Death toll in Israeli attack on Khan Younis rises to 90
The death toll in the Israeli attack on Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Saturday rose to 90 Palestinians along with 300 wounded, the Gaza health ministry said.
People are understandably upset; I am too. Many tens of thousands of women and children have been killed but we are being undermined by a selfish, angry minority who refuse to listen to reason. Ditto Just Stop Oil, who may have laudable aims but employ deeply off-putting tactics. We all want an immediate ceasefire. How is it helping to personalise and intimidate? People in Gaza are being killed and all the toxic, single-issue fringe want to do is smear and sneer. Two MPs have been killed in my time in parliament – the logical conclusion of whipping up a hate-filled frenzy.
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One of the doctors at a hospital dealing with the aftermath of the attack told the BBC it is “one of the black days”.
Dr Mohammed Abu Rayya said the majority of cases coming in were dead people, with others suffering from multiple shrapnel wounds.
He said it was like being in “hell”, adding many of the casualties were civilians, notably women and children.
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The United Nations Population Fund agency has posted this on X in the past hour.
Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis was a scene of ruin two months ago.
— UNFPA (@UNFPA) July 13, 2024
Now, it's running again thanks to the people of #Gaza.
🎥 Hear from @UNFPAPalestine Representative Dominic Allen and UNFPA Head of Gaza Office Judith Starkulla on their recent visit.#CeasefireNOW pic.twitter.com/bIbzp7jARx
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Displaced people sheltering in Gaza said their tents were torn down by the force of the strike, describing bodies and body parts strewn on the ground.
“I couldn’t even tell where I was or what was happening,” said Sheikh Youssef, a resident of Gaza City who is currently displaced in the al-Mawasi area.
“I left the tent and looked around, all the tents were knocked down, body parts, bodies everywhere, elderly women thrown on the floor, young children in pieces,” he told Reuters.
Many of those wounded in the strike, including women and children, were taken to the nearby Nasser hospital, which hospital officials said had been overwhelmed and was “no longer able to function” due to the intensity of the Israeli offensive and an acute shortage of medical supplies.
“The hospital is full of patients, it’s full of wounded, we can’t find beds for people,” said Atef al-Hout, director of the hospital, adding that it was the only one still operating in southern Gaza.
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Summary of the day
The Israeli army said, in a statement, that it “struck Mohammed Deif and Rafa Salama, the commander of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade, who are two of the masterminds of the 7 October massacre”. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is still awaiting intelligence that could confirm if Deif or Salama were killed in the strike.
At least 71 Palestinians were killed and another 289 others were injured in the Israeli attack on Khan Younis, said the Gaza health ministry in a statement on Saturday. It said the attack hit the al-Mawasi camp for displaced people in southern Gaza.
The Hamas-run media office said at least 100 people had been killed and injured, including members of the civil emergency service. The Israeli military said it was looking into the report.
Israeli military said the strike on Deif was in a “fenced Hamas area” and that “most people there were militants”. The IDF published before and after images on its X account of the location of the strike.
A senior Hamas official did not confirm whether Deif had been present and called the Israeli allegations “nonsense”. “All the martyrs are civilians and what happened was a grave escalation of the war of genocide, backed by the American support and world silence,” Abu Zuhri told Reuters, adding the strike showed Israel was not interested in reaching a ceasefire deal.
Nasser hospital in Khan Younis is “no longer able to function” as doctors are “overwhelmed with large number of casualties”, Nasser hospital health officials said on Saturday. Health officials at Nasser medical complex, previously the biggest functioning hospital in Gaza, said that doctors could not provide medical healthcare to the large number of casualties because of the intensity of Israel’s military offensive and acute shortages in medical supplies. The hospital received 20 bodies and 90 injured people on Saturday after the Khan Younis attack, the health ministry said.
The Saudi channel Al-Hadath reported that Salama, the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, was killed in the strike and that Deif was seriously wounded. The Guardian has been unable to independently verify the report.
The office of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that the Israeli leader would hold security talks throughout the day after the military’s strike against Deif.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant was holding special consultations, his office said, in light of “developments in Gaza”. It was unclear how the strike would affect ceasefire talks under way in Doha and Cairo.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said its ambulance crews had dealt with 102 injuries and 23 people who were killed in the Israeli attack in Khan Younis on Saturday. The PRCS said 70 of the injuries and 21 of the dead were transferred to its al-Quds field hospital, while 22 injured people were transferred to al-Amal hospital.
