Closing summary
It is 5.45pm in Gaza and Tel Aviv. We will be closing this blog soon, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Israel-Gaza war coverage here and on the Middle East here.
Here is a recap of the latest developments:
A wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting central and southern Gaza have killed at least 50 and injured an estimated 200 people, with one strike hitting a school where thousands were seeking shelter. Palestinian health ministry officials said that at least 30 people were killed in an airstrike on the Khadija school in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, resulting in a wave of critical injuries.
The Associated Press reported that people searched the ruined classrooms for remains, combing through the rubble to gather body parts. They added that close to the hospital, where those killed in the strike were taken, their reporters witnessed people fleeing as an ambulance drove in the opposite direction. Inside the ambulance, they said, lay a dead toddler as well as a body shrouded in a blanket.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they targeted the Khadija school in Deir al-Balah because the area was used as a “command and control complex,” by Hamas militants. They claimed “many steps were taken to reduce the chance of harming civilians,” including precision weapons and intelligence, although tens of thousands of civilians have sought shelter in Deir al-Balah for months, crowding into every available piece of space after many were displaced several times from other parts of Gaza.
Hamas issued a statement condemning the Israeli airstrike that killed dozens of people after hitting a school in Deir Al-Balah on Saturday. Hamas said the “massacre at Khadija School is a crime that confirms the Israeli enemy’s estrangement from all human values and its defiance of all laws of war”. Gaza’s civil defence agency said that the school was housing about 4,000 displaced people who had taken refuge there.
The strike in Deir al-Balah was accompanied by further strikes on Khan Younis, after a week of deadly fighting in Gaza’s second city. Strikes in Khan Younis killed at least 23 people since the early morning and injured 89 according to Palestinian health officials, as civilians were forcibly displaced from the city for the fourth day. Gaza’s civil defence agency said that about 170 people had been killed and “hundreds wounded” during an Israeli offensive in the Khan Younis city area over several days.
In Al-Bureij refugee camp, five Palestinians were killed earlier in an Israeli airstrike on a house, while four others were killed in another strike on a house in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, medics said.
Israel’s military ordered residents from more parts of Khan Younis “to temporarily evacuate to the adjusted humanitarian area in al-Mawasi – the second such adjustment made to the safe zone within a week. Juliette Touma, the director of communications for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said: “Referring to the orders as evacuation orders don’t do any justice to what this means. These are forced displacement orders. What happens is when people have these orders, they have very little time to move.”
Witnesses and rescuers said heavy battles continued around eastern Khan Younis on Friday, and medics at the city’s Nasser hospital reported at least 16 bodies brought to the facility from different parts of the southern governorate.
The Khan Younis evacuation orders and “intensified hostilities” have “significantly destabilised aid operations”, the UN said, reporting “dire water, hygiene and sanitation conditions” in the Palestinian territory.
CIA director William Burns will meet this weekend in Rome with his Israeli and Egyptian counterparts and Qatar’s prime minister for talks on a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages by Hamas, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday. Reuters reported that the source, who requested anonymity, said Burns would meet Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and the Egyptian and Israeli intelligence officials on Sunday. The CIA declined to comment. The meeting was first reported by Axios.
US president Joe Biden spoke on Friday with Jordan’s King Abdullah, discussing the push to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict, the two countries said. “The president updated King Abdullah on his ongoing efforts to secure a hostage release and ceasefire deal, and preparations for a surge in humanitarian assistance during a ceasefire period,” the White House said in a statement. Jordan’s royal court confirmed the call, saying that King Abdullah “stressed the need to end the war on Gaza immediately”.
Members of Israel’s rightwing government have hit back at Kamala Harris over her demands for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza after she met Benjamin Netanyahu during his US visit. An unnamed Israeli official accused Harris of endangering a potential deal to free Israeli and dual-national hostages in Gaza. “Hopefully the remarks Harris made in her press conference won’t be interpreted by Hamas as daylight between the US and Israel, thereby making a deal harder to secure,” the Israeli media reported the official as saying.
