Get the latest news and updates from Dawn
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
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said more than 50 of its staff in Gaza were abused and used as human shields while in Israeli military detention, AFP reports.
“Since the start of the war in October 2023, over 50 UNRWA staff among them teachers, doctors, social workers, have been detained and abused,” UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X.
“They have been treated in the most shocking & inhumane way. They reported being beaten + used as human shields.” Lazzarini cited the testimony of one of the staff members who had been detained by the Israeli military before being released.
“I wished for death to end this nightmare I was living through,” the staff member was quoted as saying.
“Received this awful testimony from a colleague who was rounded up in Gaza, tortured while in Israeli detention and finally released,” they added Lazzarini said those detained had been subjected to “sleep deprivation, humiliation, threats of harm to therm & their families + attacks by dogs”.
“Many were subjected to forced confessions. This nothing short of harrowing & outrageous.”
At least 50 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza, and one body has been recovered in the past 24 hours, according to the enclave’s health ministry, Al Jazeera reports.
At least 113 people were also injured in that period, the ministry added.
The death toll in Gaza rose to 52,365 killed, with 117,905 wounded, since October 7, 2023, it added.
Israel has killed at least 2,273 Palestinians and wounded 5,864 since it broke the ceasefire on March 18, according to the ministry.
Mohamed Saud Alnasser, the representative of Saudi Arabia, has delivered a sharply worded statement before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), condemning Israel’s “flagrant violations of international law” in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.
“Less than a year ago, the court heard that Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied territory, including its settlement practices, its continued occupation and its annexation of parts of that territory are flagrant violations of international law that must be brought to an end as a matter of urgency,” he said.
“Sadly, but predictably, Israel chose to ignore the court’s ruling, showing it considered itself above the law.”
Alnasser went on to criticise Israel’s obstruction of international humanitarian efforts in the occupied territory.
“The obligations of Israel to allow the UN, other international organisations and third states to carry out activity in the occupied Palestinian territory – including providing such assistance — could truly make a difference between life and death for many people,” he said.
Referring specifically to the situation in Gaza, Alnasser said: “Israel’s hideous conduct, which piles illegality upon illegality, is well documented — its most ruthless application has been the siege conditions imposed over the Gaza Strip since October 2023.”
At least two people have been killed in separate attacks in Gaza City’s Shujayea neighbourhood and two more in the enclave’s northern city of Beit Hanoon, according to Al Jazeera.
In the south, three people were killed this morning in the city of Khan Younis and six people, including children, were killed overnight in a nearby area of al-Mawasi.
Israel’s army and Shin Bet intelligence agency claim they have killed two senior Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip, Said Abu Hasnan and Mustafa al-Mutawwak, Al Jazeera reports.
The statement published on Telegram in English on Tuesday said Abu Hasnan was a member of Hamas’s elite Nukhba unit in the Deir el-Balah Brigade. It claimed he took part in the killing of civilians in the Kissufim kibbutz during the October 7 assault on southern Israel in 2023.
The announcement also claimed that al-Mutawwak was an operations officer in Hamas’s Jabalia Brigade who directed attacks against Israeli forces in Gaza.
The army further claimed that last Thursday, Ali Nidal Husni Sarafiti — identified as a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) — was killed in a separate strike in Gaza City.
According to Israeli authorities, Sarafiti previously served 13 years in prison between 2002 and 2015 for membership in the PFLP, training fighters, and planning a suicide attack. They claim that, in recent years, he resumed contact with fighters in the occupied West Bank and transferred millions of shekels to support attacks inside Israel.
At least five Palestinians have been killed in ongoing Israeli air attacks across the Gaza Strip, according to medics quoted by the Wafa news agency.
Earlier, four people were killed and 30 wounded when Israeli fighter jets hit tents sheltering displaced families in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
The fifth person died from injuries sustained in an earlier air raid on Khan Younis, Wafa reported.
Israeli artillery shelling was also reported in eastern areas of central Gaza, including the Maghazi refugee camp. There were no immediate reports of casualties from those attacks.
An Israeli Channel 13 investigation has exposed the Biden administration’s complicity in Israel’s 19-month war on Gaza, Drop Site News reports.
Nine top Biden officials acknowledged avoiding real pressure on Israel — even as the death toll surpassed 30,000. Israeli leaders openly bragged they dragged out the conflict, playing for time until Donald Trump’s return, according to the report.
Former US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Ambassador Tom Nides, and others defended their unwavering support for Israel — even as they admitted enabling a campaign one US aide described as “killing and destroying for the sake of killing and destroying.”
The report added that former Israeli ambassador Michael Herzog declared: “God did the State of Israel a favour that Biden was the president during this period, because it could have been much worse. We fought [in Gaza] for over a year, and the administration never came to us and said, ‘ceasefire now.’ It never did. And that’s not to be taken for granted.”