The international charity, ActionAid has said it was “extremely concerned about the safety of our staff and partners” in the al-Mawasi area near Khan Younis, some of whom it has not yet been able to make contact with. The charity said it was “utterly horrified and appalled by the devastating attack”.
At least 17 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on a prayer hall at a Gaza beach camp for the displaced, west of Gaza City, health officials said on Saturday. Previously, it had put the death toll at 10.
Argentina designated Hamas a terrorist organisation on Friday and ordered a freeze on the financial assets of the group, a largely symbolic move as president Javier Milei seeks to align Argentina strongly with the US and Israel.
At least 38,443 Palestinians have been killed and 88,481 others injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said on Saturday. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
The World Health Organization in occupied Palestinian territory (WHOoPt) has said on social media that it has managed to deliver aid to hospitals, as well as fuel supplies. In a post on X, shared on Friday, it said: “Despite increasing insecurity and hostilities in northern Gaza, yesterday WHO managed to reach Indonesian, al-Awda, and Kamal Adwan hospitals to deliver 20,000 litres of fuel and medical supplies, thanks to support from the @ROJ_Palestine [representative of Japan to Palestine] and @eu_echo [EU civil protection and humanitarian aid].”
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said on Friday it had enough funds to continue operating through September, after a pledging conference for the embattled body where UN chief António Guterres pleaded for help from donors. “Let me be clear – there is no alternative to Unrwa,” he said. “Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse in Gaza – somehow, appallingly, civilians are being pushed into ever deeper circles of hell,” Guterres added.
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At least 38,443 Palestinians have been killed and 88,481 others injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said on Saturday.
The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
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The Times of Israel reports that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is still awaiting intelligence that could confirm the deaths of Mohammed Deif and Rafa Salama.
The publication also reports that the IDF have released another image showing, what it says, is a fenced-off Hamas compound in the southern Gaza Strip.
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The Saudi channel Al-Hadath reported that Rafa Salama, the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, was killed in the strike and that Mohammed Deif was seriously wounded.
The Guardian has been unable to independently verify the report.
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The international charity, ActionAid has said it is “extremely concerned about the safety of our staff and partners” in the al-Mawasi area near Khan Younis, some of whom it has not yet been able to make contact with. The charity said it was “utterly horrified and appalled by the devastating attack”.
In a statement released on Saturday afternoon, ActionAid said:
We are utterly horrified and appalled by the devastating attack on the al-Mawasi area near Khan Younis and extremely concerned about the safety of our staff and partners in the area, some of whom we have not yet been able to make contact with.
This is an area that had been designated a safe humanitarian zone, yet at least 71 people have been brutally slaughtered there today and hundreds injured, once again making it perfectly clear that absolutely nowhere is safe in Gaza.
As yet more Palestinians mourn their loved ones or attempt to seek medical help from a health system that is overwhelmed and on its knees, we plea – yet again – for this nightmare to come to an end and for a permanent ceasefire, now.”
IDF says Hamas commanders 'struck' - but stops short of confirming deaths
The Israeli army said, in a statement, that it “struck Mohammed Deif and Rafa Salama, the commander of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade, who are two of the masterminds of the 7 October massacre”.
It came after the Gaza health ministry said 71 people were killed and 289 injured in an Israeli strike on the al-Mawasi camp for displaced people in southern Gaza.
In a social media post on X, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wrote:
In a joint IDF and ISA activity based on precise intelligence, the IDF’s Southern Command and the IAF carried out a strike in an area where two senior Hamas terrorists and additional terrorists hid among civilians. The location of the strike was an open area surrounded by trees, several buildings, and sheds.
The IDF attached a before and after image of what it says was a “compound where the senior terrorists and additional terrorists hid before and after the strike”:
In a joint IDF and ISA activity based on precise intelligence, the IDF's Southern Command and the IAF carried out a strike in an area where two senior Hamas terrorists and additional terrorists hid among civilians. The location of the strike was an open area surrounded by trees,… pic.twitter.com/1MEJYHHwm7
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 13, 2024
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The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said its ambulance crews had dealt with 102 injuries and 23 people who were killed in the Israeli attack in Khan Younis on Saturday.
