Israel's War on Gaza Live: Israel pounds Rafah in overnight strikes

French President Emmanuel Macron urged Europe to expand its sanctions against Iran, emphasising the need for targeting entities engaged in the manufacturing of drones and missiles.

Macron made the statement prior to an EU leaders' summit in Brussels.

On Wednesday, European Union leaders will convene to deliberate on increasing sanctions against Iran following its recent missile and drone assault on Israel.

The United Nations Security Council plans to vote this Friday on a Palestinian bid for full UN membership, diplomats announced on Wednesday.

The United States, a staunch ally of Israel, is anticipated to veto the request, as it would essentially acknowledge a Palestinian state.Diplomats said that the 15-member council is set to vote on a draft resolution at 3 pm (1900 GMT) this Friday.

The resolution recommends to the 193-member UN General Assembly that "the State of Palestine be admitted to membership of the United Nations," said diplomats.

For a council resolution to pass, it requires a minimum of nine votes in favour and no vetoes from the US, Britain, France, Russia, or China. According to diplomats, the measure might garner support from as many as 13 council members, potentially necessitating the US to exercise its veto power.

The Israeli army confirmed 14 soldiers were wounded, six of them seriously, in a Hezbollah attack on the Arab al-Aramshe area in northern Israel. 

Hezbollah said earlier that it launched a coordinated attack against an army command centre using guided missiles and drones.

Israeli quadcopters are employing a "bizarre" new tactic of playing audio recordings of crying infants and women in order to lure Palestinians to locations where they can be targeted.

On Sunday and Monday night, residents of the northern parts of Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp woke up to the sounds of babies crying and women calling out for help.

When they went outside to locate the source of the cries and provide aid, Israeli quadcopters reportedly opened fire directly at them.

Samira Abu al-Leil, a resident of the refugee camp, told Middle East Eye that she heard Israeli quadcopters opening fire during and shortly after playing the recorded sounds, which lasted for several minutes and recurred multiple times on Monday night. 

"I heard a woman crying and screaming for help, saying, ‘Help me, my son was martyred’. The sounds were coming from the street and they were bizarre," the 49-year-old said.

“Some men rushed out to the rescue, only to be shot by the quadcopters that kept roaming all night long."

According to eyewitnesses, at least seven to 10 people were injured by the quadcopter fire overnight.

Read more: Israeli drones lure Palestinians with crying children recordings then shoot them 

Israel's cabinet on Wednesday approved a five-year, 19-billion-shekel ($5 billion) plan to rebuild and strengthen towns near the Gaza border after the Hamas-led October attack, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would invest the funds in housing, infrastructure, education, employment, health and other areas.

"Hamas terrorists wanted to uproot us - but we will uproot them and deepen our roots," he said in a statement. "We will build the Land of Israel and protect our country."

Reporting by Reuters 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday told the visiting British and German foreign ministers that Israel "will reserve the right to protect itself," his office said.

Netanyahu's comments to Britain's David Cameron and Germany's Annalena Baerbock came days after Iran carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel by launching hundreds of drones, missiles and ballistic missiles.

After meeting the two visiting diplomats, Netanyahu addressed the cabinet, where he said that he had been given "all kinds of suggestions and advice" by the country's allies.

"However, I would also like to clarify: we will make our decisions ourselves," he said, according to a statement issued by his office.

Reporting by AFP

The final years of all settler-colonies are marked by more protracted colonial savagery, including genocide. The realisation that the loss of settler-colonial power is at hand drives colonial forces to use the most barbaric methods to defeat the revolt of the indigenous people.

In Kenya, the British are estimated to have killed as many as 100,000 Kenyansduring the war of national liberation that ended white supremacist colonial rule in 1963. The wars of liberation in Angola and Mozambique against their Portuguese colonists and white supremacist rule cost tens of thousands of lives between 1956 and 1976.