Senior US national security aide Ilan Goldenberg described the conflict’s aimlessness: “If they’re never going to do this, it doesn’t matter what the outcome is, Hamas is still going to control Gaza. You’re just killing and destroying for the sake of killing and destroying. But you’re not building an alternative.”
Biden aides privately admitted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was dragging out the conflict. “He’s undercutting it every step of the way,” said Goldenberg. “All the security people are coming out and saying it.”
Israeli forces have rounded up six Palestinians in the occupied West Bank’s Jenin city, including doctor Shaima Abu Ghali and journalist Ali al-Samoudi, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office (ASRA), Al Jazeera reports.
Elsewhere in the Palestinian territory, four people were arrested yesterday in the town of Beit Fajjar, the Bethlehem governorate, four others in the Hebron governorate, two in the city of Nablus, four in the governorate of Salfit, one in the city of al-Bireh and one more in the city of Qalqilya.
“Yesterday, the first day of the hearings, was quite in-depth with Palestine given ample time by President Yuji Iwasawa and a 13-strong judging panel to give its argument,” Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands reports from The Hague, Netherlands.
“Today, the pace really picks up. We have nine countries going before the panel, each being allocated half an hour to speak,” he said.
“We have South Africa, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, Colombia in the morning session. And then in the afternoon, we have Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Spain.
“So, what to watch out for in all of this? South Africa is going to kick off this morning because it has been very critical of Israel over the past two-three years and brought the genocide case at the International Court of Justice in December 2023.
“Then, perhaps look out for Belgium and Spain. The EU member countries will give some indication of what the bloc thinks about this. Though because of the power outage in Spain, the Spanish delegation might have some difficulties in coming here,” Challands said.
“But tomorrow perhaps is going to be a more telling day. We will have US and Hungary speaking and they were two countries who voted against this whole thing from taking place at the UN General Assembly last year.
“So, they are likely to be supportive of Israel, perhaps the only two countries speaking over this process that will be supportive of Israel. But we also have Russia and France speaking tomorrow and they will be worth watching out for too.”
Gaza’s Government Media Office has accused Israel of exacerbating Palestinian children’s suffering through its ongoing blockade, which has led to widespread acute malnutrition affecting more than 65,000 hospitalised children out of 1.1 million facing daily hunger, Al Jazeera reports.
Israel is “using starvation and thirst as systematic weapons of war against civilians, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”, it said in a statement.
The statement added that “the continuous closure of border crossings has caused a catastrophic deterioration in health conditions, especially among children and infants”.
The office placed full responsibility on Israel for the worsening humanitarian disaster and for “endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of children, women and elderly people due to the lack of food, medicine and clean water”.
Al Jazeera reports that an overnight Israeli air raid has killed at least four people, including three children, in an attack on a camp for displaced Palestinians near Khan Younis.
At least 40 injured people were carried in ambulances to the Nasser Medical Complex.
Amnesty International has said Israel committed a “live-streamed genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe, reports AFP.
“Since 7 October 2023 — when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages — the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide,” Amnesty said in its recent report, titled ‘The State of the World’s Human Rights’.
“States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools,” Amnesty’s secretary general Agnes Callamard said in the report.
Amnesty said that throughout 2024 it had “documented multiple war crimes by Israel, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks”.
It said Israel’s actions forcibly displaced 1.9 million Palestinians, around 90 per cent of Gaza’s population, and “deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe”.
The United States has lost seven multi-million-dollar MQ-9 Reaper drones in the Yemen area since mid-March, when the latest round of its air campaign against the Houthi rebels began, AFP quotes a US official as saying.
MQ-9s can be used for both reconnaissance — a key aspect of US efforts to identify and target Houthi weaponry that the rebels are using to attack shipping — as well as strikes, and cost around $30 million apiece.
“There have been seven MQ-9s that have gone down since March 15,” the US official said on condition of anonymity, without specifying what caused the losses, the most recent of which took place on April 22.
Israel’s domestic security chief Ronen Bar has said he would stand down on June 15 following weeks of tension with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose decision to fire him was frozen by the country’s top court, AFP reports.
“After 35 years of service, in order to allow an orderly process for appointing a permanent successor and for professional handover, I will end my role on June 15, 2025,” the Shin Bet chief said during a memorial event for fallen officers of the agency.
Bar also addressed the agency’s failure to prevent Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel in October 2023.
“After years of many fronts, in one night, on the southern front, the sky fell. All systems collapsed. The Shin Bet failed to provide an early warning,” he said.
Bar recently sent a sworn statement to the Israeli supreme court accusing Netanyahu of demanding personal loyalty and ordering him to spy on anti-government protesters.