The PRCS said 70 of the injuries and 21 of the dead were transferred to its al-Quds field hospital, while 22 injured people were transferred to al-Amal hospital.
The death toll in a reported Israeli attack on a prayer hall at a Gaza beach camp for the displaced, west of Gaza City, has climbed to 17 say health officials. They had previously said at least 10 people were killed in the attack (see 12.37pm BST).
The Israeli military is still verifying the result of a strike that targeted Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif and another senior Hamas official on Saturday, a military official told a briefing with reporters.
He said the strike targeted a military compound in the west of the Gaza city of Khan Younis and he said he could not confirm Palestinian reports that at least 71 people were killed in the attack, Reuters reported.
The WHO in Palestine has said on social media that it has managed to deliver aid to hospitals, as well as fuel supplies.
In a post on X, it said:
Despite increasing insecurity and hostilities in northern #Gaza, yesterday @WHO managed to reach Indonesian, Al Awda, and Kamal Adwan hospitals to deliver 20,000 litres of fuel and medical supplies, thanks to support from @ROJ_Palestine and @eu_echo.
The closure of Al-Ahli and Patient Friendly hospitals has increased the load on the remaining partially functional hospitals in the north.
Without sustained deliveries of fuel and medical supplies, these hospitals will struggle to stay operational and provide lifesaving health care.
Our plea remains: ensure the sustained flow of aid into Gaza via all possible routes and crossings, and unimpeded access to health facilities for the delivery of supplies.
As a terrorist attack, a harsh response and an ensuing invasion strike familiar chords, analysts look for lessons from a war of 42 years ago.
It started with a terrorist attack, which triggered massive military retaliation, the siege of a city, the deaths of thousands of civilians and devastation and global outrage. If the military operation was a success in tactical terms, it led to strategic failures that scarred the nation and the region for decades to come.
Sounds familiar? Forty-two years later, as a new conflict looms on Israel’s northern borders, historians, analysts and veterans of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon are looking to that now-distant war for lessons and warnings.
Inevitably, much was very different back on the summer’s day when a gunman sent to London by a Palestinian breakaway faction in the pay of Saddam Hussein narrowly failed to kill Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to the UK, as he left a dinner at the Dorchester hotel. The cold war was at its chilliest for decades; the main threat to Israel from across its northern frontier was the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), then led by Yasser Arafat and though the Iranian revolution of 1979 had made clear the new power of political Islamism, few thought resurgent religion could pose a real danger to Israel.
But if many differences are clear, there are some obvious parallels too, perhaps confirming the adage that if history doesn’t repeat itself, it can rhyme.
Ten Palestinians killed in Israeli attack west of Gaza city, health officials say
At least 10 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on a prayer hall at a Gaza beach camp for the displaced, west of Gaza City, health officials said on Saturday, reports Reuters.
More details soon …
Nasser hospital 'no longer able to function', health officials say
Nasser hospital in Khan Younis is “no longer able to function” as doctors are “overwhelmed with large number of casualties”, Nasser hospital health officials said on Saturday, according to Reuters.
Health officials at Nasser medical complex, previously the biggest functioning hospital in Gaza, said that doctors could not provide medical healthcare to the large number of casualties because of the intensity of Israel’s military offensive and acute shortages in medical supplies.
Earlier, the Gaza health ministry said that Nasser hospital had received 20 bodies and 90 injured people as a result of an Israeli attack in Khan Younis. Reuters reports that the ministry didn’t give a final figure of victims moved to other medical facilities.
Gaza’s health ministry said that at least 71 Palestinians were killed and another 289 others were injured after an attack in Khan Younis on Saturday hit a camp for war displaced in southern Gaza.
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Hamas says Israel's claim it targeted group's leaders in Gaza strike is 'false'
Hamas says that Israeli claims of targeting leaders of the Palestinian militant group are “false” and aimed at “justifying” the attack. “It’s not the first time Israel claims to target Palestinian leaders, only to be proven false later,” Hamas said in a statement.
Israeli military have said that its strike on Hamas military chief, Mohammed Deif, was in a “fenced Hamas area” and that most people there were militants.