Fearing that the two independent countries would accelerate the demise of apartheid South Africa, the US and South Africa alongside mercenary African forces waged racist wars against the peoples of both countries between 1975 and 1992, killing 1.5 million people in Angola and Mozambique out of a combined population of 23 million. Twelve million more were made refugees.

In South Africa, once the settler-colonial regime had no choice but to negotiate with the African National Congress (ANC) in 1989, it attempted to break the unity of Black South Africans by continuing to support the politician and Zulu prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, whose followers began to clash with ANC supporters.

It was revealed that the government provided financial and military training to Buthelezi's right-wing and separatist Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). Supported by the police, IFP members attacked people in the townships. Close to 15,000 Black Africans were killed by the South African police and security apparatus between 1989 and 1994 during this so-called peace process.

Israel has similarly killed thousands of Palestinians since signing a preliminary "peace" treaty in September 1993. In the 30-year period of the "peace process" through September 2023 - just before the current genocide in Gaza - Israel killed upwards of 12,000 Palestinians.

But of all these precedents, Algeria is perhaps the most apposite example of what has been unfolding in Gaza.

Read more: Why Israel's savagery is a sign of its impending defeat - Opinion by Joseph Massad

Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh will reportedly head to Turkey to hold talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, broadcaster NTV says.

Erdogan had told lawmakers in his AKP party that he will "host the leader of the Palestinian cause at the weekend", adding that they will discuss "a number of issues".

In a statement marking Palestinian Prisoners' Day, Hamas said freeing Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails is a "top priority" and called for a global movement in support of the prisoners' cause.

"[Israel]'s prison administration continues to practice the most heinous crimes against prisoners inside prisons and detention centres, including medical negligence, torture and direct killing," the statement read, adding that 16 prisoners have been killed in Israeli jails since 7 October.

Regarding prisoners in the West Bank, Hamas said it holds Israel "fully responsible for the lives and safety of thousands of abductees detained" since the start of the current war.

As today marks Palestinian Prisoners' Day, the Gaza media office released a statement saying that over 5,000 Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli forces during their current war on Gaza, which started on 7 October.

The office also said that Palestinian prisoners undergo "the worst kinds of torture" in Israeli jails, and asked the international community to intervene.

Al Araby TV's correspondent in Gaza said that Israeli forces withdrew from Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip.

This comes after a two-day incursion into the town, where Israeli soldiers reportedly besieged schools sheltering displaced people and fired at them.

Iranian Naval Commander Shahram Irani said his country's navy is escorting Iranian commercial ships to the Red Sea, as the world braces for Israel's retaliatory attack.

Israel has said it would retaliate against Iran's weekend drone and missile attack on the country, which itself came as a response to a reported Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria.

"The Navy is carrying out a mission to escort Iranian commercial ships to the Red Sea and our Jamaran frigate is present in the Gulf of Aden in this view," Irani said, according to Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency.

Tehran is ready to escort vessels of other countries, he added.

The Red Sea has been the site of significant disruptions to world trade ever since Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis started targeting Israel-linked ships in support of Gaza.

Gaza's health ministry said that 56 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 33,899 since the beginning of the current war.

Additionally, 89 people have been wounded, bringing the tally to 76,664 wounded since 7 October.

Speaking at the annual Army Day parade, Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi said that the "tiniest invasion" by Israel would bring a "massive and harsh" response from his country, as Israel insists on retaliating for Iran's drones and missiles attack over the weekend.

Iran's offensive came as a response to a reported Israeli strike on the country's consulate in Damascus, Syria, which killed several Iranian officers including top commanders.

The Army Day parade typically takes place on a highway in Tehran's southern outskirts, outside Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's mausoleum. It was relocated to a military base east of the capital this year due to security concerns.

Meeting with the UK and Germany's foreign ministers in Jerusalem, Israeli President Isaac Herzog called on the international community to work “defiantly” against Iran.

"The whole world must work decisively and defiantly against the threat by the Iranian regime which is seeking to undermine the stability of the whole region," he said in a statement.

UK Foreign Minister David Cameron and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock are the first Western officials to visit Israel following Iran's weekend attack on Israel.