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.
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 Friday.
Speaking to reporters in Brussels, United Nations undersecretary-general for peace operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix warned against making assumptions about how regional actors will behave.
“The perception could exist that there are certain rules that neither parties want to trespass and therefore that we are in a situation that is more stable than one could think,” Lacroix said on the sidelines of an EU defence ministers’ meeting.
“There is still a very significant risk of escalation at the regional level,” he said, adding: “We are still very much in a very, very dangerous type of situation.”
Lacroix warned of the risk of an “unintended” escalation or a “misunderstanding”.
“One of the risks, in particular in southern Lebanon, is both parties not exactly understanding where the other is in terms of calculus,” he said.
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.
“As part of the operation, the troops eliminated over 250 terrorists and destroyed dozens of (pieces of) terrorist infrastructure.”
A military spokesperson confirmed to AFP that no other operations were taking place in those two areas for now.
Residents of Khan Younis said they had returned to scenes of widespread destruction in the Gaza Strip’s main southern city.
Amal al-Astal, 48, described demolished homes and bodies decomposing in the open.
“We found our house destroyed and our neighbours’ (houses) destroyed as well. One of our neighbours’ corpses was decomposed there,” Astal said.
“As soon as we entered, there were tragedies and we could not recognise the landmarks of the neighbourhood.”
Palestinians who returned to parts of Deir el-Balah earlier this week said they witnessed similar devastation.
'Full and permanent' ceasefire needed to pull Gaza back from brink of 'devastating health crisis' - ActionAid
The charity ActionAid has said a “full and permanent” ceasefire is needed to pull Gaza back from the brink of a “devastating health crisis”.
Referring to the forthcoming polio vaccine rollout, the charity said:
While the pauses will allow some children to receive life-saving polio vaccinations, they fall far short of what is urgently needed to pull Gaza back from the brink of a devastating health crisis and improve the dire living conditions that are enabling diseases to thrive.
It added:
Gaza needs a full and permanent ceasefire now so that aid – including fuel which is urgently needed to keep hospitals running – can enter safely and at the enormous scale required to stop this catastrophic humanitarian crisis deteriorating any further.
The international community must increase its efforts to secure one, including halting arms sales to the Israeli government and imposing sanctions.
🚨 Responding to news of a series of humanitarian pauses in Gaza, ActionAid said:
— ActionAid UK (@ActionAidUK) August 30, 2024
“While the pauses will allow some children to receive life-saving polio vaccinations, they fall far short of what is urgently needed to pull Gaza back from the brink of a devastating health crisis
The World Health Organization has said it 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 vaccinations, due to begin this weekend, will be accompanied by three-day pauses in the fighting in several areas of the territory to allow the inoculation of more than 640,000 children.
However, UN officials warned that Hamas and the Israeli military “must respect” the humanitarian pauses negotiated to allow the vaccinations, after two incidents this week – one deadly – when Israeli forces fired on aid vehicles, raising questions over how safely the vaccinations could be conducted.
The WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, confirmed vaccinations are due to start on Sunday with daily pauses scheduled to take place between 6am and 3pm.
UN officials have said the vaccination campaign will be carried out in three-day phases in different zones of the Gaza Strip.
Read the full report here.
There is more coming to us on reports from the Israeli military of the death of local Hamas commander in Jenin, Wassem Hazem (see 9.48am post) and two Hamas gunmen.
Hamas has not yet commented on the incident.
Reuters reports:
In the village of Zababdeh, just outside Jenin, a burnt-out car riddled with bullet holes stood against a wall where the driver crashed the vehicle after being pursued by an Israeli special forces unit, residents said.
Villager Saif Ghannam, 25, said one of the two other men who escaped from the vehicle was killed just outside his house by a small drone strike that shattered the windows, while a second man was killed a short distance away.
Ghannam said Israeli forces had removed the bodies but large pools of blood lay on the ground where he said the men were killed.
1.2 million polio vaccine doses delivered to Gaza with more en route - WHO official
A WHO official has said 1.2 million polio vaccine doses have already been delivered to Gaza ahead of the rollout campaign, with 400,000 more en route, Reuters reports.
UK 'deeply concerned' by Israel's military operation in West Bank - Foreign Office
A spokesperson from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said:
The UK is deeply concerned by the ongoing IDF military operation in the occupied West Bank.
We recognise Israel’s need to defend itself against security threats, but we are deeply worried by the methods Israel has employed and by reports of civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure.
The risk of instability is serious and the need for de-escalation urgent. We continue to call on Israeli authorities to exercise restraint, adhere to international law, and clamp down on the actions of those who seek to inflame tensions. The UK strongly condemns settler violence and inciteful remarks such as those made by Israel’s National Security Minister Ben-Gvir, which threaten the status-quo of the Holy Sites in Jerusalem.
It is in no one’s interest for further conflict and instability to spread in the West Bank.
Failure to deliver polio vaccination programme would be disastrous for children in Gaza and beyond, UN warns
Louise Wateridge, of the UN, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme earlier about the polio vaccination programme starting on Sunday in Gaza:
The campaign will be in the middle area, the southern area and the northern area of the Gaza Strip.