Earlier, a senior Hamas official called the Israeli allegations “nonsense”. “All the martyrs are civilians and what happened was a grave escalation of the war of genocide, backed by the American support and world silence,” Abu Zuhri told Reuters, adding the strike showed Israel was not interested in reaching a ceasefire deal. He did not confirm is Deif had been present.
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Reuters reports that its footage shows ambulances racing towards the area of Saturday’s attack amid clouds of smoke and dust. Displaced people, including women and children, were fleeing in panic, some holding belongings in their hands.
Witnesses told Reuters that the attack was a surprise as the area had been calm, adding more than one missile had been fired. Some of the injured, who were being evacuated were rescue workers, they said.
“They’re all gone, my whole family’s gone … Where are my brothers? They’re all gone, they’re all gone. There’s no one left,” said one tearful woman, who did not give her name to the news agency. “Our children are in pieces, they are in pieces. Shame (on you),” she added.
What we know so far about the Khan Younis attack
An Israeli airstrike on Saturday in Khan Younis targeted Hamas’s military chief and mastermind of the 7 October attack Mohammed Deif, Israeli military confirmed. It was unclear whether Deif was killed.
At least 71 Palestinians were killed and another 289 others were injured, said the Gaza health ministry in a statement on Saturday. It said the attack in Khan Younis hit a camp for war displaced in southern Gaza. The health ministry said that Nasser hospital in Khan Younis received 20 bodies and 90 injured people. Reuters reports that the ministry didn’t give a final figure of victims moved to other medical facilities
The Hamas-run media office said at least 100 people had been killed and injured, including members of the civil emergency service. The Israeli military said it was looking into the report.
Deif was hiding in a building in the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone Al-Mawasi, west of the southern city of Khan Younis, Israeli army radio said. Israeli military said the strike on Deif was in a “fenced Hamas area” and that “most people there were militants”.
A senior Hamas official did not confirm whether Deif had been present and called the Israeli allegations “nonsense”. “All the martyrs are civilians and what happened was a grave escalation of the war of genocide, backed by the American support and world silence,” Abu Zuhri told Reuters, adding the strike showed Israel was not interested in reaching a ceasefire deal.
The office of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said that the Israeli leader will hold security talks throughout the day after the military’s strike against Deif.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant was holding special consultations, his office said, in light of “developments in Gaza”. It was unclear how the strike would affect ceasefire talks under way in Doha and Cairo.
Deif was one of the masterminds of Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel. He has survived seven Israeli assassination attempts, reports Reuters, with the most recent in 2021 and has topped Israel’s most wanted list for decades.
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Israeli attack hit the al-Mawasi camp, says Gaza health ministry
A Gaza health ministry statement has said that the attack in Khan Younis on Saturday, which it says has killed at least 71 Palestinians and injured 289 others, hit the al-Mawasi camp.
Al-Mawasi, once a small coastal town, had become packed with tents set up by displaced Palestinians as it became a refuge for months to those fleeing the fighting.
Located near the border with Egypt in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, aid workers at al-Mawasi, told the Guardian in May that the camp had “horrific and dehumanising” conditions, with limited food, filthy and scarce water, overwhelmed healthcare facilities and almost no sanitation.
You can read that report from May here:
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A senior Hamas official, Abu Zuhri has told Reuters that the reported attack in Khan Younis showed Israel was not interested in reaching a ceasefire agreement.
Reuters news agency reports that the office of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said that the Israeli leader will hold security talks throughout the day after the military’s strike against Hamas military chief, Mohammed Deif.
Israel military confirms it targeted Hamas military chief, Mohammed Deif, in Gaza attack
Israeli military have confirmed that it targeted Hamas military chief, Mohammed Deif, in Saturday’s attack in Gaza.
As we just reported, the Gaza health ministry says 71 people were killed in the attack and almost 300 were injured.
It is unclear if Deif is among those killed.
More details soon …
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At least 71 Palestinians killed in Israeli attack in Khan Younis, says Gaza health ministry
Gaza’s health ministry said on Saturday at least 71 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack in Khan Younis on a camp for war displaced in southern Gaza, adding that 289 others were injured.
Agence France-Presse reports that a ministry statement gave an updated “toll of the horrific occupation (Israeli) massacre” at the al-Mawasi camp, up from at least 20 it initially said were killed, as Israel said it was looking into the incident.
