Closing summary
It is 6pm in Gaza and in Tel Aviv. We will be closing this blog soon, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Middle East coverage here.
Here is a recap of the latest developments:
Hamas issued a statement on Friday saying the US-built pier off the Gaza Strip is no alternative to opening all land crossings under Palestinian supervision, adding that they reject any military presence on Palestinian land. Trucks carrying badly needed aid for the Gaza Strip started rolling across a newly built US pier and into Gaza for the first time.
The bodies of three hostages kidnapped by Hamas, including the German-Israeli Shani Louk, have been retrieved from Gaza by the Israeli military, it announced. The other two hostages were identified as Amit Buskila, 28, and Itzhak Gelerenter, 56, according to the military spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, who said the three victims were taken to Gaza after being killed by Hamas at the Nova music festival.
With key land crossings closed or operating at limited capacity due to fighting, some relief supplies have begun to flow into Gaza via a temporary, floating pier constructed by the US. The Israeli army said 310 pallets began moving ashore in “the first entry of humanitarian aid through the floating pier”.
In the coming days, about 500 tonnes of aid are expected to be delivered to Gaza through the pier, according to US Central Command (Centcom). US military officials anticipate the aid shipment operation could scale up to 150 truckloads a day.
The EU welcomed the first shipment from Cyprus to the Gaza pier, but called on Israel to “expand deliveries by land and to immediately open additional crossings”.
The US aid chief said the new sea corridor could not be a substitute for land crossings, and warned that deliveries of food and fuel entering Gaza had slowed to “dangerously low levels”. The head of the US Agency for International Development (USAid), Samantha Power said: “Every moment that a crossing is not open, that trucks are not moving, or where aid cannot safely be distributed, increases the terrible human costs of this conflict.”
Israel said it killed two senior Islamic Jihad militants in separate airstrikes in the northern West Bank and in Rafah. The armed wing of Islamic Jihad confirmed that a local commander was killed in an overnight strike on the occupied West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp. However there was no immediate comment from the group on the army’s announcement that a “significant” operative was killed in Rafah.
Austria said on Saturday it will restore its funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) after suspending it over allegations that staff were involved in the 7 October Hamas attacks. A total of €3.4m ($3.7m) in funds have been budgeted for 2024, and the first payment is expected to be made in the summer, Austria’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
New divisions have emerged among Israel’s leaders over postwar Gaza’s governance, with an unexpected Hamas fightback in parts of the Palestinian territory piling pressure on prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu came under personal attack from Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant for failing to rule out an Israeli government in Gaza after the war. Netanyahu’s war planning also came under recent attack by army chief Herzi Halevi as well as top Shin Bet security agency officials, according to Israeli media reports.
Israeli military said its air forces “struck over 70 targets” across the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours while ground troops “continue precise operations” in eastern Rafah. The Kuwaiti hospital said an overnight Israeli strike killed two people in a displacement camp in Rafah, with witnesses reporting heavy gunfire and shelling in the city’s south-east and jets bombarding its eastern areas. The army said its forces “conducted targeted raids” in Rafah and found weapons and explosives.
The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they fired anti-tank missiles and mortars at Israeli forces massing to the east, south-east and inside the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
AFP correspondents, witnesses and medics said there were intense battles overnight in the northern Jabalia refugee camp, after the Israeli army reported on Friday “perhaps the fiercest” violence in the town in more than seven months of war. Israeli forces “eliminated terrorists in a number of battles” in the Jabalia area and parts of central Gaza, the army said.
Palestinian sources in Rafah told AFP that Israeli forces were operating in the city’s al-Salam and Jenina neighbourhood as well as on the Philadelphi route along the Egyptian border.“Troops are advancing and retreating around these areas,” a security source said. Cairo, which has been involved in mediation efforts during the war, says a potential Israeli takeover of Philadelphi could violate its landmark 1979 peace deal with Egypt.
In northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia, witnesses reported airstrikes near Kamal Adwan hospital on Saturday. The hospital’s director Hussam Abu Safiya told AFP on Friday that the facility, which has received “large numbers of injured and killed” from fighting in nearby Jabalia, was running low on medical supplies and fuel to power generators.
At least 35,386 Palestinians have been killed and 79,366 have been wounded in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday. The Hamas-run health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
German-Israeli Shani Louk’s father says that finally laying his daughter to rest will be a gift after her body was recovered from Gaza, months after she was killed in Hamas’s 7 October attack on southern Israel. Nissim Louk said the funeral will be held on Sunday.
One person was reportedly killed and other passengers were severely injured after a car was struck by a drone in the western part of Rafah, said Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud on Saturday. Mahmoud, who is reporting from Deir el-Balah, said the car was on the way to central Gaza on the coastal road. The Guardian has been unable to independently verify the report.
British security firm Ambrey said on Saturday it had received information that a Panama-flagged crude oil tanker had been attacked approximately 10 nautical miles southwest of Yemen’s Mokha. Ambrey later added that the tanker had received assistance and one of its steering units was reportedly functional. It did not indicate who provided the assistance.
Earlier on Saturday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said a vessel in the Red Sea was struck by an unknown object and sustained slight damage. “The vessel and crew are safe and continuing to its next port of call,” UKMTO said in an advisory note, adding the incident occurred 76 nautical miles northwest of Yemen’s Hodeidah.
Updated
Palestinian sources in Rafah told AFP that Israeli forces were operating in the city’s al-Salam and Jenina neighbourhood as well as on the Philadelphi route along the Egyptian border.
“Troops are advancing and retreating around these areas,” a security source said.
Cairo, which has been involved in mediation efforts during the war, says a potential Israeli takeover of Philadelphi could violate its landmark 1979 peace deal with Egypt, writes AFP.
In northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia, witnesses reported airstrikes near Kamal Adwan hospital on Saturday, according to the news agency.
The hospital’s director Hussam Abu Safiya told AFP on Friday that the facility, which has received “large numbers of injured and killed” from fighting in nearby Jabalia, was running low on medical supplies and fuel to power generators.
The fuel aid that had reached the hospital was “barely enough for a few days”, Abu Safiya said.
The World Health Organization has received no medical supplies in Gaza since the Rafah operation began on 6 May, spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said on Friday.
Israel said it killed two senior Islamic Jihad militants in separate airstrikes in the northern West Bank and in Rafah.
The armed wing of Islamic Jihad confirmed that a local commander was killed in an overnight strike on the occupied West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp (see 14.36 BST).
However there was no immediate comment from the group, which has fought alongside Hamas, on the army’s announcement that a “significant” operative was killed in Rafah.
According to AFP, a military statement did not name the slain militant and said he had been involved in “preparing … for operations against IDF [army] ground troops in the area”.
Updated
