Live: Israel blocked all UN aid deliveries to north Gaza for over 50 days

Outgoing European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called on all EU member states on Thursday to respect decisions by the International Criminal Court, including the arrest warrant for Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"We cannot undermine the International Criminal Court. It is the only way of having global justice," Borrell, whose term as the EU's top diplomat ends this month, told reporters in Brussels.

"They're not political. It's a legal body formed by respected people who are the best among the profession of judges."

Though all EU member states are signatories to the ICC's founding treaty, France said on Wednesday it believed Netanyahu had immunity to actions by the ICC, given that Israel has not signed up to the court statutes.

Italy has said it is not feasible to arrest Netanyahu as long as he remains head of Israel's government.

ICC judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former minister of defence, were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a "widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza".

Reporting by Reuters

Israeli tank fire hit three towns along Lebanon's southeast boundary with Israel on Thursday, Lebanese security sources and state media said, a day after a ceasefire barring "offensive military operations" came into force.

Tank fire struck Markaba, Wazzani and Kfarchouba, all of which lie within two kilometres of the Blue Line demarcating the boundary between Lebanon and Israel. One of the security sources said two people were wounded in Markaba.

There was no immediate comment on the tank rounds from Hezbollah or Israel.

Under the ceasefire terms, Israeli forces can take up to 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had instructed the military not to allow residents back to villages near the border.

Lebanon's speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri, the top interlocutor for Lebanon in negotiating the deal, had said on Wednesday that residents could return home.

Reporting by Reuters

An Israeli drone strike targeted a car in the border town of Markaba, southern Lebanon, injuring three people on Thursday, Al Jazeera reported. 

Israeli military strikes killed at least 17 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, medics said, as forces stepped up bombardments on central areas and pushed tanks deeper in the north and south of the enclave.

Six people were killed in two separate air strikes on a house and near the hospital of Kamal Adwan in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, while four others were killed when an Israeli strike hit a motorcycle in Khan Younis in the south.

In Nuseirat, one of the Gaza Strip's eight historic refugee camps, Israeli planes carried out several air strikes destroying a multi-floor building and hitting roads outside mosques. At least seven people were killed in some of those strikes, health officials said.

Medics said at least two people, a woman and a child, were killed in tank shelling that hit western areas of Nuseirat, while an air strike killed five others in a house nearby.

In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, tanks pushed deeper into the north-western area of the city, residents said.

There has been no Israeli comment on the fighting in Gaza overnight and early Thursday.

Reporting by Reuters

Israeli forces have effectively blocked all attempts to deliver aid to northern Gaza since they launched a large-scale offensive there on 5 October, UN figures have shown.

The besiegement has left an estimated 65,000 to 75,000 Palestinians trapped in northern Gaza while being cut off from humanitarian aid and facing "diminishing conditions for survival", the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said on Thursday. 

The UN made 91 attempts to deliver life-saving aid to Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Sahour between 6 October and 25 November.  

However, 82 of those attempts were outright denied and the rest were impeded, according to Unrwa. 

"The situation is beyond miserable," the agency said.

Here are the latest updates from the Israeli war on Gaza, now in its 419th day:

• Israeli jets heavily bombed the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip overnight, according to local media. At least six Palestinians have been killed, including a child, in attacks in Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Gaza City, Wafa news agency reported. 

• In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces stormed the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem and the Qabatiya town near Jenin. 

• Meanwhile, Israeli artillery shelling targeted the southern Lebanese village of Yaroun, in violation of the ceasefire agreement, according to local reports. There were no immediate comments from the Israeli military.