vessels in the Red Sea.

Good evening Middle East Eye readers. 

Our live coverage will soon be closing for the day.

Here are some of today's main developments:

- Hamas made a significant adjustment in its position over a potential hostage release deal with Israel, senior US officials confirmed

- Director of Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad travelled to Qatar to resume Gaza ceasefire and hostage release talks

- An Israeli attack struck the al-Bardawil family home in Gaza City’s Daraj neighbourhood, killing two women and wounding several others

- Hezbollah said it fired more than 200 rockets on northern Israel

- The Israeli army said it is carrying out a wave of air strikes over Lebanon after the major rocket and drone attack from Hezbollah

- An Israeli minister has shared content on social media calling for the reconquest of Sinai

- Multiple casualties have been reported after Israel bombed two UN schools in Gaza City

An Israeli attack struck the al-Bardawil family home in Gaza City’s Daraj neighbourhood, killing two women and wounding several others.

Gaza’s civil defence says its teams have retrieved the bodies of the two women but two children remain “missing” under the debris.

Director of Israel’s intelligence agency David Barnea is travelling to Qatar to resume Gaza ceasefire and hostage release talks.

The talks are likely to take place on Friday, where Barnea will meet with Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, in an effort to bring together Israel and Hamas, a source with knowledge of the talks told Reuters on Thursday.

Hamas made a significant adjustment in its position over a potential hostage release deal with Israel, both a senior US official and a source in the Israeli negotiating team confirmed.

“The proposal put forward by Hamas includes a very significant breakthrough,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The US source added that there were still outstanding issues relating to the implementation of the agreement and that a deal would take some time.

A source in the Israeli negotiating team said on Thursday that there is a "real chance" of achieving a deal with Hamas on the release of hostages.

“The proposal put forward by Hamas includes a very significant breakthrough," said the source, after Hamas submitted a revised proposal for a deal, via mediators, to Israel's government.

"It can serve to advance negotiations. There’s a deal with a real chance of implementation. Though the clauses are not easy, they shouldn’t scupper the deal.”

Lebanon's Hezbollah launched a barrage of more than 200 rockets and drones at Israeli army positions on Thursday.

The group said its latest attack came in response to Israel's killing of a senior Hezbollah commander in south Lebanon.

Israel has evacuated most of its communities living along its northern border with Lebanon and has reported no deaths during Hezbollah’s latest attack but said it has responded with strikes in southern Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu told US President Biden in a call on Thursday that Israel has decided to send a delegation to negotiate a hostage release with Hamas.

The talks will reportedly be led by Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency.

Netanyahu also reiterated that Israel will end the war in Gaza only after "achieving all its objectives", his office said in a statement.

In a statement published on X, Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide has called on Israel to reverse the illegal land seizure of 12.7 square kilometres of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli government recently “legalised” five settlement outposts and declared them to be “state lands”,  in violation of international law.

The land grab signals the largest such illegal confiscation since the 1993 Oslo Accords and will result in the construction of about 6,000 housing units.

"Israel’s long-held policy of dispossession, land confiscation and establishing illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, undermines our collective efforts to realise a two-state solution and a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” the statement by Norway’s foreign ministry reads.

The European Union condemned the move in a statement late on Wednesday.

Statement by Foreign Minister @EspenBarthEide on Israeli settlements https://t.co/BqJI0btcTt pic.twitter.com/v0BSEqZAdP

— Norway MFA (@NorwayMFA) July 4, 2024

Multiple casualties have been reported after Israel bombed two UN schools in Gaza City.

The raids, which were confirmed by the Israeli army, struck the Musa bin Nusayr School, which houses displaced people in the al-Daraj neighbourhood.

The army claimed the schools were being used as “hideouts and operational bases" by Hamas.

An Israeli minister has shared content on social media calling for the reconquest of Sinai.

Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu retweeted a post by a right-wing activist on X (formerly Twitter) that showed a man wearing a T-shirt bearing the outline of the peninsula and the words "occupation now".

Israel controlled Sinai from 1967, when it was captured from Egypt in the Six-Day war, and returned it in 1982.

Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine said on Thursday that the group will attack new locations within Israel in response to the assassination of top commander Mohammad Nehmeh Nasser on Wednesday.

"The series of responses continues in succession, and this series will continue to target new sites that the enemy did not imagine would be hit," Safieddine said, speaking at Nasser's memorial.

Hezbollah has already fired over 200 rockets and over 20 drones into Israel in response to the killing.

The Israeli government's judicial adviser has requested the closure of the now-infamous Sde Teiman detention centre to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli outlet Maariv reports.

Sde Teiman, a detention centre in Negev where Palestinian prisoners from Gaza are held, became the subject of heavy scrutiny after reports of torture against Palestinians there.

Israeli human rights organisations had filed a petition to the Supreme Court demanding the end of the torture of Palestinians in the centre and demanding its "immediate" closure.