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The Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, who it has been reported was the target of an Israeli strike in Gaza, has previously been described as the “mastermind” of Hamas’s 7 October attack.
In this piece from November, the international security correspondent of the Guardian, Jason Burke wrote of Deif:
The exact role of different Hamas leaders in the attack is yet to be established, but it is clear that Sinwar and Deif were central to its planning.
Deif means “guest”, a reference to the 58-year-old’s constant relocation to avoid detection by Israel. A member of Hamas since his early 20s, the former science student oversaw a wave of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians in the early 1990s, and another a decade later. Deif may have been crippled by one of many Israeli assassination attempts, and his wife and young family were killed in an airstrike in 2014. Israeli officials have described Deif, whose real name is Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, as “a dead man walking”.
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Hamas 'mastermind' of 7 October attack, Mohammed Deif, reported target of Khan Younis attack
A security official has confirmed to the Reuters that the Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif was the target of an Israeli strike in Gaza, which the Gaza government media office said had killed and injured at least 100 people, including members of the civil emergency service.
According to Reuters, the Israeli defence minister’s office said that Yoav Gallant is holding “an operational assessment” with security chiefs.
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Israel says Hamas military chief was target in attack reported to have killed or injured more than 100
Israeli army radio said on Saturday its military had targeted Hamas’s military chief in a strike on Khan Younis in Gaza that the territory’s health ministry said had killed at least 20 Palestinians.
According to Reuters, the Israeli army radio said it was unclear whether Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif – the mastermind behind the 7 October attack – was killed. The Israeli military said it was looking into the report.
The Gaza health ministry said in a statement that Nasser hospital in Khan Younis received 20 bodies and 90 injured people. Reuters reports that the statement didn’t give a final figure of victims moved to other medical facilities.
The Hamas-run media office said at least 100 people had been killed and injured, including members of the civil emergency service.
A senior Hamas official did not confirm whether Deif had been present. “The Israeli allegations are nonsense and they aim to justify the horrifying massacre. All the martyrs are civilians and what happened was a grave escalation of the war of genocide, backed by the American support and world silence,” Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
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The Guardian video team have shared the below, on the comments by UN secretary general, António Guterres, which we reported on earlier (see 9am BST).
Speaking at an Unrwa pledging conference on Friday, Guterres said that Palestinians in Gaza were being forced to move “across a landscape of destruction and death” and that civilians were being pushed into “ever deeper circles of hell”.
Guterres said: “Recent days have brought yet more evacuation orders by Israeli authorities, yet more civilian suffering and yet more bloodshed.” He said nowhere in Gaza was safe and that “everywhere is a potential killing zone”.
The UN secretary general also said that more UN workers had been killed in this conflict than any other in UN history. You can listen to his comments in the video below:
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Reuters news agency has shared some additional information on the report by the Hamas-run media office that dozens of Palestinians were killed or injured in an Israeli attack on Saturday that hit tents housing displaced people in Khan Younis (see 9.58am BST).
According to Reuters, the Gaza government media office issued a statement in which it said: “The Israeli occupation army conducted a big massacre by bombarding the tent camps of the displaced in Khan Younis. The horrifying massacre killed and wounded more than 100 people, including members of the civil emergency service.”
There has been no statement yet from the Gaza health ministry on the official death toll, reports Reuters.
Dozens of Palestinians were killed or injured in an Israeli attack on Saturday that hit tents housing displaced people in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, the Hamas-run media office said.
Moments earlier, the Reuters news agency had reported that the media office had said at least 100 Palestinians had been killed and injured in the attack.
According to Reuters, the Israeli military said it is looking into the reports.
More details soon …
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Argentina designates Hamas a terrorist group
Argentina designated Hamas a terrorist organisation on Friday and ordered a freeze on the financial assets of the group, a largely symbolic move as president Javier Milei seeks to align Argentina strongly with the US and Israel, reports the Associated Press (AP).
Announcing the decision, Milei’s office cited Hamas’s cross-border attack on Israel last 7 October that killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage. The statement also mentioned Hamas’s close ties to Iran, which Argentina blames for two deadly militant attacks on Jewish sites in the country.
The AP reports that the move comes just days before the 30th anniversary of one of those attacks: the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. It killed 85 people and injured hundreds more in the worst such attack in Argentina’s modern history.