Netanyahu visited Donald Trump at the former president’s Florida resort, concluding the Israeli leader’s week-long US visit that has been marked by large protests against the war. The two men have had a strained relationship in the past after Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden on his victory in the 2020 election, but on Friday photographs showed Trump warmly greeting Netanyahu and the two appeared to have reconciled. “We’ve always had a good relationship,” Trump said before the meeting, while also saying Harris’s statement on the Gaza war was “disrespectful”.
Israeli forces detained at least 40 Palestinians, including, children and former detainees, in the occupied West Bank over the past day, Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported. The Detainees and Ex-Detainees Commission and the Palestine Prisoners Society said the detention operations took place across the governorates of Qalqiliya and Nablus.
Foreign ministers of the South-east Asian regional bloc Asean on Saturday expressed concern over the dire humanitarian situation and “alarming casualties” in Gaza. It also urged peaceful resolutions to the conflicts in Gaza, as well as in Ukraine. It came via a joint communique issued two days after their closed-doors retreat in Laos.
At least 39,258 Palestinians have been killed and 90,589 injured in Israel’s military offensive on the Gaza Strip since 7 October, Gaza’s health ministry said on Saturday. The ministry of health in Gaza does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
The deputy commissioner general of Unrwa, Antonia De Meo, said that “in Gaza the blatant disregard for international humanitarian law is now commonplace”. Addressing the UN security council on Friday, De Meo said: “In Gaza, the blatant disregard for international humanitarian law is now commonplace. Women, children, journalists, humanitarian workers – all continue to pay a tragically high price.”
Britain said on Friday it would not proceed with efforts to question whether the international criminal court (ICC) has jurisdiction to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and the defence minister, Yoav Gallant. In May, the ICC’s prosecutor said he had requested arrest warrants for the two as well as three Hamas leaders over alleged war crimes.
Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi, said the need for sustainable peace is urgent and international law should be applied to all. The comment from the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, was a veiled reference to recent decisions by two international courts over Israeli’s Gaza offensives, reported Reuters. “We cannot continue closing our eyes to see the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza,” she said.
In Australia, NSW Labor sent a message to its counterparts in Canberra, passing a motion demanding the federal government recognise Palestinian statehood. The motion, moved by state minister Jihad Dib at the state’s party conference on Saturday, called on the Australian government “to recognise Palestine as a sovereign and independent state and as a priority”.
The Saint Hilarion complex, one of the oldest monasteries in the Middle East dating back to the fourth century, has been added to a list of Unesco’s world heritage sites in danger due to the war in Gaza.
Updated
Israeli airstrikes that hit school kill 50 people in Gaza
A wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting central and southern Gaza have killed at least 50 and injured an estimated 200 people, with one strike hitting a school where thousands were seeking shelter.
Palestinian health ministry officials said that at least 30 people were killed in an airstrike on the Khadija school in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, resulting in a wave of critical injuries.
Wounded people poured into the nearby al-Aqsa hospital, while images from Deir al-Balah showed families carrying injured children for treatment.
The Associated Press reported that people searched the ruined classrooms for remains, combing through the rubble to gather body parts.
They added that close to the hospital, where those killed in the strike were taken, their reporters witnessed people fleeing as an ambulance drove in the opposite direction. Inside the ambulance, they said, lay a dead toddler as well as a body shrouded in a blanket.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they targeted the Khadija school in Deir al-Balah because the area was used as a “command and control complex,” by Hamas militants.
They claimed “many steps were taken to reduce the chance of harming civilians,” including precision weapons and intelligence, although tens of thousands of civilians have sought shelter in Deir al-Balah for months, crowding into every available piece of space after many were displaced several times from other parts of Gaza.
