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Gaza rescue teams and medics said Israeli air strikes killed at least 53 people on Thursday.
Six members of one family — a couple and their four children — were killed when an air strike levelled their home in northern Gaza City Thursday, the civil defence said in a statement.
Nine people were killed and several wounded in another strike on a former police station in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, according to a statement from the Indonesian hospital, where the casualties were brought.
In another deadly attack, the bodies of 12 people were recovered after the Hajj Ali family home, also in Jabalia, was struck, the civil defence said.
Elsewhere, 26 people were killed in a series of strikes across the territory, medics and the civil defence agency reported, including several in the southern area of Khan Younis.
Since Israel resumed its military operations, at least 1,978 people have been killed in Gaza, raising the overall death toll to at least 51,355 since the war began, according to the health ministry in the territory.
US globe-trotting envoy Steve Witkoff will take part in talks with Iran on Saturday in Oman, his third encounter within weeks on Tehran’s nuclear program, the State Department said.
Witkoff will be present in the talks that are designed to be at the technical level, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.
Israel condemned on Thursday Spain’s decision to unilaterally cancel a multimillion-dollar contract to buy bullets from an Israeli company, accusing the Spanish government of “sacrificing security considerations for political purposes”.
“Israel strongly condemns the decision by the Spanish government to unilaterally breach a contract signed with the defense company IMI Systems, and its announcement that it will refrain from future defense deals with Israeli companies,” Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement to AFP.
Spain “continues to stand on the wrong side of history – against the Jewish state that is defending itself from terrorist attacks”, it added.
An Israeli reservist soldier has been killed in combat in North Gaza, according to Haaretz, which reported that two other soldiers, and officer and reservist were seriously injured in the incident. Haaretz noted that the name of the solider has yet to be cleared for publication.
President Donald Trump on Thursday said US attempts to broker a nuclear deal with Iran are going well, ahead of technical talks between US and Iranian delegations in Oman on Saturday.
“I think we’re doing very well on an agreement with Iran. … That one is well on its way – we could have a very, very good decision. And a lot of lives will be saved,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
(Reuters)
Appeals judges at the International Criminal Court on Thursday ordered a lower panel to reconsider Israel’s objections to the court’s jurisdiction over arrest warrants issued against Israeli leaders last year.
The appeals chamber said the court had not properly weighed challenges by Israel to its jurisdiction and the legality of arrest warrant requests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for their conduct of the Gaza war.
The so-called Pre-Trial Chamber had ruled that Israel’s challenges had been premature, but the appeals judges now said that had been an “error of law”.
It said Israel’s argument that it was entitled to challenge the jurisdiction was not sufficiently addressed.
“The Appeals Chamber therefore reversed the decision and remanded the matter to the Pre-Trial Chamber for a new ruling on the substance of Israel’s challenge to the jurisdiction of the Court,” they said.
The office of the ICC Prosecutor said it was studying the new ruling, without offering further comment.
(Reuters)
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) voted on Thursday to establish the position of vice president, potentially paving the way for a successor to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
“A vote was held to create the position of vice president,” Rizq Namoura, a member of the PLO’s central council, said in an interview with Palestine TV. It is the first time such a role has been created since the organisation’s founding decades ago.
Israel’s army chief threatened on Thursday to expand the ongoing military offensive in the Gaza Strip if hostages being held there by Palestinian militants were not freed soon.
“If we do not see progress in the return of the hostages in the near future, we will expand our activities to a larger and more significant operation,” Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said during a visit to Gaza.
Gaza rescue teams and medics said Israeli air strikes killed at least 53 people on Thursday, as the military issued fresh evacuation orders ahead of a planned attack.
Since Israel resumed its military operations, at least 1,978 people have been killed in Gaza, raising the overall death toll to at least 51,355 since the war began, according to the health ministry in the territory.
Bulgaria said Thursday it had “received an official apology from Israel” following the announcement that one of its citizens who was a UN worker was killed in Gaza in March.
Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister Georg Georgiev called for “such tragedies not to happen again”, stressing that “the protection of humanitarian workers is a top priority” in a statement.
Al Jazeera Arabic, citing medical sources, reported that 15 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house sheltering displaced families near Halawa roundabout in Jabalia al-Balad, northern Gaza.
The Israeli military issued an evacuation order on Thursday for Palestinians residing in two north Gaza areas ahead of a planned attack.
“To all of the civilians of the Gaza Strip staying in the areas of Beit Hanoun and Sheikh Zayed. This is a preliminary and a final warning… move west immediately toward Gaza City,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X.
An Israeli airstrike hit a police station in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 10 people, local health authorities said.
Medics said two Israeli missiles hit the police station, located near a market, which led to the wounding of dozens of people in addition to the 10 deaths.
The identities of those killed were not immediately clear.
