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October 7, 2023: Israel begins bombarding Gaza in retaliation to Hamas attacks
Israel resumes massive attacks on March 18, killing over 400 in a day — two months after ceasefire ending 15 months of relentless attacks began
Future governance of Gaza remains unclear as Trump suggests US takeover but Arab countries propose alternative plan, which UK, others back
Hamas and Israel exchange 25 hostages, bodies and 1,700 detainees in seven swaps
Over 50,000 Palestinians, 400 Israeli soldiers dead; nearly all of Gaza displaced
Multi-billion dollar challenges ahead to reconstruct decimated enclave
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa has thanked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for supporting the Palestinian cause during Israel’s military operations, Al Jazeera reports.
Mustafa expressed appreciation for Turkiye’s efforts to end attacks on Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
During their meeting, the prime minister emphasised the need for increased international pressure to stop Israel from creating famine in Gaza because of its total blockade of desperately needed humanitarian aid.
Mustafa also briefed Erdogan on the deteriorating situation in the occupied West Bank during weeks-long Israeli military raids and settler attacks.
Erdogan reiterated Turkiye’s unwavering support for Palestine and readiness to contribute to Gaza’s reconstruction once Israel’s campaign ends.
The Israeli army says troops launched ground assaults in the Daraj and Tuffah neighbourhoods in Gaza City overnight, Al Jazeera reports.
In a statement on Telegram, the army said the incursion is intended to “enhance the security control in the area, dismantle terrorist infrastructure, and expand the security zone”.
The announcement comes after Israel said it entirely encircled the southern Rafah area, cutting it off from the rest of the Gaza Strip.
The armed wing of Hamas has released a video showing captured Israeli soldier Edan Alexander who holds dual Israeli-US citizenship, Al Jazeera reports.
Alexander is seen sitting in a tiny space in the more than three-minute clip.
“We really think we’ll come home dead. There’s nothing to say, no hope,” he says.
Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh reports that “one-quarter of a million Palestinians who called Rafah home can no longer have access to it.”
She continues: “Strategically speaking, this also means the two main crossings connecting the Gaza Strip to the world — the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing for commercial goods and humanitarian assistance and the Rafah border with Egypt, which allows people to leave or enter the enclave — are now off limits.”
Odeh reports that those crossings are beyond Palestinians’ reach and tighten the Israeli siege even more. “It also means Palestinians, 2.1 million of them, are now squeezed into about one-third of Gaza.”
She added that the UN estimates about 66 per cent of Gaza is already off-limits to Palestinians and Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has publicly stated the goal — since breaking the ceasefire with Hamas — is to apply pressure on the civilian population.
“He basically gave the population an ultimatum: topple Hamas and deliver the Israeli captives. Katz said that’s the only way to end the war,” Odeh reports.
At least 11 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since the early hours, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
The areas in which the attacks took place include the al-Mawasi humanitarian zone in southern Gaza and Jabalia in the north.
The European Union has decried the dire situation in Gaza and called for accountability after Israeli troops shot dead 15 emergency workers on a rescue mission, Al Jazeera reports.
“The European Union deplores the breakdown of the ceasefire in Gaza. The EU’s priorities remain the resumption of the ceasefire, the release of all hostages and the restoration of humanitarian aid at scale into Gaza,” a statement said.
“The EU firmly condemns the killing of 15 humanitarian aid workers in Gaza on March 23 and calls for accountability. Too many Israelis and Palestinians have suffered and the death toll of civilians in Gaza is unacceptable.
“The EU is extremely concerned by reports of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which suggest that food supplies brought in during the ceasefire are running out. Under International Humanitarian Law, humanitarian aid must reach civilians in need.”
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned of a deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza where food and drinking water are increasingly scarce for thousands of families, Al Jazeera reports.
“Food and clean water are in short supply in the Gaza Strip due to the blockade and the denial of aid for nearly six weeks,” UNRWA said.
It emphasised the need for urgent humanitarian assistance is essential to address the burgeoning needs of the population.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Commission says the number of female prisoners in Israeli jails has risen to 29, Al Jazeera reports.
Most of those arrested were for what Israel claims was “incitement”, it added.
In a January prisoner-captive swap, Israel freed 69 women. Another 21 boys – some as young as 12 – were also released in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.
Hamas has called for the release of captives in exchange for an end to the ongoing conflict, Al Jazeera reports
In a statement, the group said, “The escalating calls within the occupying entity to stop the war and free the prisoners confirm [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s responsibility for prolonging the war and for the suffering of his prisoners and our people.”
The statement continued, “The blood of Gaza’s children and the occupation’s prisoners are victims of Netanyahu’s ambitions to remain in power and to escape prosecution.
“The equation is clear: the release of captives in exchange for a cessation of the war. The world accepts it, but Netanyahu rejects it. Every day of delay means more killing of defenceless civilians among our people and an unknown fate for the occupation’s prisoners,” it concluded.
The Israeli military has issued an evacuation order for residents of Khan Younis and surrounding areas in southern Gaza, ahead of a planned strike after projectiles were fired from there earlier in the day, AFP reports.
“IDF (Israeli) troops are operating with significant force in the area, and will strike with intensity on any location from which rockets are launched,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X. “For your safety, move immediately westward to recognised shelters in Al-Mawasi” area, he added.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has announced that the military plans to expand its ongoing offensive across much of the Gaza Strip, warning residents to evacuate from active combat zones, AFP reports.
“Soon, IDF operations will intensify and expand to other areas throughout most of Gaza, and you will need to evacuate the combat zones,” Katz said in a statement addressed to residents of Gaza, as he also announced that troops had completed the takeover of a corridor in the southern part of the territory.
The Israeli military has said that forces have completed the encirclement of Gaza’s Rafah, part of an announced plan to seize more areas of the enclave, accompanied by large-scale evacuations of the population, Reuters reports.
