Closing summary
It is approaching 5pm in Gaza and Israel. This blog will be closing shortly but you can access all the Guardian’s Middle East coverage here.
Here is a summary of today’s main developments:
Palestinian women are giving birth in rubble on roads, a senior UN official has said, as he compared Gaza to a “dystopian film”. Andrew Saberton, an executive director with the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) described the “sheer devastation” that he witnessed on his most recent travel to Gaza, saying that there is no such thing as a “normal birth in Gaza now”.
The US vice-president, JD Vance, said that Israel would not annex the West Bank, the day after Israeli lawmakers voted to advance two bills paving the way for the territory’s annexation. “If it was a political stunt it was a very stupid political stunt and I personally take some insult to it,” Vance said in comments as he wrapped up his visit in Israel, during which he visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City, and met Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s defence minister, Israeli military leaders and other officials.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, warned Israel on Wednesday against annexing the West Bank, saying steps taken by parliament and settler violence threatened a Gaza deal. But Rubio – the latest high-ranking US visitor to Israel after Vance – voiced optimism overall for preserving Trump’s Gaza deal. Rubio said: “Every day there’ll be threats to it, but I actually think we’re ahead of schedule in terms of bringing it together, and the fact that we made it through this weekend is a good sign.” Rubio will meet Netanyahu on Friday.
European Union (EU) leaders are seeking a more active role in Gaza and the occupied West Bank after being sidelined from the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. At a summit on Thursday in Brussels largely focused on Ukraine and Russia, EU heads of state are also expected to discuss the shaky ceasefire in Gaza and potential EU support for stability in the war-torn coastal territory.
Israel must allow aid into Gaza, and its restrictions on doing so over the past two years have put it in breach of its obligations, the UN’s top court has found. The stinging advisory opinion by the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague also found that Israel had a duty not to impede the supply of aid by UN organisations including the beleaguered UN Palestinian relief agency Unrwa, which has been in effect banned from the territory since January.
Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar said on Thursday that Israel is committed to working towards the success of the Trump plan for Gaza, adding that Hamas and Islamic Jihad must lay down their arms. The 20-point plan demands that Hamas lay down its arms and renounce governance in the strip.
Health authorities said Israeli drone fire killed one Palestinian in southern Gaza. It comes as residents reported almost constant heavy gunfire and tank shelling in eastern areas of Khan Younis in southern Gaza and also east of Gaza City in the north of the Palestinian territory overnight, according to Reuters.
The body of a Thai farm worker killed during the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel and held by Hamas in Gaza was repatriated to Thailand on Thursday, officials said. The remains of Sonthaya Oakkharasri arrived at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport from Tel Aviv as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
The ceasefire in Gaza should mark a turning point for all Palestinians, not be a pretext to tighten control over the West Bank, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Jan Egeland has warned. During his visit to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, this week, Egeland said that “the same violence and impunity we saw in Gaza is dispossessing whole communities in the West Bank”. He stressed that “recovery in one part of the territory cannot come at the cost of destruction in another”.
Humanitarian organisations are also facing growing restrictions, said Egeland, warning that “if enforced, they will paralyse our life-saving work”. In March 2025, Israel introduced new registration rules for international agencies that could prevent them from operating anywhere in the occupied territory.
In the first medical evacuation since the ceasefire began on 10 October, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday they had evacuated 41 critical patients and 145 companions out of the Gaza Strip. In a statement posted to X, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on nations to show solidarity and help 15,000 patients who are still waiting for approval to receive medical care outside Gaza.
On Thursday, Israel’s supreme court held a hearing into whether to open the Gaza Strip to the international media and gave the state 30 days to present a new position in light of the new situation under the ceasefire. Israel has blocked reporters from entering Gaza since the war erupted on 7 October 2023.
Turkish peacekeeping forces will continue to help boost the Lebanese army’s capability under a renewed deployment mandate in Lebanon, Turkey’s defence ministry said on Thursday. Turkey’s parliament passed a bill on Tuesday to renew the military’s deployment mandates in Syria and Iraq by three more years, and its deployment mandate under the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) by two years.
US vice-president JD Vance has criticised Israel’s parliament vote on West Bank annexation, calling the move a “stupid political stunt” after a bill applying Israeli law to the occupied West Bank, a move tantamount to the annexation of land Palestinians want for a state, won preliminary approval from Israel’s parliament on Wednesday.
Speaking on the tarmac of Tel Aviv’s international airport before departing at the end of his visit to Israel, Vance insisted that “the policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel. That will continue to be our policy. And if people want to take symbolic votes, they can do that but we certainly weren’t happy about it”, adding “I personally take some insult to it”.
You can find the Guardian’s video report on this below:
