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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
An Israeli airstrike has killed at least 29 Palestinians, including children, in a house in Shujaiya in Gaza City, Reuters reports citing local health authorities.
Medics said dozens of others were wounded in the attack that hit a multi-floor residential building in the eastern suburb of Gaza City. Many were still believed to be missing and trapped under the ruins of the building. The strike damaged several other houses nearby, medics said.
The Israeli military said in a statement it struck a senior Hamas militant responsible for planning and executing attacks from Shujaiya in northern Gaza, whom it did not identify. The military said several steps were taken before the attack to mitigate harm to civilians.
More witnesses have described the horror of Israel’s major bombing of the Shujaiya neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City.
“We were talking in the street and suddenly we were shocked to see the building’s bricks flying apart — in addition to flying hands and feet,” one man told Al Jazeera.
Another survivor added: “It is a massacre with the full meaning of the word. I haven’t seen or heard about a massacre like this since the start of the war. Most of the martyrs are children and defenceless civilians.”
He said Israel’s attacks destroyed more than 30 homes in the district.
“I don’t know what more the Israelis are planning for us. We need this bloodshed to come to an end. This is not fair, enough is enough.”
Dozens more Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks throughout Gaza over the last 24 hours, Al Jazeera reports citing the enclave’s health ministry.
The overall death toll since Israel’s offensive on the Strip since October 2023 has risen to 50,846, it said.
A ministry statement said 41 more injured people were brought to hospitals over the past day, taking the number of wounded to 115,729 since the attack began.
The new toll doesn’t include at least 29 Palestinians killed in the latest attack on Shujaiya in northern Gaza.
Hamas has denounced the Israeli army for the massive attack on Gaza City’s Shujaiya district that killed at least 29 people and left nearly 80 others missing, Al Jazeera reports.
“The ongoing massacres against our people, with American support, are a stain on the international community’s face,” Hamas said in a statement. “The brutal crimes committed in full view of the world against innocent, defenceless civilians will not go unpunished and will not be forgotten.”
Hamas also criticised the “timid” response of Arab and Muslim nations. “It is unacceptable to leave our people alone in this fateful confrontation without real support that rises to the challenge and the crime.”
The group called on countries to pressure Israel and the US to stop bombing the Strip.
The Israeli military said it targeted a senior Hamas member in a strike that Gaza’s civil defence agency said hit a residential building in Gaza City, killing at least 20 people, AFP reports.
When asked by AFP about the strike in the city’s Shujaiya neighbourhood, the military said it “struck a senior Hamas terrorist who was responsible for planning and executing terrorist attacks” from the area. It did not give the target’s name.
The Israeli army has said it demolished the house of a Palestinian fighter it alleged was responsible for the killing of an Israeli general and the wounding of six other people during an exchange of gunfire last year, Al Jazeera reports.
The military identified the Palestinian as Mujahid Mansour and said his home was located in Deir Ibzi’a, west of Ramallah, in the northern West Bank. Mansour was killed during the gun battle.
The Israeli authorities maintain a policy of demolishing the homes of Palestinians accused of attacking Israeli soldiers and settlers — a practice widely condemned as a form of collective punishment prohibited under international law, Al Jazeera notes.
Gaza’s civil defence agency has said an Israeli strike on a residential building in the Shujaiya area of Gaza City killed at least 20 people, as the military said they were looking into the attack, AFP reports.
The agency’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the strike resulted in “20 martyrs and more than 40 injured” and the search for bodies in the rubble was ongoing.
Air strikes overnight targeted people inside their homes, killing and maiming more women and children, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reports from Gaza City, northern Gaza.
“Two people were killed in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Seven others were left with severe injuries. All were brought to Al-Aqsa Hospital.
“Two more people — a man and a little girl — were reported killed in the al-Mawasi evacuation zone. Several others sustained severe wounds. Again, this is supposed to be a ‘safe zone’ for displaced people, according to the Israeli military.
“But there is nothing safe about them. There’s killing everywhere.”
Israeli authorities forced Palestinian Alaa Alian to demolish his own house in the town of Beit Safafa, southeast of occupied East Jerusalem, the Wafa news agency reports.
Al Jazeera reports that the number of dead has risen to nine, including three children, during an Israeli air strike that hit a residential home in the Shujayea neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City.
Bodies and the wounded are currently arriving at Al-Ahli Hospital. Dozens of Palestinians are missing and trapped under the rubble of the bombed house.
At least three people have been killed in an Israeli air strike on Shujayea district of Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera.
Reports from the ground suggest an unknown number of others are buried in debris.
Yemen’s Houthi claim to have shot down a US drone in the airspace of the northern Al Jawf Governorate, Al Jazeera reports.
The Houthi-affiliated al-Masirah satellite news channel said it was the third drone to be shot down in ten days.
The announcement of the presumed attack takes place after suspected US airstrikes pounded an area around the country’s Red Sea port city of Hodeida yesterday night killing at least six people, according to the Houthi.
The mother of an Israeli soldier held hostage in Gaza longs for her son’s return, fearing that Israel’s renewed bombardment of the territory puts his life at even greater risk, AFP reports.
“Our children are in danger,” Herut Nimrodi told AFP during an interview.
Her son, Tamir, was just 18 when he was taken to Gaza on October 7, 2023. “We don’t know much, but one thing that is certain is that military pressure on Gaza endangers the hostages,” she said.
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Read more here.
The cabinet of Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa has called on the UN to “assume its legal and moral responsibilities” and protect UN-run schools for Palestinian children ordered closed by Israeli authorities, Al Jazeera reports.
The call comes after UNRWA reported that Israeli police had forcibly entered schools in occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhoods of Shu’fat, Silwan, Sur Baher and Wadi al-Joz on Tuesday, and ordered six of those to shut down.
