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

Israel has assassinated a senior commander of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, sources told Al Jazeera on Wednesday. 

He is identified as Abu Nema Naser, head of the Aziz Unit in the group's armed branch. 

Israeli special forces infiltrated Jenin in the occupied West Bank and assassinated a Palestinian man, local media reports. 

The target of the attack is reportedly a member of the Jenin Battalion armed group. 

There is no immediate comment from the Israeli military, the Jenin Battalion or the Palestinian ministry of health.

An Israeli man has succumbed to his wounds after being stabbed at a mall in northern Israel on Wednesday, according to local media. 

A Palestinian citizen of Israel stabbed two men earlier in the shopping centre in the town of Karmiel, located around 30 km west of Safed. 

He was later shot dead by armed Israeli men at the scene. 

Israeli forces have killed at least 28 Palestinians and wounded 125 more in the past 24 hours, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

This brings the Palestinian death toll since 7 October to 37,953, with more than 87,266 wounded and an estimated 10,000 missing, likely dead and buried under rubble.

Health officials report that around 70 percent of the victims are children and women.

Almost all patients in the European Gaza hospital in Khan Younis and the Red Cross field hospital have been forced to flee following Israeli military ejection orders for the surrounding area in southern Gaza, the WHO said Wednesday.

On Monday, 270 patients reportedly self-evacuated along with medical staff, and on Tuesday, the Palestinian health ministry evacuated more patients, the World Health Organisation said.

"Now only three patients remain at the European Gaza Hospital and three at the ICRC field hospital. Most patients have been referred to Nasser Medical Complex," the WHO said, citing figures from Tuesday.

The Israeli army on Monday ordered the evacuation for most areas east of Khan Yunis and Rafah along the Egyptian border. It did not explicitly announce a military operation, but such orders have typically preceded major offensives.

Though the European Gaza Hospital itself is not under evacuation instructions, the order has impacted operations.

"As witnessed several times during the ongoing war, insecurity in a hospital's proximity and lack of access for patients, health workers, and humanitarians to resupply fuel, medical supplies, water and food can make hospitals non-functional very quickly," the WHO said.

The UN health agency said it would try to support attempts to transfer valuable medical equipment and supplies out of the hospital.

The European #Gaza Hospital is now completely empty -- all 320 patients and all the medical personnel have evacuated, following the evacuation orders in Khan Younis, in close proximity to the hospital. Thanks to @UN partners, three trucks containing medical equipment from the…

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) July 2, 2024

US envoy Amos Hochstein plans to meet French officials in Paris on Wednesday to discuss ways to defuse the escalating cross-border fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli military, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Last month, Hochstein said on that Washington was seeking to avoid "a greater war" following an escalation in cross-border fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli military along Lebanon's southern frontier in recent weeks.

Reporting by Reuters

Israeli police said they "neutralised" a suspected assailant who stabbed and wounded two men in a shopping centre in the country's north.

The police in a statement said they were treating the incident in the town of Karmiel as "a suspected terror attack," a term often used by Israeli authorities to refer to attacks by Palestinians. 

Paramedics said they rushed the two victims to hospital, one in critical condition and the other in serious condition.

No details were immediately given of the assailant's identity.

Reporting by AFP and MEE 

Israeli ejection orders from eastern Khan Younis earlier this week have cause a fresh wave of displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinians. 

The latest orders have pushed people to set up tents among the rubble where safety is not guaranteed, said Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

"Forced displacement is once again pushing people to look for safety where there is none in Gaza," the agency wrote on social media platform X. 

Forced displacement is once again pushing people to look for safety where there is none in #Gaza.

This was yesterday around Hamad City. After fleeing the area affected by the latest evacuation orders from the Israeli Authorities, families were setting up tents among the rubble. pic.twitter.com/voGYPIwpbS

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) July 3, 2024

Israeli fighter jets struck a gathering of displaced Palestinian attempting to return to their homes in Gaza City's Shujaiya neighbourhood.

At least four people were killed and 17 wounded, according to Al Jazeera. 

Israeli police clashed with settlers in the occupied West Bank as they dismantled an unlicensed settler outpost early on Wednesday, according to video footage of the police operation seen by Reuters.

The video showed police excavators destroying makeshift structures at the outpost. Settlers sat down across a small road to block access for the police, but officers dragged them out of the way, the video showed.

There was no immediate comment from Israeli authorities about the operation.

Reporting by Reuters 

An Israeli strike hit a car in the Maghazi camp in central Gaza, killing three peoeple, according to Al Jazeera. 

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday urged Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to prevent a "conflagration" between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, during a telephone call between the two leaders.

Macron "reiterated his serious concern over a deepening of tensions between Hezbollah and Israel... and underscored the absolute need to prevent a conflagration that would harm the interests of Lebanon as well as Israel," the French presidency said in a statement.

He also insisted on the "urgency for all parties to move rapidly toward a diplomatic solution" to end the conflict sparked by the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas in Gaza.

"The two leaders discussed the diplomatic efforts underway towards this," the Elysee Palace said, ahead of a visit by the US envoy for the conflict, Amos Hochstein, to Paris on Wednesday.

Hochstein is scheduled to meet with Macron's Lebanon envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian following visits to Israel and Lebanon in June to try to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.

Reporting by AFP

A dozen former US government officials who quit over US support for Israel's war on the Gaza Strip on Tuesday accused President Joe Biden's administration of "undeniable complicity" in the killing of Palestinians in the enclave.

In a joint statement, the 12 former government officials said the administration was violating US laws through its support for Israel and finding loopholes to continue shipping weapons to its ally.

Among the people who signed the joint statement were former members of the State Department, Education Department, Interior Department, White House and the military.

"America's diplomatic cover for, and continuous flow of arms to, Israel has ensured our undeniable complicity in the killings and forced starvation of a besieged Palestinian population in Gaza," the former officials said in the statement.

They urged the US government to use its "necessary and available leverage" to bring the war to an end and to ensure the release of Israeli captives in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners in Israel. They also demanded that the US government support Palestinian self-determination and fund an "immediate expansion of humanitarian assistance" in Gaza.

Both the White House and the State Department had no immediate comment on the statement.

Reporting by Reuters

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates from the Israeli war on Gaza, now in its 271st day:

• At least three Palestinian children were among five killed Wednesday morning by the Israeli bombing of a home in Gaza City. 

• Dr Hasan Hamdan, head of the plastic surgery department at Nasser hospital, was killed with members of his family in separate air strikes on his home in Deir al-Balah, according to local media. 

• Meanwhile, fierce fighting continued in Gaza City's eastern Shujaiya neighbourhood and Rafah in the south. 

• US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are expected to meet later this month when the Israeli leader visits Washington to address the US Congress, according to CNN. 

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

Here are some of the day's key developments:

• 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

• 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

• The Israeli ground assault on the Shujaiya neighbourhood launched last week has cut off access to a key aid distribution hub in northern Gaza, according to Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees

• Worsening living conditions for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails is one of Itamar Ben Gvir's highest goals, the far-right minister said on Tuesday, as he advocated again for executing them

• Two Israeli soldiers were killed Monday in combat with Palestinian fighters in the central Gaza Strip, the military said on Tuesday

• Israel has killed at least 8,572 Palestinian students in Gaza and 100 in the occupied West Bank since 7 October, the Palestinian Education Ministry reports

• Israeli top generals are pushing for a ceasefire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip even if it means the Palestinian group remains in power, according to the New York Times

• Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has ended its ban on “shaheed”, an Arabic word commonly translated to “martyr”

• 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

• 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"

• 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