The strike in Deir al-Balah was accompanied by further strikes on Khan Younis, after a week of deadly fighting in Gaza’s second city. Strikes in Khan Younis killed at least 23 people since the early morning and wounded 89 according to Palestinian health officials, as civilians were forcibly displaced from the city for the fourth day.
You can read the full report here:
The Olympic Games kicked off on Friday with an ambitious opening ceremony along the River Seine. In the lead up to the Games, demonstrators have protested against Israel’s participation in the multi-sport event.
The Palestinian Olympic Committee on Monday joined calls for Israel to be excluded from the Games in an open letter to International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach.
The letter accused Israel of breaching the traditional Olympic truce, which is scheduled to run from 19 July until after the Paralympics in mid-September, with continued military action in Gaza.
On Monday the foreign minister, Stéphane Séjourné, said at a meeting with EU counterparts in Brussels: “I want to say on behalf of France, to the Israeli delegation, we welcome you to France for these Olympic Games.”
'Blatant disregard for international law' in Gaza is 'now commonplace', Unrwa tells UN security council
The deputy commissioner general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), Antonia De Meo, said that “in Gaza the blatant disregard for international humanitarian law is now commonplace”.
"In #Gaza, the blatant disregard for international humanitarian law is now commonplace." @UNRWA Deputy Commissioner General De Meo to the UN Security Council.
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) July 26, 2024
Women, children, journalists, and humanitarian workers continue to pay a tragically high price.https://t.co/0QP9TWwrF3 pic.twitter.com/lJO3RxX3Hf
Addressing the UN security council on Friday, De Meo said:
In Gaza, the blatant disregard for international humanitarian law is now commonplace. Women, children, journalists, humanitarian workers – all continue to pay a tragically high price.
Unrwa is no exception. 199 colleagues have now been killed, the vast majority with their families. Nearly two-thirds of the agency’s premises – some 190 buildings – have been hit, some twice. Many of our schools are demolished and can no longer be used as schools. In the past two weeks alone, eight Unrwa schools, all serving as shelters for displaced people, have been struck. Our headquarters offices in Gaza are destroyed beyond recognition.
More than 560 displaced people, including many women and children, have been killed while sheltering under the UN flag. And just this week, two UN convoys heading north were shot at, despite coordination, deconfliction, and authorisation from the Israeli army.”
She added: “Humanitarian workers must never be targets of war.” De Meo concluded her speech by urging the UN security council to “persist” in its effort to secure a ceasfire, “protect the mandate of Unrwa including within the framework of a transition” and “to advance a peaceful solution to this seven-decade long conflict”.
Updated
In the Khan Younis city area, around 170 people have been killed “and hundreds wounded” during an Israeli offensive over several days there, Gaza’s civil defence agency said.
Israel had warned last Monday that its forces would “forcefully operate” in the Khan Yunis region, including an area previously declared a safe humanitarian zone.
Khan Younis was left devastated after heavy fighting early in the year but the military withdrew in April saying it had “concluded its mission” there. Now it has returned in force.
Israeli forces detained at least 40 Palestinians, including, children and former detainees, in the occupied West Bank over the past day, Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported.
The Detainees and Ex-Detainees Commission and the Palestine Prisoners Society said the detention operations took place across the governorates of Qalqiliya and Nablus.
Human rights groups and international organisations have alleged widespread abuse of inmates detained by Israel in raids in the occupied West Bank.
They have described alleged abusive and humiliating treatment, including holding blindfolded and handcuffed detainees in cramped cages as well as beatings, intimidation and harassment.
We have a video of the aftermath of the Israeli strike on a school in Deir al-Balah earlier that has, according to officials, killed at least 30 people. You can watch it here:
'Like judgment day': evacuees tell of fleeing Israel’s assault on Khan Younis
The evacuation order jolted Munadil Abu Younes one morning earlier this week as he scrolled on his phone reading the news. Israeli forces ordered thousands to flee, including from the area where he was sheltering. His eighth displacement was like nothing that had come before.
“Israeli forces told us about the evacuation order as they entered the area,” he said.