The other attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, in 1992, killed more than 20 people. Argentina’s judiciary has accused members of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group of carrying out the two attacks.
Friday’s announcement professed Milei’s “unwavering commitment to recognising terrorists for what they are,” adding that “it’s the first time that there is a political will to do so.”
The US, EU and several other countries long put a terrorist designation on Hamas, which ruled the Gaza Strip before its current war with Israel.
According to the AP, previous left-leaning Peronist governments in Argentina, home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America, have maintained friendly ties with Israel but also voiced support for Palestinian statehood.
Since coming into office in December, Milei has set himself apart from even Israel’s closest allies in his vocal support for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
For his first state visit as president earlier this year, Milei flew to Jerusalem in a show of support for the Israeli government and promised to move his nation’s embassy there, which drew praise from Netanyahu and ire from Hamas.
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Bodies of about 60 Palestinians reportedly found after Israeli attack on Gaza City
Emergency workers claim to have recovered the bodies of approximately 60 Palestinians from two districts of Gaza City after Israeli forces pulled back from days of battles with Hamas militants in the territory’s biggest urban area.
The civil defence agency in Hamas-run Gaza on Friday said the bodies were found in the Tal al-Hawa and Al-Sinaa districts after the week-long offensive.
“There are still missing people under the rubble of destroyed homes, which is difficult for our crews to reach,” the agency’s spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said. “There are reports that many people are missing since the first day of the incursion.”
“There are many calls for help but we just cannot reach them. We just do not have enough crews,” Bassal added. He said the Sabha medical centre, near the Gaza City district of Shujaiya, which provides care for 60,000 residents, had been destroyed in the new fighting. This was not immediately confirmed by Israel.
The Israeli military and Shin Bet intelligence agency announced on Friday that they killed Ayman Shweidah, the deputy commander of Hamas’s Shujaiya battalion. The joint statement said he was involved in planning the 7 October attacks and took part in the fighting that followed.
On Wednesday the Israeli army had dropped leaflets warning “everyone in Gaza City” – the focus of a heavy Israeli assault this week – that it would “remain a dangerous combat zone”. The leaflets urged residents to flee and set out designated escape routes from the area where the UN humanitarian office said up to 350,000 people had been sheltering.
Many civilians told the Guardian they had concluded there was no refuge in war-stricken Gaza and said they lacked confidence in the safe corridors set by Israel. Residents said they also feared that if they left they would not be able to take belongings or return.
You can read the full report here:
Unrwa says it has funds until end of September, as head of UN agency warns 'there is no alternative to Unrwa'
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said on Friday it had enough funds to continue operating through September, after a pledging conference for the embattled body where UN chief António Guterres pleaded for help from donors.
“We have worked tirelessly with partners to restore confidence in the agency,” Unrwa chief Philippe Lazzarini said, after several nations withheld funding after Israeli allegations in January that a number of Unrwa’s employees participated in the 7 October attack by Hamas.
Lazzarini said new pledges of funds would help ensure emergency operations until September, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Guterres had pleaded with donors to fund the embattled UN agency, warning that Palestinians would lose a “critical lifeline” without Unrwa.
“Let me be clear – there is no alternative to Unrwa,” he said. “Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse in Gaza – somehow, appallingly, civilians are being pushed into ever deeper circles of hell,” Guterres added.
According to Guterres, 195 Unrwa staff members have been killed in the war, the highest death toll for staff in UN history.
The US Congress has barred further funding for Unrwa. President Joe Biden’s administration has instead directed funding for Palestinian civilians to other bodies while saying that Unrwa is uniquely equipped to distribute aid.
Opening summary
It is coming up to 11am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. This is our latest live blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) has said it has enough funds to continue operating until September, after a pledging conference for the embattled body where the UN chief, António Guterres, pleaded for help from donors.
“We have worked tirelessly with partners to restore confidence in the agency,” Unrwa head Philippe Lazzarini said on Friday, after several nations withheld funding after Israeli allegations in January that some Unrwa employees took part in the 7 October attack by Hamas.
Lazzarini said new pledges of funds would help ensure emergency operations until September, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Guterres had pleaded with donors to fund the agency, warning that Palestinians would lose a “critical lifeline” without Unrwa and accusing Israel of issuing evacuation orders that forced Palestinians “to move like human pinballs across a landscape of destruction and death”.