Local health authorities said Israeli strikes have killed at least 34 other people in separate airstrikes across the enclave, bringing Thursday’s death toll to 44.
Israel’s military said Thursday that the initial findings from an investigation into the death of a UN worker in the central Gaza Strip last month showed he was killed by Israeli tank fire.
“According to the findings collected so far, the examination indicates that the fatality was caused by tank fire from [Israeli military] troops operating in the area. The building was struck due to assessed enemy presence and was not identified by the forces as a UN facility,” the military statement said, referring to the incident on March 19.
Gaza rescue teams and medics said Israeli air strikes killed at least 36 people on Thursday, including a family of six whose home was struck in Gaza City.
Six members of one family — a couple and their four children — were killed when an air strike levelled their home in northern Gaza City, the civil defence said in a statement.
Nine people were killed and several wounded in another strike on a former police station in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, according to a statement from the Indonesian hospital, where the casualties were brought.
Elsewhere, 21 people were killed in a series of strikes across the territory, medics and the civil defence agency reported, including several in the southern area of Khan Younis.
Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry has summoned Iran’s ambassador to Beirut, Mojtaba Amani, warning him against interfering in the country’s internal affairs, according to Saudi outlet Al Arabiya.
The move follows remarks made by the Iranian envoy criticising Lebanese efforts to disarm the Iran-backed group Hezbollah.
Amani was called in for a meeting with Foreign Ministry Secretary-General Hani Chemaitelly.
The summons came a day after Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi told Arab foreign ministers in Cairo that Lebanon “rejects any foreign interference in our internal affairs” and supports “positive neutrality, mutual respect for sovereignty, and shared Arab interests.”
Israeli forces shot and arrested a young Palestinian man south of Tulkarm in occupied West Bank before seizing his vehicle, Al Jazeera Arabic reports.
Sources told the publication that additional troops were deployed to the scene, roads were sealed off, and an ambulance was blocked from reaching the wounded youth.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Thursday he would be willing to visit Germany, France and Britain for talks on his country’s nuclear programme.
“After my recent consultations in Moscow & Beijing, I am ready to take the first step with visits to Paris, Berlin and London,” he said in a post on X, adding that he was open to talks “not only on the nuclear issue, but in each and every other area of mutual interest and concern”.
At least five people have been killed in an Israeli air strike on Nakhil Street in the Tuffah neighbourhood of eastern Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.
The strike caused extensive damage to nearby buildings and forced residents to flee in panic.
Emergency crews have since recovered the bodies, as rescue operations continue in the heavily bombarded area.
Spain has unilaterally cancelled a multi-million-dollar contract to buy bullets from an Israeli company that infuriated the minority Socialist-led administration’s far-left coalition partner, government sources said on Thursday.
Spain halted weapons transactions with Israel after the outbreak of the war in Gaza, which followed by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and has devastated the occupied Palestinian territory, killing more than 50,000 people.
The interior ministry then sought to negotiate a termination of the 6.8-million-euro ($7.8 million) contract with Israeli firm IMI Systems, which was to have supplied bullets to the Spanish Civil Guard.
But those talks failed and the government has now unilaterally terminated the contract, the government sources said.
The deal had sparked outrage from the Socialists’ far-left coalition partner Sumar, which said it was a “blatant violation” of the pledge not to trade arms with Israel and demanded its immediate cancellation.
After “exhausting all paths of negotiation”, the offices of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Sumar’s Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Diaz and “the competent ministries have decided to cancel unilaterally the ammunition purchase contract with Israeli company IMI Systems”, the government sources said.
“The investment board for dual-use material will deny this company permission to import this equipment to our country for reasons of general interest and, immediately afterwards, the interior ministry will terminate the contract,” the sources added.
The interior ministry had said the state legal services advised against scrapping the deal “due to the advanced stage of the processing of the contract” and because it would have had to pay without receiving the bullets.
The state legal services and relevant ministries were “examining possible legal reactions and complaints”, the government sources added.
Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani has reiterated Doha’s commitment to ending the war on Gaza during a meeting with China’s special envoy to the Middle East Zhai Jun.
According to a statement from the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the two officials discussed the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and the wider Palestinian territories.
The statement added that al-Thani underscored the need for all parties to intensify efforts to deliver humanitarian aid without obstruction, stressing that international coordination is essential to alleviate the suffering of civilians.
Gaza has entered the fifth and most critical stage of malnutrition as defined by the World Health Organization, according to the medical director of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, Dr Khalil al-Daqran.
Speaking to Voice of Palestine, al-Daqran said, “Gaza’s children are going through the most dangerous stages of malnutrition due to a complete absence of food and infant formula. Their lives are in real danger.”
He also raised alarm over the condition of approximately 200,000 Palestinians suffering from chronic illnesses, noting that many are at risk of dying due to a total depletion of essential medicines.
