Closing summary
Here is a summary of events today.
An Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza has killed a senior aid official and four members of his family. Gaza’s civil defence group, which fights fires and rescues people trapped in rubble, said its deputy director for northern Gaza, Mohammed Morsi, had been killed in an airstrike. The organisation said our members of his family also died in the bombing of Morsi’s house in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp, north-east of Gaza City.
A gunman crossing from Jordan killed three Israeli civilians at the Allenby Bridge border in the occupied West Bank before security forces shot him dead on Sunday, Israeli authorities said. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said three private security guards at the Allenby Bridge crossing had been shot dead by a truck driver arriving in the West Bank from Jordan. Reuters reported the assailant was a 39-year-old truck driver who came from the influential Huwaitat tribe in southern Jordan, according to family members.
Jordan has closed the King Hussein Bridge crossing (also known as the Allenby Bridge) as it investigates the incident, a Jordanian official told Reuters.
Speaking after the attack, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was “a difficult day”, adding: “A loathsome terrorist murdered in cold blood three of our civilians.” Israeli President Isaac Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial, urged all parties to investigate the incident to prevent repeats, Reuters reported.
Reuters reported that Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri “praised” the attack, referring to it as a response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza “We expect many more similar actions,” he said.
The Israel Airports Authority closed its land border crossings with Jordan following the incident.
At least 40,972 Palestinians have been killed and 94,761 others injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday.
Huge numbers of Israelis again poured into the streets to protest against the government’s failure to secure the return of remaining hostages in Gaza, the Associated Press reports. The new protest came a week after one of the largest demonstrations of the war after the discovery of another six dead hostages in Gaza, and after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back against pressure for a ceasefire deal and declared that “no one will preach to me”.
Hezbollah announced retaliatory rocket fire targeting a town in northern Israel early Sunday, hours after Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli attack killed three civil defence personnel in the country’s south, AFP reports. Hezbollah said it had bombarded “Kiryat Shmona with a volley of Falaq rockets” early Sunday “in response to the enemy attacks … and particularly the attack” that killed the emergency workers in the Lebanese village of Froun.
The Qatar Red Crescent and the UN agency for Palestinians (Unrwa) signed an agreement on Sunday, with $4.5 million from a Qatari state development fund, to aid more than 4,400 stranded Palestinian workers and patients from Gaza in the West Bank.
Pact signed for $4.5m to aid 4,400 stranded Gazans in West Bank
The Qatar Red Crescent and the UN agency for Palestinians (Unrwa) signed an agreement on Sunday, with $4.5 million from a Qatari state development fund, to aid more than 4,400 stranded Palestinian workers and patients from Gaza in the West Bank, Reuters reports.