The Gaza Government Media Office has said that more than 65,000 cases of acute malnutrition have been recorded among 1.1 million children in Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.
Israel’s attacks on Gaza and its ongoing total blockade of the Strip have led to a “catastrophic deterioration in health conditions, and the prevalence of cases of acute malnutrition, especially among children and infants”, the media office said in a statement on Telegram.
It condemned Israel for “using the weapon of starvation and thirst as a method of systematic war aimed at killing life in the Gaza Strip, in flagrant violation of all international and humanitarian laws and norms”.
It also called on the international community to intervene immediately to hold Israel responsible and alleviate the crisis.
Negotiations held in Cairo to reach a ceasefire in Gaza were witnessing a “significant breakthrough,” two Egyptian security sources tell Reuters.
The sources said there was a consensus on a long-term ceasefire in the besieged enclave, yet some sticking points remain, including Hamas arms.
The sources said the ongoing talks included Egyptian and Israeli delegations. Mediators Egypt and Qatar did not report developments on the latest talks.
Earlier, Egyptian state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV reported Egyptian intelligence chief General Hassan Mahmoud Rashad was set to meet an Israeli delegation headed by strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer in Cairo yesterday.
Speaking at a conference in Jerusalem last night, before Reuters reported that there had been progress in the talks, Dermer said the government remained committed to dismantling Hamas’ military capability, ending its rule in Gaza, ensuring that the enclave never again poses a threat to Israel and returning the hostages.
Ardi Imseis, a legal representative for the State of Palestine at the ICJ, explains that Israel is bound by obligations under international humanitarian law and human rights law as an occupying power in the Palestinian territories.
In effect, Israel must operate in “the best interests of the occupied Palestinian population”, he told Al Jazeera from The Hague, where today’s ICJ hearing took place. “That isn’t in fact what’s happening – it’s quite the opposite.”
Imseis noted that Palestinians face forcible transfer, starvation as a weapon of conflict and indiscriminate bombardment “in ways and means that are really unprecedented in the history of the Palestinian people”.
“The submissions that were made today focused on the [international humanitarian law] obligations”, he said, including the facilitation of “relief schemes for the benefit of the occupied population”.
“This is part of a longer process of holding — in this case — an illegal occupying power, an aggressive power, to account,” Imseis added.
The Brazilian foreign minister has denounced Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the enclave as “unacceptable”, Al Jazeera reports.
“It is necessary to ensure the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, the release of all the captives and prisoners, and the entry of humanitarian aid,” Mauro Vieira said during a meeting of Brics foreign ministers in Rio de Janeiro.
Brazil has assumed the presidency of the economic bloc for 2025.
Israel’s military has said it struck more than 50 “terror targets” across Lebanon over the past month, despite a November ceasefire that ended fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, AFP reports.
“Over the past month, the IDF (military) has struck more than 50 terror targets across Lebanon. These strikes were carried out following violations of the ceasefire and understandings between Israel and Lebanon, which posed a threat to the State of Israel and its citizens”, the military said in a statement.
Nine Palestinians, including four children, have been killed in an Israeli drone attack at the Al-Ghafari Junction in central Gaza City, Al Jazeera reports.
Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands reports that the UN is presenting its arguments at the International Court of Justice hearing, stating that Israel has a two-fold obligation under international law.
“It has an obligation as an occupying power in the Palestinian territories, and that obligation runs to essentially being burdened with looking after the well-being of Palestinians,” Challands reports.
“That includes children’s education and welfare systems, medical facilities, including UN-established hospitals, and humanitarian relief operations. If it doesn’t do those things, then it’s in contravention of its obligations under international law.”
He adds that Israel also has an obligation as a signatory to the UN Charter, because the UN under that charter has immunities and exemptions that set it apart from other institutions and other multilateral organisations.
“Now, those obligations mean that you should not arrest or detain or attack UN staff, that you should not bomb UN facilities and buildings, and if you do you are in contravention of international law and the UN Charter, and Israel is a signatory to that charter, which is debated,” Challands reports.
At least 36 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
The majority of the deaths, as many as 30, were reported in Gaza City and northern Gaza.
Palestinian Civil Defence says ambulances in southern Gaza have run out of fuel, with eight out of 12 vehicles out of order amid an ongoing Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid, Al Jazeera reports.
In a statement, it warned that with only four vehicles, its responses to residents will be limited, “threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens and displaced persons in shelters”.
“We hold the Israeli occupation responsible for the worsening suffering of our people in the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing war and the continued imposition of the blockade,” the statement said.
“We renew our call to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and international organisations to take immediate action to open the Gaza Strip crossings, allow the entry of fuel, and supply institutions and equipment working in the humanitarian field.”
