Israeli forces have “completed the encirclement of Gaza City” and are fighting “with full force”, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said. The chief of staff of the IDF, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, said troops are surrounding it from several directions and “deepening” the ground offensive inside the city. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israeli forces had pushed through the outskirts of Gaza City. “We’re at the height of the battle,” he said.
At least 9,061 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, including 3,760 children, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday. The current conflict began on 7 October when Hamas launched an onslaught on southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and swept up hundreds more as hostages. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify figures from either Israeli or Palestinian authorities.
In the US, the Republican-led lower chamber of Congress has passed a $14bn aid package for Israel, defying President Joe Biden’s request to also include more money for Ukraine and other pressing priorities. The bill, which diverts funding budgeted to the US tax collection agency, is almost certain to fail in the Democratic-controlled Senate, while Biden has also threatened to veto it.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken will urge the Israeli government to agree to a series of “humanitarian pauses” to the fighting in Gaza, according to a report.Blinken said on Thursday he would seek “concrete steps” from Israel to “minimise harm” to civilians in Gaza. He is due to spend the day on Friday in Israel, his fourth visit since 7 October, before other engagements in the region. Blinken, is expected back in the region on Friday.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said four of its schools in Gaza that are being used as shelters have been damaged in less than 24 hours. At least 20 people have reportedly been killed and five others injured on Thursday after a school that is being used as a shelter was damaged at the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, the agency said in its latest update. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said at least 27 people were killed in a blast near a UN school in the Jabalia camp on Thursday.
At least 15 people have been killed after a blast in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Thursday, the health ministry said. A spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence said the blast took place in a residential building, and residents reported scores of people trapped beneath the rubble.
Eighteen Israeli soldiers have been killed amid fierce fighting in Gaza, the IDF said, in a series of incidents that have underlined the mounting challenges facing the IDF in their attempts to push further into built-up areas of Gaza. The dead include Lt Col Salman Habaka, an Israeli tank commander who was hailed a hero for his actions during Hamas’s attack on Be’eri kibbutz.
A journalist working for the Palestinian Authority’s television channel was killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza, his network reported. Mohammed Abu Hatab was killed along with 11 members of his family in their home, the authority’s official news agency WAFA reported. He is the 36th journalist killed in the conflict, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, said it had attacked 19 positions in Israel on Thursday evening. The strikes came hours after Hezbollah said it had used two drones packed with explosives to attack an Israeli army command position in the disputed Shebaa Farms area on the Lebanese-Israeli border earlier in the day. It is the first time Hezbollah has acknowledged carrying out an attack against Israeli forces using such dronese.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened for a second day to allow the evacuation of some injured Palestinians and foreign passport holders. British nationals were able to get out of Gaza on Thursday, the UK Foreign Office confirmed. The US has been able to get 74 dual citizens out of Gaza, Joe Biden said. A total of 400 foreign passport holders as well as 60 severely wounded Palestinians were due to cross by the end of Thursday, a spokesperson for the Palestinian side of the crossing said.
A Japanese military plane departed Israel late on Thursday carrying 46 passengers including 20 Japanese nationals, the Japanese foreign ministry said. Passengers aboard also included 15 South Koreans, four Vietnamese and one Taiwanese, the ministry said on Friday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was “almost impossible” to bring humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. The WHO’s emergencies director, Michael Ryan, said the basic safety of staff could not be guaranteed at the moment. WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the situation in Gaza was “indescribable”.
A group of United Nations experts have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, warning that “time is running out” as Palestinian people there find themselves at “grave risk of genocide”. In a statement, they expressed “deep frustration with Israel’s refusal to halt plans to decimate” the Gaza Strip and said they felt “deepening horror” about Israeli airstrikes against the Jabalia refugee camp.
The US will not seek to impose any conditions on the support it gives Israel to defend itself in the wake of the Hamas attacks of 7 October, vice-president Kamala Harris said on Thursday. She refused to comment on Israel’s bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp, adding: “We are not telling Israel how it should conduct this war.”