“Over the past 24 hours, the 36th Division’s troops completed the establishment of the Morag route, separating Rafah and Khan Younis,” the military said.
Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz announced that the military has completed its takeover of the new Morag Corridor between the southern Gaza cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, AFP reports.
“The IDF (military) has now completed its takeover of the Morag axis, which crosses Gaza between Rafah and Khan Younis, turning the entire area between the Philadelphi Route and Morag into part of the Israeli security zone,” Katz said in a statement.
Israeli artillery and aircraft’s overnight attacks on the northern areas of the Gaza Strip have killed at least two people in the Shujayea district, Al Jazeera reports.
Olga Cherevko, a staff member with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), has told Al Jazeera from Gaza’s Deir el-Balah that the situation in the enclave is now “absolutely catastrophic”.
“More than 400,000 people have now been displaced in just over three weeks,” Cherevko stated.
She highlighted that a “massive shortage of water” and destruction of water facilities has led to “absolutely appalling” hygiene conditions.
A lack of water has contributed to the spread of skin rashes and public health issues, including fleas, mites and lice, according to Cherevko.
“Absolutely zero supplies have come in in over 40 days”, which means OCHA is “running out of everything, including critical medical and trauma supplies”, she was quoted as saying.
Amid Israel’s closure of UNRWA schools, Qatar’s foreign ministry has said it “considers the deprivation of children from education a new crime in the ongoing series of Israeli crimes”, Al Jazeera reports.
The statement also stressed “the need for the international community to act urgently to hold Israel accountable and oblige it to comply with international laws”.
Israel effectively banned UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, via legislation at the beginning of this year, rendering the agency unable to carry out its work in the occupied West Bank, Israel or occupied East Jerusalem.
A Palestinian teenager was shot by Israeli forces during a military raid last night on the town of Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, Wafa news agency reports, citing local security sources.
The Palestinian news agency said soldiers stormed the town and fired live ammunition and sound grenades towards residents.
The boy, who is 17 years old, was shot in the foot and is receiving treatment at a hospital, Wafa added.
Johnny Sinodis, a member of the detained Columbia University student’s legal team, said the immigration judge who ruled that Mahmoud Khalil could be deported didn’t show “an ounce of desire” to give him a fair hearing, Al Jazeera reports.
“[The ruling] was historic in its unfairness. The judge went out of her way to make very clear to us and anyone in the courtroom that the constitutional arguments we were making had no place in immigration court,” Sinodis said in an online news conference.
Another of Khalil’s lawyers, Marc Van der Hout, described the ruling by Judge Jamee Comans of the LaSalle Immigration Court in Louisiana as the “epitome of the lack of due process in a court proceeding in this country”.
“It was shocking. The immigration judge had made up her mind before the hearing even started. What she was going to do, she basically cut off questioning throughout the proceeding,” he said.
Khalil — a US permanent resident arrested and facing deportation over his pro-Palestine activism — can still appeal the decision.
Findings by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that 36 Israeli attacks on Gaza had killed only women and children further confirms a pattern previously identified, Al Jazeera cites Palestinian rights group Al-Haq as saying.
“Israel is purposely targeting” women and children in Gaza, Al-Haq said, adding that both it and the UN’s international commission of inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory and East Jerusalem had reached such a conclusion.
“Such a calculated effort to exterminate women, boys, girls and even infants, has not been witnessed in any other modern conflict,” Al-Haq said in a post on social media.
“While being targeted with heavy weaponry, they are forced to endure a total blockade on humanitarian aid — now for a 2nd month in a row,” the group said.
The bodies of two people have been recovered from the Kahil family home in the east of the Tuffah neighbourhood in Gaza City, which was bombed by Israeli forces earlier this morning, Al Jazeera reports citing local Palestinian media.
Several people were also injured in the attack, which we reported on earlier, including two young girls.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), has again said that Israel’s total blockade of the Gaza Strip contravenes international law, Al Jazeera reports.
Speaking at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum on Friday in Turkiye, Lazzarini said Israel was engaged in the “weaponising humanitarian assistance”.
“If you decide to stop any supply to a needy population, in order to put pressure on the same population, this is nothing else than weaponising humanitarian assistance, which we all know is contrary to any, you know, expected line of IHL (international humanitarian law),” he said.
A teenager was deliberately struck by an Israeli settler who drove his vehicle at three Palestinian boys as they walked along a road south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reports, citing Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P).
The child rights group said 16-year-old Ahmad Wisam Ahmad Odeh was walking at 2:15pm on Monday along the main street in the village of Huwara when an Israeli settler accelerated their car and drove directly at the three boys.
Ahmad was launched some five metres in the air and 10 metres along the road by the force of the impact, sustaining serious injuries, including a liver haemorrhage, 20 stitches in his head, and severe bruising, the rights group said.
“Under international law, Israel, as the occupying power, must protect the Palestinian civilian population from all acts of violence, including from attacks by Israeli settlers,” DCI-P’s Ayed Abu Eqtaish said.
“Yet, Israeli settlers act with near-total impunity, nearly always with full protection from Israeli authorities,” he said.
Prominent US lawmakers have joined a chorus of condemnation on the ongoing detention of Mahmoud Khalil after an immigration judge ruled that the Columbia University student can be deported on the grounds of threats to US national security, Al Jazeera reports.
Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez described the Trump administration’s detention of Khalil as an “attack on the First Amendment”, which guarantees freedom of speech.
“Mahmoud’s case is a litmus test for the right to free speech in our country. This ruling jeopardises dissent,” she said.
Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez also labelled Khalil’s detention a “clear 1st Amendment violation”.
“I stand with Mahmoud, and anyone who cares about our constitutional rights should too,” she said.
