It is approaching 5.30pm in Gaza and in Tel Aviv. Here are the headlines …
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu again stated on Wednesday Israel’s intention to launch a ground offensive against Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, but cautioned that it will “take some time” for Israel’s forces to be ready. In a video statement Netanyahu said that he will soon approve a plan for the evacuation of Palestinian civilians from fighting areas after having green-lit the military’s operational plans for Rafah.
Israel has repeatedly told Palestinians in Gaza to flee to Rafah for their safety, and there is now a huge displaced population living there in makeshift tents. An airstrike on Rafah on Wednesday killed more Palestinians, with the Hamas-led ministry of health saying that the number of people killed in Israel’s military assault has nearly reached 32,000.
Hamas senior official Osama Hamdan said on Wednesday that the Israeli response to the group’s latest Gaza ceasefire proposal was negative after mediators handed it over. In a press conference in Beirut he claimed that Israel had retracted previous negotiation approvals in the latest talks.
The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, has said it was vital for a pause in fighting to allow for the release of hostages, but that Israel has to “get Hamas leaders out of Gaza”. Earlier on Wednesday Cameron had said his country continues to “push Israel to allow more crossings to open and for longer, and for healthcare, water and sanitation to be restored.”
US secretary of state Antony Blinken arrived on Wednesday in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia for talks. His sixth visit to the region since 7 October will also include Egypt, and he is expected in Israel on Friday.
In an operational update on Wednesday Israel’s military claimed to have killed “approximately 90 terrorists” and to have “questioned over 300 suspects” at the al-Shifa hospital medical complex in Gaza. It said “an additional 160 suspects have been transferred to Israeli territory for further questioning”. Israeli troops entered the hospital on Monday. It also claimed to have found weapons stored at the hospital. Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office, said that all those killed at the al-Shifa hospital complex by Israeli forces had been wounded patients and displaced persons inside the hospital. Neither sets of claims has been independently verified.
A delegation of US and British doctors is in Washington DC to tell the Biden administration the Israeli military is systematically destroying Gaza’s health infrastructure in order to drive Palestinians out of their homes. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it has recorded over 400 attacks on healthcare infrastructure in Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 12 March 2024.
Demonstrators in Jeruslam gathered Wednesday outside an Unrwa office calling for the UN agency that works with Paelstinian refugees to be disbanded. Israeli authorities have claimed that 12 of Unrwa’s 13,000 Gaza staff members were directly involved in the 7 October Hamas attack inside southern Israel which killed about 1,140 people. Another protest on Wednesday in Tel Aviv blocked a highway as friends and families of those being held hostage in Gaza called for their release.
Trade unionists and anti-weapons campaigners have staged protests outside two UK factories on Wednesday – one in Edinburgh and one in Cheltenham – in the latest UK demonstrations calling for an end to British arms sales to Israel.
A French Navy helicopter destroyed a Houthi combat drone in the southern Red Sea to protect merchant ships, the EU’s mission in the Red Sea, known as Aspides, said on Wednesday.
Israel’s high court has passed an Israeli request to demolish the home of Israeli-occupied West Bank resident Khaled Abed Alfatah Almukhtasab. In October he seriously injured an Israeli police officer in a shooting in occupied East Jerusalem. It will be the first time Isreali authorities demolish the house of a Palestinian whose attack caused no fatalities.
Independent US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has said he does not support a temporary ceasefire in Gaza.
We are closing this live blog for today. You can find all of our latest coverage on the Israel-Gaza war here.
Independent US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has said he does not support a temporary ceasefire in Gaza.
Speaking to Reuters, he told it Israel was a “moral nation” that was justly responding to Hamas provocations with its attacks on Gaza.
Asked if he supported a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, Kennedy told Reuters: “I don’t even know what that means right now.”
Kennedy said that each previous ceasefire “has been used by Hamas to rearm, to rebuild and then launch another surprise attack. So what would be different this time?” he said.
Recent polling has suggested Kennedy is backed by 15% of registered voters in the US, nowhere near enough to attain the presidency, but in a position where he could take votes from incumbent Joe Biden and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Earlier this week Trump said that Jewish people who voted for the Democratic party “hated Israel” and “hated their religion”.