“We barely had time to collect our things, most people fled without taking anything. During previous evacuation orders they gave us a day or two, but this time we didn’t even have half an hour.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued a forcible order that covered much of western Khan Younis and part of Al Mawasi, a sandy strip previously designated a “humanitarian zone”.
Gaza’s second largest city was already reduced to little more than shattered cement and piles of rubble. Across Khan Younis, hundreds of thousands began to flee without knowing where to go. The order affected about 400,000 people.
The IDF said it was about to “forcefully operate” against militants in eastern Khan Younis, accusing Hamas of using the area to fire rockets into Israel.
You can read the full story by Malak A Tantesh and Ruth Michaelson here:
Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, has issued a statement condemning the Israeli airstrike that reportedly killed dozens of people after hitting a school being used by displaced people in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, on Saturday.
Hamas said the “massacre at Khadija School is a crime that confirms the Israeli enemy’s estrangement from all human values and its defiance of all laws of war”.
The statement added:
The occupation continues to commit massacres against civilians without any deterrence and with criminal cover provided by the American administration.
We call on the international community and the United Nations to break the policy of silence and take steps to force the occupation to stop its crimes.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said that the school was housing about 4,000 displaced people who had taken refuge there.
Updated
Toddler among those killed in strike on school - report
Near the Al-Aqsa hospital, Associated Press (AP) journalists reported seeing an ambulance rushing through a dusty road as a few people ran in the opposite direction. An injured man lay on a stretcher on the ground. A body covered with a blanket and a dead toddler lay inside the ambulance, they said.
Inside the school hit by an Israeli strike on Saturday, classrooms were in ruins, AP reporters said. People were seen searching for victims under the rubble and some were gathering remains of those who were killed.
Earlier, Israel’s military ordered the evacuation of a part of a designated humanitarian zone in Gaza ahead of a planned strike on Khan Younis on Saturday, but it has been criticised by a UN agency.
Juliette Touma, the director of communications for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said:
Referring to the orders as evacuation orders don’t do any justice to what this means. These are forced displacement orders. What happens is when people have these orders, they have very little time to move.”
Updated
At least 30 Palestinians reported dead after Israeli strike on school compound, say health officials
At least 30 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on a school in Deir al Balah in central Gaza, Palestinian health officials said, reports Reuters. The Israeli military said it had struck a Hamas command centre.
According to the Reuters news agency, the Gaza health ministry and the Hamas-run government media office gave the toll for those killed in the strike on the school in Deir Al-Balah, one of the areas most populated with displaced families, and said more than 100 others were injured.
The Israeli military said in a statement it had targeted a “Hamas command and control center inside the Khadija school compound in central Gaza”. The statement said the school was being used to launch attacks against troops and as a weapons cache and that it warned civilians before the strike.
Reuters reports that at Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir Al-Balah, ambulances raced injured Palestinians into the medical facility. Some of the injured also arrived on foot, with their clothes stained with blood.
In previous such strikes that have hit civilian infrastructure, Israel’s military has blamed the militant Islamist group Hamas for putting civilians in harm’s way, accusing it of operating within densely populated neighbourhoods, schools and hospitals as cover. Hamas denies this.
In Al-Bureij refugee camp, five Palestinians were killed earlier in an Israeli airstrike on a house, while four others were killed in another strike on a house in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, medics said.
Updated
At least 39,258 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October, says Gaza health ministry
At least 39,258 Palestinians have been killed and 90,589 injured in Israel’s military offensive on the Gaza Strip since 7 October, Gaza’s health ministry said on Saturday.
The ministry of health in Gaza does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images via the newswires:
Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi, has said the need for sustainable peace is urgent and international law should be applied to all. The comment from the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, was a veiled reference to recent decisions by two international courts over Israeli’s Gaza offensives, reports Reuters.