“Mere statements and condemnations from the international community are no longer sufficient,” the PM’s office said, adding, “The scale, severity, and gravity of the Israeli aggression demand immediate and concrete international action.”
“These actions represent a blatant attempt to dismantle Jerusalem’s educational and service infrastructure,” it said.
Israel’s order to close schools, which must be followed within 30 days, will affect about 800 children, UNRWA said.
The UN’s humanitarian agency (OCHA) says the slain aid workers include a staff member of MSF and two with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), Al Jazeera reports.
They are Hussam Al Loulou and Mahdi Muhammad Muhammad Abu Subaih and his wife Samira Ismail Ahmad Abdul Hadi.
Their killings bring the total number of humanitarian staff killed since the war on Gaza to at least 412.
OCHA also noted that three Palestinian journalists have been killed in Khan Younis in two separate incidents on April 6 and 7.
In the April 6 attack, Islam Maqdad, a female journalist, was killed along with seven others, including women and children. And in the April 7 attack, during which Israeli forces bombed the media tent near Nasser Hospital, Helmi al-Faqawi burned to death while Ahmed Mansour succumbed to his wounds a day later.
Their deaths take the number of media workers killed in Gaza to at least 208.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said another seven journalists were killed by Israeli forces in March, six of whom were in the field and another who was in his home.
An immigration judge has given the US government a day to show evidence that Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil should be deported and said she would rule on the case on Friday, a month after his arrest in New York and transfer to a rural Louisiana jail, Reuters reports.
“If he’s not removable, I’m going to be terminating this case on Friday,” Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Jamee Comans said during a hearing at the LaSalle Immigration Court in Jena, Louisiana.
If the government’s deportation case is terminated at the hearing scheduled for Friday afternoon, 30-year-old Khalil is free under immigration law. The government cannot challenge the termination, but if the judge terminates the case without prejudice, it can attempt to file the removal case again.
The Trump administration has frozen over $1 billion in funding for Cornell University and $790 million for Northwestern University while it investigates both schools over civil rights violations, a US official said, according to Reuters.
The administration of US President Donald Trump has threatened to block federal funding for schools over pro-Palestinian campus protests as well as other issues such as diversity, equity and inclusion programs and transgender policies.
The US president has called the protesters anti-Semitic, and has labeled them as sympathetic to Hamas militants and as foreign policy threats.
Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the Trump administration wrongly conflates their criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza and advocacy for Palestinian rights with anti-Semitism and support for Hamas.
Read more here.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called out Israel for violating its obligations under international law amid its blockade of aid in Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.
In his remarks, the UN chief cited articles 55, 56 and 59 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that, among other things, occupying powers such as Israel are obligated to provide food and medical supplies to the people they are occupying.
“No food, no fuel, no medicine,” Guterres was quoted as saying.
Guterres also called for an independent investigation into Israel’s killing of humanitarian aid workers, including UN staff.
According to Al Jazeera, when asked about US President Donald Trump’s plan to forcibly evict Palestinians from Gaza, Guterres said he unequivocally opposed any plan that would do that.
He said it was a violation of international law and that the only solution was for Palestinians to remain on their land and live side-by-side with Israelis.
The US State Department has said it is aware of the killing by Israeli forces of a Palestinian American teenager in the Israel-occupied West Bank and was seeking more information about the incident, Reuters reports.
A State Department spokesperson made the comments to reporters when asked about the killing of US citizen Omar Mohammad Rabea, aged 14, and the shooting of two other teenagers.
“We are certainly aware of that dynamic,” the State Department spokesperson said.
“There is an investigation that is going on. We are aware of the reports from the IDF that this was a counterterrorism act, we need to learn more about the nature of what happened on the ground.”
“We don’t have the complete picture of what was going on on the ground,” the State Department spokesperson added.
Indonesia is ready to temporarily shelter Palestinians hit by Israel’s war on Gaza, President Prabowo Subianto has, estimating there could be 1,000 in the first wave, Reuters reports.
Prabowo said he has instructed his foreign minister to quickly discuss with the Palestinian side and other parties about how to evacuate impacted Palestinians to Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country.
“We are ready to evacuate the wounded, the traumatised, the orphans,” Prabowo said, adding the victims would be in Indonesia temporarily until they have fully recovered from their injuries and the situation in Gaza was safe for their return.
Jakarta has been advocating for a two-state solution and has sent humanitarian aid.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that the world body’s ability to deliver humanitarian supplies to Palestinians in Gaza “has been strangled”, Al Jazeera reports.
“No humanitarian supplies can enter Gaza. Meanwhile, at the crossing points, food, medicine and shelter supplies are piling up, and vital equipment is stuck,” Antonio Guterres said.
He explained that Israel — as an occupying power — has obligations under international law to ensure food and medical supplies for the population under occupation.
It must also maintain health services in the occupied territory, he added.
“I want to say a special word about those humanitarian heroes in Gaza. They are under fire and yet doing all they can to follow the path they choose to help people,” Guterres said.
“Let me be clear: We will not participate in any arrangement that does not fully respect the humanitarian principles: humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality. Unimpeded humanitarian access must be guaranteed.”
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Palestinian civilians are bearing the brunt of the dire situation in Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.
“More than an entire month has passed without a drop of aid into Gaza. No food. No fuel. No medicine. No commercial supplies,” he said in New York.
“As aid has dried up, the floodgates of horror have reopened. Gaza is a killing field — and civilians are in an endless death loop.”
Caspar Veldkamp has summoned the Israeli ambassador in the Netherlands over the situation in Gaza, the Dutch government said, according to Al Jazeera.
In a statement, the government said the meeting will be held on Wednesday.
