Closing summary
It has gone 6.15pm in Gaza, Tel Aviv and Beirut, and 7.15pm in Sana’a. We will be closing this blog soon, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Middle East coverage here.
Here is a recap of the latest developments:
A three-ship convoy left a port in Cyprus on Saturday to deliver 400 tons of food and other supplies to Gaza. International charity, World Central Kitchen said the vessels and a barge are carrying enough to prepare more than 1 million meals. It also has a shipment of dates provided by the United Arab Emirates. Dates are traditionally eaten to break the daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
Three UN observers and a translator were injured on Saturday when a shell exploded near them as they were carrying out a foot patrol in south Lebanon. The UN peacekeeping mission said it was investigating the origin of the blast. Two security sources told Reuters that the observers were injured in an Israeli strike but the Israeli military denied involvement in the incident. Unifil said in a statement the targeting of peacekeepers was “unacceptable”.
Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati condemned on Saturday the “targeting” of UN forces in southern Lebanon that injured three UN observers and a translator.
On Saturday Israel’s military said it was continuing operations around Gaza’s largest hospital al-Shifa in Gaza City for a 13th day and that troops continued to operate in the al-Amal area of Khan Younis. Hamas said that in addition to the ongoing al-Shifa operation, Israeli troops continued “aggression” against Nasser hospital and “besiege” al-Amal hospital in the same city. Most of the Palestinian territory’s hospitals are not functioning and its health system is “barely surviving,” the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA) said.
The US in recent days authorised the transfer of billions of dollars worth of bombs and fighter jets to Israel, two sources familiar with the effort said on Friday, even as Washington publicly expresses concerns about an anticipated Israeli military offensive in Rafah. The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK-84 2,000lb bombs and 500 MK-82 500lb bombs, said the sources, who confirmed a report in the Washington Post.
The Hamas press office has reported more than 50 Israeli airstrikes over the past day, with “civilian houses” targeted across the coastal territory, as well as tank fire in the Gaza City area and southern Gaza. Israel’s military on Saturday said it had struck dozens of targets, including militants and their compounds in central and northern Gaza.
At least 82 Palestinians were killed and 98 injured in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, according to the latest figures from the Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas. It said that at least 32,705 Palestinians have been killed and 75,190 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said five people were killed and dozens injured by gunfire and a stampede during an aid delivery on Saturday in Gaza. The PRCS said three of the five killed early Saturday had been shot. The humanitarian organisation said it happened after thousands of people gathered for the arrival of about 15 trucks of flour and other food, which was supposed to be handed out at Gaza City’s Kuwait roundabout, in the territory’s north.
Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said dozens of people were killed overnight – among them were 12 people killed in their home in the southern city of Rafah. Men worked under the light of mobile phones to free people trapped under the debris, AFPTV images showed.
Airdrops of humanitarian aid are leading to fatal fights in Gaza. Eyewitness accounts, images and interviews with aid workers in Gaza suggest the high-profile airdrop operations are of limited help, and have contributed to growing anarchy there.
The US has welcomed the formation of a new Palestinian autonomy government, signaling it is accepting the revised cabinet lineup as a step toward Palestinian political reform. In a statement late on Friday, the US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US looks forward to working with the new group of ministers “to deliver on credible reforms.”
About 9,000 patients in the Gaza Strip require evacuation for emergency care, with the war-torn Palestinian territory down to just 10 barely functioning hospitals, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday. ““Around 9,000 patients urgently need to be evacuated abroad for lifesaving health services, including treatment for cancer, injuries from bombardments, kidney dialysis and other chronic conditions,” the WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X.
Cancer patients from Gaza, including children, are living in a state of limbo in a hospital in East Jerusalem after Israeli authorities threatened to send them back. The Guardian was given access to the Augusta Victoria hospital, where at least 22 patients from Gaza in urgent need of advanced cancer treatment are living in fear of deportation.
Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi said on Saturday that “famine” in Gaza can be dealt with in a short time if Israel opened the land crossings for aid to enter. Safadi made the comments at a press conference with his Egyptian and French counterparts in Cairo.
Famine is already probably present in at least some areas of northern Gaza, while other areas are in danger of falling into conditions of starvation, the US state department said on Friday a day after the world’s top court ordered Israel to admit food aid into the territory.
The death toll from the presumed Israeli airstrikes in Syria near the Aleppo international airport has risen to 52, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday. Of those killed, 38 were members of Syrian government forces, seven were Hezbollah fighters and seven were Iran-allied militia fighters.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is facing one of the most serious threats yet to his coalition government after the country’s supreme court ordered an end to government subsidies from Monday for many ultra-Orthodox men who do not serve in the army. The ruling follows a series of delays by the government in presenting a proposal to the court aimed at enhancing the military enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men, who have historically been exempt from conscription.
In an incident under review by the Israeli military, Israeli forces shot dead a 13-year-old Palestinian boy during a raid in the occupied West Bank, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. Fawaz Hammad, director of Al-Razi Hospital in Jenin, confirmed the teen’s death, according to Wafa.
More than 50 men have been arrested in Pakistan after a crowd chanting anti-Israel slogans picketed and set fire to a restaurant belonging to US fast food chain KFC, police said on Saturday. The incident took place on Friday evening in the north-eastern town of Mirpur, in the Pakistan-administered region of Kashmir, after protesters gathered on the town’s main thoroughfare after Ramadan evening prayers.
Tehran’s Revolutionary Guards have been targeting the broadcaster Iran International, a spokesperson for the channel said after a leading journalist was stabbed in London. The Persian-language news television channel that employed Pouria Zeraati, who was attacked outside his Wimbledon home, had received an increased level of threats beforehand, Adam Baillie told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Saturday.
Schools in England are closing down legitimate debate about the Israel-Gaza conflict because teachers feel ill-equipped and are concerned about political impartiality, the government’s independent adviser on social cohesion has said. Dame Sara Khan said that if schools continued to shut down debate they risked “fuelling further anger, hate and polarisation”.
Updated
Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters arrested in Pakistan
More than 50 men have been arrested in Pakistan after a crowd chanting anti-Israel slogans picketed and set fire to a restaurant belonging to US fast food chain KFC, police said on Saturday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The incident took place on Friday evening in the north-eastern town of Mirpur, in the Pakistan-administered region of Kashmir, after protesters gathered on the town’s main thoroughfare after Ramadan evening prayers.
Videos circulating on social media show men chanting anti-Israel slogans, carrying a banner inscribed with “free Palestine”.
Nearly 400 protesters gathered at the height of the demonstration and clashes broke out with the police, Mirpur police chief Kamran Mughal told AFP.
“We had told them that they can only protest in a certain area. But, when their numbers started growing, they made their way over to KFC,” said police superintendent Mughal.
AFP report that other videos from inside the restaurant showed smashed windows, broken furniture and damaged equipment. The news agency added that the crowd set fire to the building, but it did not completely burn down.
Nine police officers were injured by stones thrown by the demonstrators and more than 50 men were arrested, said Mughal.
Restaurant owner Chaudhary Saeed told AFP that a week ago he had sent the administration a video showing a group of about 10 mostly young men planning the attack.
“We are here because our mission is to shut down KFC next Friday. Our brothers and sisters [in Gaza] are being subjected to cruelty,” one of the men could be heard declaring in the video, reported AFP. It also said another man loudly chimed in, saying “No Israeli products, no Coke” to loud applause.
Most of the demonstrators were not affiliated to any group, but police confirmed that some belonged to the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a radical political party behind violent anti-French protests in 2020 and 2021.
Islamist parties in Pakistan have called for a boycott of Israeli products, and criticised the US and other western countries for their support of Israel in its war against Hamas militants in Gaza.