“Let me be clear – there is no alternative to Unrwa,” Guterres said. “Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse in Gaza, somehow, appallingly, civilians are being pushed into ever deeper circles of hell,” he added.
More on that in a moment, but first here is a summary of other recent key events:
Israeli forces pulled back from parts of Gaza City after a fierce, week-long offensive that met with Hamas resistance, leaving dozens of dead and wrecking homes and roads, rescuers said. The Gaza Civil Emergency Service said teams had collected about 60 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces over the past week from the area of Tel Al-Hawa and the edges of the Sabra neighbourhood in Gaza City, Reuters reported. While tanks withdrew from some areas, Israeli snipers and tanks continued to control some high ground, residents and rescue teams said, warning residents against trying to return.
“There are bodies scattered in the streets, dismembered bodies, there are bodies of entire families, there are also bodies inside a home of an entire family that was completely burned,” a Gaza Strip civil defence spokesperson, Mahmoud Basal, said on Friday in comments carried by media in Hamas-run Gaza. He said the Sabha medical centre, which provides care for 60,000 residents and is near the Gaza City district of Shujaiya, had been destroyed in the new fighting.
Israel’s military said it had found drones and other weaponry in what it called a Hamas combat complex inside Unrwa’s former headquarters in Gaza City – the Palestinian territory’s biggest urban area – and had evacuated civilians from the area before attacking. The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they had attacked Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets and mortar fire, killing and wounding many. There was no immediate Israeli army comment on those claims.
Israeli strikes killed another 32 people in Gaza, the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry said on Friday. Hamas media reported “more than 70 airstrikes” in several parts of the territory, including Nuseirat refugee camp in the centre and Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, in addition to Gaza City in the north. In Khan Younis, Hamas media said four people working for the Al-Khair Foundation, a Muslim NGO based in Britain and Turkey, were killed in an airstrike at an aid distribution centre.
The Israeli military and Shin Bet intelligence agency said they killed Ayman Shweidah, the deputy commander of Hamas’s Shujaiya battalion. The joint statement on Friday said he was involved in planning the 7 October attacks and took part in the fighting that followed.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed that its negotiating team, led by the Mossad intelligence chief David Barnea, had returned to Israel after talks with mediators in Doha on Thursday. Speaking after the team’s return, the Israeli prime minister said Israel needed control of the Palestinian side of Gaza’s border with Egypt to stop weapons reaching Hamas. The condition conflicts with Hamas’s position that Israel must withdraw from all Gaza territory after a ceasefire.
Joe Biden acknowledged “difficult, complex issues” remained between Israel and Hamas but said progress towards a ceasefire deal was being made. The US president also said he was “disappointed” with the problem-plagued effort to deliver aid to Gaza via a $230m temporary pier, which US officials say will soon permanently end.
The US has stepped up efforts to target violent Israeli settlers, adding new individuals and organisations to a growing sanctions list and warning banks to check transactions linked to all Israeli “outposts” in the occupied West Bank. The new sanctions cover the far-right group Lehava, already listed by the UK, and two founding members of Tsav9, a campaign group that blocked aid from reaching Gaza.
The Israeli government’s security cabinet has approved a plan to extend compulsory military service for men to 36 months from the current 32 months, Israel’s Ynet news outlet reported. The 36-month rule would stay in force for the next eight years, Ynet said on Friday. The measure was likely to be submitted to a vote in a full cabinet meeting on Sunday, it said.
Israel’s military said on Friday that one of its soldiers was killed in combat near the border with Lebanon a day earlier, identifying the man as a 33-year-old sergeant. It did not specify how he died, but Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said he was killed in a drone strike. Israel’s military also said on Friday that a day earlier it had struck a military post in southern Syria in retaliation after a projectile was fired from Syria into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
US forces destroyed three Houthi uncrewed aerial vehicles in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen after judging them to be an “imminent threat”, US central command said.
Dutch judges refused an urgent request by rights groups to penalise the Netherlands for not respecting a ban on supplying F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel. “It has not been demonstrated that the state is not complying with the ban or does not intend to continue to comply with the ban,” the judges said on Friday. “Therefore, there is no penalty for a violation.”