She also outlined details of the rollout, which would require a follow-up:
From Sunday, we’re giving out two oral doses of the polio vaccination, and then four weeks after this initial round of campaigns, we will need to repeat the vaccination again, this is for 640,000 children across the Gaza Strip.”
She added:
It’s so important that we get this vaccination campaign out as soon as possible, and that we have the safety to do this, because the repercussions will be disastrous for not just children in the Gaza Strip, but children in the region. And they’ve already been put through so much.
Updated
Hamas commander in Jenin killed by Israeli police - Israeli military
Israeli border police killed a senior Hamas commander in the West Bank on Friday, the military said.
It said Wassem Hazem, identified as the commander of Hamas in the volatile city of Jenin, was killed in a car it said contained weapons, ammunition and large quantities of cash.
According to Reuters, the military said two other Hamas gunmen were killed by a drone while trying to escape from the vehicle.
UN relief agency, Unrwa, has said “more than 1,000 colleagues” are preparing to reach “hundreds of thousands of children” in the Gaza Strip with the polio vaccination campaign.
Over 1,000 @UNRWA colleagues are preparing to reach hundreds of thousands of children in the #GazaStrip with a critical polio vaccination campaign.
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) August 30, 2024
In the coming days, @UNRWA teams will start administering oral vaccines in health centres, mobile clinics, shelters & tent to tent. pic.twitter.com/0O0AcEdwDn
Here are some images coming to us over the wires.
Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF, has posted on X ahead of the planned mass polio vaccination campaign in Gaza.
She said the area-specific humanitarian pauses must be respected and failure to do so would be an “unforgivable failure” for children in Gaza and the region.
Russell posted on X:
UNICEF is ready to start the first round of the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza on Sunday to reach nearly 640K children. All parties MUST respect the area-specific humanitarian pauses to stop polio from spreading in Gaza and the region.
It’s very simple. If fighting doesn’t stop, polio vaccinators are unable to reach children. Gaza has been polio free for 25yrs until now. Failing to respect these pauses would be an unforgivable failure for the children in Gaza and the region who have already suffered so much.
Most of all, children in Gaza need a cease fire, protection from all forms of harm, access to health care, safe water and sanitation. And all hostages must be released unconditionally and reunited with loved ones.
It’s very simple. If fighting doesn't stop, polio vaccinators are unable to reach children. Gaza has been polio free for 25yrs until now.
— Catherine Russell (@unicefchief) August 29, 2024
⁰Failing to respect these pauses would be an unforgivable failure for the children in Gaza and the region who have already suffered so much.
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 on Thursday evening at the time of the attack. Its route had been coordinated in advance with the IDF, under a deconfliction process intended to prevent aid vehicles being bombed.
Anera’s Palestine country director, Sandra Rasheed, said: “This is a shocking incident. The convoy, which was coordinated by Anera and approved by Israeli authorities, included an Anera employee who was fortunately unharmed.
“Tragically, several individuals, all employed by the transportation company we work with, were killed in the attack. They were in the first vehicle of the convoy.”
Unconfirmed reports from Gaza said five people were killed in the airstrike.
An IDF statement confirmed the route had been coordinated, but claimed that “during the convoy’s movement, a number of armed assailants seized control of the vehicle in the front of the convoy (a Jeep) and began to lead it”.
It added: “After the takeover and further verification that a precise strike on the armed assailants’ vehicle can be carried out, a strike was conducted.
“No damage was caused to the other vehicles in the convoy and it reached its destination as planned. The strike on the armed assailants removed the threat of them seizing control over the humanitarian convoy.”
Read the full story here
Israel and Hamas agree to limited fighting pauses in Gaza to allow urgent polio vaccinations, says WHO
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and the wider crisis in the Middle East.
A polio vaccination campaign in Gaza is planned to begin on Sunday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said.
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 vaccination campaign is due to start on Sunday, with the pauses scheduled to take place between 6am and 3pm, said Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s senior official for the Palestinian territories.
More on that in a moment, first here’s a summary of the day’s other main events.
The Israeli military said it had killed five more militants in a large-scale operation in the occupied West Bank early Thursday, including a well-known local commander. There was no immediate Palestinian confirmation of the death of Mohammed Jaber, known as Abu Shujaa, a commander in the Islamic Jihad militant group in the Nur Shams refugee camp on the outskirts of the city of Tulkarem.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had 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. Its route had been coordinated in advance with the IDF. Anera’s Palestine country director, Sandra Rasheed, said: “This is a shocking incident. The convoy, which was coordinated by Anera and approved by Israeli authorities, included an Anera employee who was fortunately unharmed.”
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.”
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. Arriving at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, 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.
As salvage operations began on an abandoned Greek-flagged oil tanker with deck fires still burning from Houthi rebel attacks, the EU’s Red Sea naval mission Aspides said on Thursday that no oil spill had been detected. Yemen’s Houthi militants carried out multiple assaults, including planting bombs on the already disabled Sounion that is laden with about 1 million barrels of oil. On Wednesday, the Iran-aligned militants said they would allow salvage crews to tow the ship - which has been on fire since 23 August.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris told CNN on Thursday that a ceasefire and hostage release deal was needed in Gaza while 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.
