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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
Israel has proposed a 45-day truce in Gaza to allow hostage releases and potentially begin indirect talks to end the conflict, while Hamas, which has already rejected one of its conditions — that it lay down its arms — says it is studying the plan.
According to a copy obtained by Reuters, in the first week, Hamas would release 10 living hostages in exchange for 120 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences and more than 1,000 Palestinians detained since October 7, 2023.
Israeli forces would withdraw to positions they held in Gaza before the breakdown of the original ceasefire agreement on March 18, and Palestinians would be allowed the cross the Netzarim corridor area that separates northern and southern Gaza.
Additionally, the distribution of humanitarian aid would resume and work on rebuilding infrastructure would start, while talks would begin with Egyptian and Qatari mediators and the United States on a permanent end to the fighting.
Subsequently, Hamas would provide proof of life of the remaining living hostages and the deceased hostages would be released.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has not commented directly on the plan.
Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad has released a video showing an Israeli hostage alive, in which he appeals to the Israeli government and US President Donald Trump to secure his release, AFP reports.
Israeli media identified him as Rom Braslavski from Jerusalem, who was abducted by Hamas fighters from the Nova music festival during their attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
In response to a statement issued by Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz regarding the halt of humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, the United Nations said Israel has briefed the agency and humanitarian aid suppliers on a “new authorisation mechanism that would introduce greater control over aid delivery in Gaza by Israeli forces”, Al Jazeera reports.
The UN stated that aid organisations already have mechanisms to ensure that aid is not diverted to Hamas and that they are “ready to deliver assistance to those most in need based on humanitarian principles”.
“Aid delivery into Gaza has for too long been obstructed,” the UN stated. “Further control over aid operations by a party to the conflict would risk aid not reaching the most vulnerable at a time when it is needed the most”.
Al Jazeera reports that 51,025 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since October 2023, citing figures from the enclave’s health ministry.
According to the ministry, 25 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip since early this morning, while Israeli attacks have killed 1,652 people and wounded 4,391 in the territory since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas on March 18.
Since fighting broke out on October 7, 2023, 51,025 Palestinians have been killed and 116,432 have been wounded. Thousands are still considered missing, the ministry adds.
Additionally, no aid has entered since March 2, risking a surge in malnutrition, disease and other preventable conditions.
About 400,000 people have been forcibly displaced in the last three weeks.
The Palestinian foreign ministry has condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Gaza the previous day, in which he vowed to keep up Israel’s offensive against Hamas, AFP reports.
“The provocative incursion by Benjamin Netanyahu into northern Gaza, along with his accompanying statements, is intended to prolong and intensify the crimes of genocide and forced displacement” in the Palestinian territory, the West Bank-based ministry said in a statement.
The Lebanese Health Ministry says that one person was killed and another injured in an Israeli air attack on Hanine in southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera reports.
More than 200 former Israeli police officers have called for the return of captives in Gaza, even if it means ending the Gaza conflict, Al Jazeera reports, citing Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Many of the signatories are police chiefs and district commanders, including some who were ousted from their roles by far-right ministers, Haaretz said. The letter was also signed by former Israel Prison Service head Aharon Franco and former commander Danny Elgarat, whose brother Itzhak Elgarat was killed in Gaza, the outlet reported.
The petition by former police officers joins a number of letters from the past week by former members of Israel’s defence establishment, following the letter published by Israeli Air Force reservists.
The former police officers stated that they supported the air force veterans’ protest, which led the Israeli military chief and air force commander to dismiss them from duty, Haaretz reported.
The Al Jazeera Investigative Unit’s feature documentary GAZA exposes potential Israeli war crimes through the use of videos and photographs posted online by Israeli soldiers themselves.
International law expert Rodney Dixon described the documentary as “a treasure trove you very seldom come across … something which I think prosecutors will be licking their lips at”.
Read more here.
The death toll from an attack on a residential home in an area east of Gaza City has risen to 10, Al Jazeera reports.
The bodies have been retrieved from under the rubble of the Hassouna family’s home. At least 13 others were critically injured in the attack.
Michael Mansfield, a leading barrister who has worked on several high-profile cases throughout his career, has said Israel is carrying out “destruction of humanity” through its actions in Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.
Mansfield is among a group of lawyers who have submitted a 240-page report to the Metropolitan Police’s War Crimes Unit, accusing ten British citizens, including dual nationals, who have served in the Israeli army of war crimes in Gaza.
Asked how he would summarise the ongoing atrocities in Gaza, Mansfield said: “I would describe it as a mass assault and destruction of humanity. It doesn’t get worse than that.”
Responding to whether he would classify Israel’s action in Gaza as genocide, the lawyer said: “I do, yes, no question.
“[…] If you’re attacked by somebody holding a wooden spoon, you can’t use a machine gun to kill them. […] This has gone far beyond self-defence.”
Read more here.
“Israel’s policy is clear and no humanitarian aid is going to enter Gaza,” its Defence Minister Israel Katz has said in a statement on X.
Preventing humanitarian aid from entering the Strip “is one of the main pressure tools that prevents Hamas from using this measure against the population”, Katz said.
“In the current reality, no one is willing to enter any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and no one is preparing to enter any aid of this type,” he added.
Jordan’s Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Jafar Hassan has visited US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the State Department in Washington, DC, reports Al Jazeera.
In a brief summary of the meeting, Rubio’s office says the pair discussed “the situation in Gaza and the West Bank” and “opportunities to expand economic cooperation and increase investments between the United States and Jordan”.
Rubio also thanked Hassan for Jordan’s “cooperation with the United States in advancing regional security”.
In a post on X, Hassan said he was “highly appreciative” of US “commitment and support” for “Jordan’s security, economic modernisation vision and development programs”.
“The friendship between our two countries is based on our long-shared principles and common interests in peace, regional stability and prosperity,” he said.
Medical aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have accused Israel of blocking essential aid to the Gaza Strip, saying there was nowhere safe for Palestinians or those trying to help them, AFP reports.
“Gaza has been turned into a mass grave of Palestinians and those coming to their assistance,” said Amande Bazerolle, MSF’s emergency coordinator there.
Israeli soldiers launched raids across the occupied West Bank last night, reports Al Jazeera.
Raids were reported in:
Settlers also stormed Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus under the protection of Israeli soldiers, the report added.
The Israeli military has claimed that a senior Hamas fighter was killed in a joint operation with the Shin Bet intelligence service, reports Al Jazeera.
In a post on social media, the military said the assistant to Hamas’s Gaza Brigade commander was killed a number of days ago in an attack in Gaza City.
The military claimed the victim — identified as Mahmoud Abu Hasira — was involved in an operation in July 2014 when Hamas fighters raided a fortified structure after infiltrating through a tunnel, killing five Israeli soldiers and wounding a sixth.
The Israeli army has acknowledged it launched an attack on southern Lebanon on Tuesday night, claiming the attack was targeting Hezbollah, reports Al Jazeera.
In a post on X, the army accused Hezbollah of “cynically exploiting civilian infrastructure” and “using the residents of Lebanon as human shields”.
The latest attack comes after the UN Human Rights Office said on Tuesday that Israeli forces have killed at least 71 civilians in Lebanon since the beginning of a ceasefire with Hezbollah in November.
Israeli forces have shot a Palestinian youth at the Qalandiya checkpoint, located north of occupied East Jerusalem, Al Jazeera reports.
The identity and condition of the victim are not yet known.
More raids have also taken place in other West Bank area, including Israeli troops storming the town of Azzun and a raid on Budrus village, west of Ramallah.
Israeli warplanes have bombed a house in the Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip, killing at least three people and injuring others, medical sources tell Al Jazeera.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status and said the university should apologise, a day after it rejected what it called unlawful demands to overhaul academic programmes or lose federal grants, Reuters reports.
Trump said in a social media post on Tuesday he was mulling whether to seek to end Harvard’s tax-exempt status if it continued pushing what he called “political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’”
He did not say how he would do this. Under the US tax code, most universities are exempt from federal income tax because they are deemed to be “operated exclusively” for public educational purposes.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Trump wanted to see Harvard apologise for what she called “anti-Semitism that took place on their college campus against Jewish American students”.
Read more here.
World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has again called for the protection of healthcare in Gaza after an attack on the Kuwaiti field hospital in southern Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.
The attack “resulted in nine people being injured, one killed, and damage to four ambulances”, Tedros said, with “health workers, patients, and their companions” among the injured.
“Attacks on hospitals can stop patients from seeking health care out of fear for their safety, and they can put facilities out of service — severing a critical lifeline for hundreds,” Tedros warned.
He also called for the delivery of health supplies into Gaza, a lifting of the aid blockade and a ceasefire.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations has said that it received a report of an incident for a vessel 100 nautical miles east of Yemen’s Aden, the first report by the agency in the area in months, according to Reuters.
The vessel’s crew were safe and it was proceeding to the next port of call, UKMTO said, after reporting it was being followed by people in multiple small vessels for about two hours with shots being fired.
The agency said it was investigating the incident, without identifying the vessel or naming the potential attackers.
The Houthis did not immediately comment on the latest attack reported by the UKMTO.
Jordan says it has arrested 16 people, thwarting a plot that threatened national security and involved manufacturing and illegally importing rockets, explosives and a drone production site, Al Jazeera reports.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s office said he called his Jordanian counterpart, Jafar Hassan, to say Lebanon refuses to be a launch point for any actions that would threaten the security of friendly countries.
He expressed readiness to cooperate with the Jordanian authorities as necessary regarding the information that “some of those involved in these schemes received their training in Lebanon”.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will press on with its military offensive against Hamas to secure the release of hostages, as he praised troops during a visit to northern Gaza, AFP reports.
“They are striking the enemy and Hamas will continue to suffer blow after blow. We insist that they release our hostages, and we insist on achieving all of our war objectives,” Netanyahu told troops in Gaza, according to a statement from his office.
Hamas has said that “barbaric Zionist aggression” is ongoing against Gaza while the international community remains silent, so people must rise up again, Al Jazeera reports.
Hamas called on all nations, especially Arab and Islamic ones, to participate in a global week of demonstrations under the slogan “Gaza cries out” to attract more attention to the plight of besieged Palestinians.
“We call for the mobilisation of all energies and means during the coming week to support Gaza’s steadfastness, condemn the aggression, and demand an end to the war of genocide by escalating all forms of solidarity action, including marches, sit-ins, and angry protests in capitals, cities, and squares around the world,” the group said in a statement on Telegram.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned intensifying Israeli attacks across Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and the “brutal massacre” of civilians, Al Jazeera reports.
Referring to recent reports by the UN and international aid organisations, spokesman Esmail Baghaei said in a statement that the destruction of vital infrastructure and the Israeli blockade on Gaza constitute “clear instances of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity” that must be prosecuted.
He called on all governments and international organisations, especially the UN Security Council, to take “decisive and immediate action to halt the ongoing genocide and massacre of innocent civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, and to facilitate the prosecution and punishment of the perpetrators of these horrific crimes”.