The Israeli blockade, now in its seventh week, has driven Gaza’s healthcare system into collapse and left civilians facing starvation, according to reports by Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Michael Erik Kurilla, head of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), is expected to arrive in Israel today for meetings with Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz and Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir, according to The Times of Israel.
Citing an Israeli official, The Times of Israel reported the discussions will primarily focus on Iran, alongside other regional conflicts involving Israel, the official said.
This visit comes ahead of the third round of nuclear negotiations between Washington and Tehran, scheduled for Saturday.
Former US President Donald Trump has warned that Iran faces the threat of military action if it refuses to agree to a deal.
An Israeli airstrike hit a police station in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 10 people, local health authorities said, and Israel’s military claimed it had struck a command centre of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad groups.
Medics said two Israeli missiles hit the police station, located near a market, which led to the wounding of dozens of people in addition to the 10 deaths.
The identities of those killed were not immediately clear.
The Israeli military said in a statement apparently referring to the same incident that it attacked a command and control centre operated by Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad groups in Jabalia, which operatives used to plan and execute attacks against Israeli forces.
Local health authorities said Israeli strikes have killed at least 16 other people in separate airstrikes across the enclave, bringing Thursday’s death toll to 26.
BREAKING | Israeli fighter jets have targeted Jabalia market, a densely populated area in the northern Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/MYcfvwHxFS
Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir stirred controversy during his visit to New Haven, where he addressed the Shabtai Society, a Jewish student group unaffiliated with Yale University.
Footage shows Ben-Gvir flashing a victory sign at a large crowd of pro-Palestine protesters jeering him as he entered the venue.
After the event, he repeated the gesture while an aide waved an Israeli flag beside him.
According to The Times of Israel, Ben-Gvir’s team claimed water bottles were thrown at them during the confrontation.
At one of the only U.S. venues willing to host him—Shabtai, a fringe Jewish society that acts like it’s part of Yale despite having no official affiliation—Ben Gvir stepped out to provoke protesters, then scurried back inside and slipped out the back. pic.twitter.com/zNrowo7I97
At least three people, including two brothers, have been killed in a double Israeli missile strike targeting the bustling market area of Jabalia in northern Gaza, according to media reports from Al Jazeera English.
Several others were reportedly wounded in the attack, which took place on Thursday during a fresh wave of Israeli air raids.
Israeli forces have reportedly entered the town of Zaatara, east of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, and are using heavy machinery to demolish the home of the Abu Kaf family, according to local Palestinian media.
آليات الهدم التابعة للاحتلال تشرع بهدم منزل يعود لعائلة أبو كف بعد اقتحام قرية زعترة شرق بيت لحم. pic.twitter.com/JzzUWeXALb
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has released the schedule for public hearings to be held in The Hague next week, addressing Israel’s legal obligations regarding access for UN bodies, NGOs, and neutral states in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
The hearings follow a request from the United Nations for a legal opinion on whether Israel has the right to restrict or prohibit the operations of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), as well as its continued blockade on humanitarian aid entering Gaza.
A total of 45 countries and international organisations have submitted written statements ahead of the proceedings, which are due to begin on 28 April.
While Israeli officials are not expected to be present at the hearings, the country’s Foreign Ministry has confirmed it will provide a written submission to the court.
The World Bank has granted Lebanon a $250 million loan aimed at helping alleviate persistent power cuts worsened by last year’s war between Israel and Hezbollah, the country’s finance ministry said on Thursday.
Even before the conflict, Lebanon had for years been struggling with a severe shortage of imported fuel and poor infrastructure.
Following the conflict, however, the World Bank said it would need around $11 billion for reconstruction and recovery.
Lebanon had said it received preliminary approval to increase a World Bank reconstruction loan to $400 million from $250 million. The loan is part of a $1 billion reconstruction programme, with the remainder of the financing to come from international aid.
The Cannes film festival said Wednesday that the screening of a documentary about Gaza photojournalist Fatima Hassouna at the event next month would honour her work after the “horror” of her death in an Israeli air strike last week.
“Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” by Iranian director Sepideh Farsi is to be shown at ACID Cannes, at this year’s May 13-24 festival, which runs parallel to the main competition.
The film features conversations between Farsi and Hassouna as the 25-year-old photographer documents the impact of Israel’s devastating war on the Palestinian territory.
Hassouna was killed along with 10 relatives in an air strike on her family home in northern Gaza last Wednesday, the day after the documentary was announced as part of the ACID Cannes selection.
“The Cannes Film Festival wishes to express its horror and deep sorrow at this tragedy, which has moved and shocked the entire world,” the festival said in a statement on Hassouna.
“While a film is little in the face of such a tragedy, its screening at the ACID section in Cannes on May 15 will be, in addition to the message of the film itself, a way of honouring the memory of the young woman, a victim like so many others of the war,” it added.
Death toll rises to 53 as Israel targets Gaza civilian shelters – The New Arab