“We cannot continue closing our eyes to see the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza,” she said.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that on Saturday, the Saint Hilarion complex, one of the oldest monasteries in the Middle East dating back to the fourth century, was added to a list of Unesco’s world heritage sites in danger due to the war in Gaza.
Updated
CIA director to meet his Israeli and Egyptian counterparts and Qatar's PM this weekend
CIA director William Burns will meet this weekend in Rome with his Israeli and Egyptian counterparts and Qatar’s prime minister for talks on a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages by Hamas, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.
Reuters reports that the source, who requested anonymity, said Burns would meet Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and the Egyptian and Israeli intelligence officials on Sunday. The CIA declined to comment.
The meeting was first reported by Axios.
It comes as Israel seeks changes to a plan for a truce in Gaza and the release of hostages by Hamas, complicating a final deal, according to a western official, a Palestinian and two Egyptian sources.
US president Joe Biden spoke on Friday with Jordan’s King Abdullah, discussing the push to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict, the two countries said.
“The president updated King Abdullah on his ongoing efforts to secure a hostage release and ceasefire deal, and preparations for a surge in humanitarian assistance during a ceasefire period,” the White House said in a statement, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Jordan’s royal court confirmed the call, saying that King Abdullah “stressed the need to end the war on Gaza immediately and ensure the flow of sufficient aid through all crossings, while guaranteeing its delivery to civilians across the Strip without delay or hindrance.”
The US is pushing to bring the conflict to a close, and the news outlet Axios reported that CIA director Bill Burns was expected to hold talks on the issue in Rome on Sunday with Israeli, Qatari and Egyptian officials.
Reuters has the following breaking news line: at least 12 Palestinians were killed on Saturday in an Israeli attack on a school housing displaced people west of Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, Gaza’s civil defence service said.
There has been no comment yet from the Israeli military.
In Australia, NSW Labor has sent a message to its counterparts in Canberra, passing a motion demanding the federal government recognise Palestinian statehood, reports the Australian Associated Press (AAP).
The motion, moved by state minister Jihad Dib at the state’s party conference on Saturday, was met with rapturous applause and a standing ovation by delegates inside Sydney town hall.
The amendment called on the Australian government “to recognise Palestine as a sovereign and independent state and as a priority”.
Dib said recognising Palestine “goes to the very core of the Labor values of justice, human dignity and solidarity”. He told the conference:
By recognising Palestine, we recognise a sovereign people who cannot have their land stolen by illegal settlements or be subjected to the inhumane bombardment that we are seeing right now.
We need two states living side by side … we recognise the spirit of Palestinians and their dream of self-determination, and it will never be broken.”
It puts further pressure on the federal government to take stronger action regarding the war in Gaza.
Foreign ministers of the South-east Asian regional bloc Asean on Saturday expressed concern over the dire humanitarian situation and “alarming casualties” in Gaza. It also urged peaceful resolutions to the conflicts in Gaza, as well as in Ukraine.
It came via a joint communique issued two days after their closed-doors retreat in Laos, reports Reuters.
Members of Israel’s rightwing government have hit back at Kamala Harris over her demands for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza after she met Benjamin Netanyahu during his US visit.
After a brief meeting with the Israeli prime minister, which Harris described as “frank and constructive”, the US vice-president and presidential candidate said it was “time for this war to end, and end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity and self-determination”.
An unnamed Israeli official accused Harris of endangering a potential deal to free Israeli and dual-national hostages in Gaza. “Hopefully the remarks Harris made in her press conference won’t be interpreted by Hamas as daylight between the US and Israel, thereby making a deal harder to secure,” the Israeli media reported the official as saying.
Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who this week endorsed Donald Trump’s candidacy, immediately joined the fray, tweeting: “There will be no truce, Madam Candidate.”
Ben-Gvir previously tweeted in support of Netanyahu’s fiery speech to Congress this week, where the prime minister avoided mention of a ceasefire, lashed out at the international criminal court and claimed “victory is in sight”.
