Summary
We’re now closing the live blog. Here is a summary of today’s events:
The World Health Organization has said it has already delivered 1.2m doses of polio vaccine to Gaza, with 400,000 more to follow, as part of an emergency campaign after the first case of the childhood disease in the war-hit coastal strip in quarter of a century. The WHO said that Israel’s military and the Palestinian militant group Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned three-day pauses in fighting in Gaza to allow for the first round of vaccinations of 640,000 children against polio.
The polio vaccination campaign in Gaza is planned to begin on Sunday, with the pauses scheduled to take place between 6am and 3pm, the WHO said. The UN has warned that failure to deliver the polio vaccination programme would be “disastrous” for children in Gaza and beyond.
Executive director of UNICEF, Catherine Russell, has said the area-specific humanitarian pauses to allow the polio vaccine rollout must be respected. She added that failure to do so would be an “unforgivable failure” for children in Gaza and the region.
The charity ActionAid has said a “full and permanent” ceasefire is needed to pull Gaza back from the brink of a “devastating health crisis”.
The UK is “deeply concerned” by Israel’s military operation in West Bank and “deeply worried by the methods Israel has employed”, a statement from the Foreign Office said.
Israeli border police killed a senior Hamas commander in the West Bank and two Hamas gunmen on Friday, the Israeli military said. The Israeli military said its troops identified and killed Hamas leader, Wassem Hazem, while he was driving. When two others in the car - whom the military also identified as militants – attempted to flee, troops killed both in an airstrike.
The Israeli military said on Friday it had wrapped up a month-long operation in southern and central Gaza that it said killed more than 250 Palestinian fighters. “The troops of the 98th Division have completed their divisional operation in the Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah area, after about a month of simultaneous above and underground operational activity,” a military statement said.
A broader regional war in the Middle East where conflict already rages between Hamas and Israel remains a “significant risk”, the head of the UN peacekeeping force warned on Friday. United Nations undersecretary-general for peace operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix said: “There is still a very significant risk of escalation at the regional level. We are still very much in a very, very dangerous type of situation.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said they carried out an airstrike on a humanitarian aid convoy in Gaza aimed at “armed assailants” trying to hijack it, but the charity that organised the aid said people killed in the strike were employees of the transport company it was working with. The convoy, organised by the US-based NGO Anera, was carrying medical supplies and fuel to an Emirati-run hospital in Rafah at the time of the attack.
Israel told the United States that an initial review found that shots were fired at a clearly marked World Food Programme (WFP) vehicle in the Gaza Strip after a “communication error” between Israeli military units, the deputy US envoy to the United Nations said on Thursday. “We have urged them to immediately rectify the issues within their system,” deputy US ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told a UN security council meeting on Gaza. “Israel must not only take ownership for its mistakes, but also take concrete actions to ensure the IDF does not fire on UN personnel again.”
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris told CNN on Thursday that a ceasefire and hostage release deal was needed in Gaza. She reiterated support for Israel and maintained her position that “too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.” Harris said that she would not change US president Joe Biden’s policy on supplying Israel with arms for its war in Gaza if elected in November.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has launched a process that could lead to sanctions on Israeli ministers he said were responsible for “unacceptable hate messages” against Palestinians. Borrell said he had begun consultations with the EU’s 27 member states on whether they consider it “appropriate including in our list of sanctions some Israeli ministers [who] have been launching unacceptable hate messages against the Palestinians” and made proposals that “go clearly against international law” and incite war crimes.
More now on the death of Wassem Hazem, the senior leader of Hamas in Jenin (see posts at 9.48 and 11.46).
The Israeli military said its troops identified and killed the leader while he was driving. When two others in the car - whom the military also identified as militants – attempted to flee, troops killed both in an airstrike.
Palestinian health officials said Israeli forces killed three Palestinians in the north of the occupied West Bank on Friday, the third day of a large-scale operation in the territory. The ministry said the three were killed in Zababdeh, a town south of Jenin city, but did not immediately confirm their identities, the Associated Press reported.
Israeli forces have killed at least 19 Palestinians since the start of the operation early on Wednesday, which they say is geared to root out militancy in the restive territory and prevent attacks on Israeli citizens. Hamas has claimed at least 10 of the dead as their fighters.