Netanyahu’s visit, his first abroad since the 7 October attacks by Hamas and other militants that killed 1,200 people and 250 people were taken hostage, has been polarising in Washington and at home since his ministerial jet left the runway in Tel Aviv.
You can read more on this story here:
Evacuation orders and 'intensified hostilities' have 'significantly destabilised aid operations', says UN
The Khan Younis evacuation orders and “intensified hostilities” have “significantly destabilised aid operations”, the UN said, reporting “dire water, hygiene and sanitation conditions” in the Palestinian territory.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that after Israel warned its forces would “forcefully operate” in the Khan Younis region, including an area previously declared a safe humanitarian zone, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Monday that an Israeli operation in Khan Younis killed 70 people and injured more than 200.
The military said at the time that it would act to stop rocket fire coming towards Israel from the area.
On Wednesday the military said forces carried out a rescue operation in Khan Younis and retrieved the bodies of five Israelis. They had been killed during the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas militants, and their bodies taken back to Gaza, the military said.
On Saturday, it ordered residents from more parts of Khan Younis “to temporarily evacuate to the adjusted humanitarian area in al-Mawasi – the second such adjustment made to the safe zone within a week.
Witnesses and rescuers said heavy battles continued around eastern Khan Younis on Friday, and medics at the city’s Nasser hospital reported at least 16 bodies brought to the facility from different parts of the southern governorate.
Updated
Britain drops its challenge to ICC arrest warrants for Israeli leaders
The new Labour government has announced its biggest step yet in overhauling the UK’s approach to the Middle East, dropping its opposition to an international arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu despite pressure from Washington not to do so.
Downing Street announced on Friday that the government would not submit a challenge to the jurisdiction of the international criminal court (ICC), whose chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, is seeking a warrant against the Israeli prime minister.
The move makes it more likely that the ICC will now grant Khan’s request, in what would be a stunning international rebuke for Israel over the way it has conducted the war in Gaza and put Netanyahu at risk of arrest if he travels abroad.
It also reverses months of British policy after the previous government was steadfast in its support of Israel and its desire to stick closely to the US position.
Ministers are expected to announce further changes within days, including the results of a review of Israel’s compliance with international law. The foreign secretary, David Lammy, has also signalled that he is considering banning some arms sales to Israel.
The prime minister’s deputy official spokesperson said: “On the submission, this was a proposal by the previous government that was not submitted before the election. I can confirm the government will not be pursuing that in line with our longstanding position that this is a matter for the court to decide on.
“The government feels very strongly about the rule of law internationally and domestically, and the separation of powers, and I would note the courts have already received a number of submissions on either side and they are well seized of the arguments to make their determination.”
You can read the full piece here:
For context, here is some more detail on Kamala Harris’s comments as referred to by Donald Trump (see 8.49am BST)
After meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, vice-president Kamala Harris said she supports Israel’s right to defend itself, but said “how it does so matters”. Harris expressed concern over the “devastating” humanitarian situation in Gaza and images of civilians killed in the conflict, saying “we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies”.
Trump calls Harris remarks on Gaza war ‘disrespectful’ as he meets Netanyahu
Donald Trump has called Kamala Harris’s statement on the Israel-Gaza war “disrespectful” before a meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Florida to discuss the conflict.
Harris, the US vice-president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, had seemed to mark a change of tone on the Israel-Gaza war on Thursday after her own meeting with Netanyahu, when she declared she would “not be silent” about the suffering of Palestinians.
Trump criticised Harris on Friday before his meeting at his Mar-a-Lago home, calling her remarks “disrespectful” as he targeted her over an issue that has split the Democratic party.
“They weren’t very nice pertaining to Israel,” Trump said. “I actually don’t know how a person who is Jewish could vote for her, but that’s up to them.”
Right-wing Israeli politicians attacked Harris and anonymous officials have suggested the remarks could make it more difficult to conclude a ceasefire deal.
“I think to the extent that Hamas understands there’s no daylight between Israel and the United States, that expedites the deal,” said Netanyahu to reporters at his meeting with Trump. “And I would hope that those comments don’t change that.”
A Harris aide rejected a report in the Times of Israel that a senior official had said that Harris’ criticism would hinder the conclusion of a deal.
“I don’t know what they’re talking about,” a Harris aide told CNN.
You can read more on this story here:
Updated
Israel orders the evacuation of an area designated as a humanitarian zone in Gaza
Israel’s military ordered the evacuation on Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.
According to the Associated Press (AP), the order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It’s the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel’s air and ground campaign.
On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, citing figures from Nasser hospital.
The area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war.
The AP reports that much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities, and have limited access to aid, United Nations (UN) and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel’s estimates. That’s more than half Gaza’s prewar population of 2.3 million.
Opening summary
It has gone 10am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. This is our latest live blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis.
More than 180,000 Palestinians have fled fierce fighting around the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis in four days, the UN said on Friday, after an Israeli operation to extract captives’ bodies from the area.
Recent “intensified hostilities” in the Khan Younis area have fuelled “new waves of internal displacement across Gaza”, said the UN humanitarian agency, OCHA.
It said “about 182,000 people” had been displaced from central and eastern Khan Younis between Monday and Thursday, and hundreds were “stranded in eastern Khan Younis”.
The Israeli military on Monday ordered the evacuation of parts of the city, announcing its forces would “forcefully operate” there, including in an area previously declared a safe humanitarian zone. On Wednesday, Israel said five bodies of captives seized during Hamas’s 7 October attack had been recovered from the area.
Israel’s military said on Friday that its forces had “eliminated approximately 100 terrorists” in the city this week.
Israel’s military chief, Lieut Gen Herzi Halevi, said the captives’ bodies were pulled from underground tunnels and walls in “a hidden place”.
Witnesses and rescuers said heavy battles continued around eastern Khan Yuonis on Friday. The Nasser hospital said 26 bodies were brought to the site.
In other news:
An Israeli official has criticised US vice-president Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency, after she said it was time for the war in Gaza to end given the suffering being caused by the fighting. Harris’s remarks at a press conference, after a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, reflect the growing pressure on the Israeli prime minister to reach a deal with Hamas to end the fighting in Gaza.
Britain said on Friday it would not proceed with efforts to question whether the international criminal court (ICC) has jurisdiction to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and the defence minister, Yoav Gallant. In May, the ICC’s prosecutor said he had requested arrest warrants for the two as well as three Hamas leaders over alleged war crimes.
Netanyahu visited Donald Trump at the former president’s Florida resort, concluding the Israeli leader’s week-long US visit that has been marked by large protests against the war. The two men have had a strained relationship in the past after Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden on his victory in the 2020 election, but on Friday photographs showed Trump warmly greeting Netanyahu and the two appeared to have reconciled. “We’ve always had a good relationship,” Trump said before the meeting, while also saying Harris’s statement on the Gaza war was “disrespectful”.
CIA director William Burns will meet on Sunday in Rome with his Israeli and Egyptian counterparts and Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman, for talks on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday. The CIA declined to comment.
The prime ministers of Australia, Canada and New Zealand have declared that a ceasefire in Gaza is “needed desperately” and urged Israel to “listen to the concerns of the international community”. The leaders’ joint statement on Friday said they were “gravely concerned about the prospect of further escalation across the region”, including between Hezbollah and Israel.
The World Food Programme has been forced to reduce rations for families in Gaza to ensure broader coverage for newly displaced people, it said on Friday. “Food stocks and humanitarian supplies in central and southern Gaza are very limited and barely any commercial supplies are going in,” WFP posted on X.
A Hamas leader in the West Bank died in Israeli custody after a deterioration in his health condition, a Palestinian governmental body said. Mustafa Muhammad Abu Ara, 63, died after being transferred to a hospital from the Ramon jail in southern Israel, the Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs said.
