Israel-Palestine live: Thousands in state of panic as Israel continues to strike hospitals

The Egyptian military on Friday confirmed reports that an "unmanned aerial vehicle" crashed in a building next to a hospital in Taba, a town bordering Israel in Sinai. 

"The accident resulted in minor injuries to six people who have been discharged from the hospital after receiving the necessary first aid," the military spokesperson said on Facebook.

"The incident is under investigation by a special committee from the relevant authorities," he added. 

The Israeli military said the drone came from “the Red Sea area” and that its air force attempted to intercept it. 

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has joined a chorus of voices from the UK's main opposition Labour Party backing calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Speaking on Friday, Khan, a former Labour MP for the district of Tooting, said he was joining ranks with much of the international community in calling for a ceasefire.

"It would stop the killing and allow vital aid supplies to reach those who need it in Gaza. It would also allow the international community more time to prevent a protracted conflict in the region and further devastating loss of life," he said in a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Khan's comments came hours after the Guardian reported that nearly a quarter of Labour MPs had called for a ceasefire in Gaza, contrary to the party's official line.

Read more: London Mayor Sadiq Khan backs calls for Gaza ceasefire

Russia on Friday defended its decision to invite a Hamas delegation to Moscow against strong Israeli criticism, the Reuters news agency has reported.

Israel, which has vowed to wipe out Hamas in retaliation for its 7 October attack, has described the decision as "deplorable" and urged Moscow to expel the delegation.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Hamas delegation had met with representatives of Russia's foreign ministry but not with President Vladimir Putin or Kremlin officials.

"We consider it necessary to continue our contacts with all parties and, of course, we will continue our dialogue with Israel," Peskov told reporters.

Russia has ties to all the key players in the Middle East, including Israel, Iran, Syria, Hamas, and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority which exercises limited self-rule under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank.

It has repeatedly blamed the crisis on a failure of US diplomacy.

A senior UN official confirmed to Reuters that eight more aid trucks carrying food, medicine and water will cross into the Gaza Strip. 

“We have gotten in approximately 74 trucks. We’re expecting another eight or so today,” Lynn Hastings, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told reporters in Geneva, according to Reuters.

Despite the slow trickle of aid making its way to Gaza, aid agencies said Gaza needs more aid to meet the besieged enclave's growing humanitarian need. 

Before the war, aid agencies said 500 trucks entered Gaza each day via the Rafah crossing.

Drawing upon his years of research and the works of notable academics like Edward Said, Professor Ussama Makdisi argues that the erasure of Palestinian history and humanity is “enabling genocide” in Gaza.

Makdisi argues that by denying Palestinian history and, by extension, their humanity, has allowed the West to ignore the growing death toll in Gaza. 

“The genocide of indigenous peoples across North America was premised on the devaluation of their lives and histories, before this was actualised by the US Army and its state militias’ guns, bayonets and cannons,” notes Makdisi.

“The massive Indian uprising against British colonialism in 1857, similarly, was depicted as an expression of the superstition and innate fanaticism of the 'Orientals' against British imperial civilisation.”

Makdisi adds: “To be the ‘victims of victims’ as Edward Said put it, makes the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle almost Sisyphean. Decontextualised and dehistoricised, Palestinian resistance against the Jewish state is seen, felt and sensed as a terrible reincarnation of a demonic antisemitic past.”

Read more here: 

The Israeli military said the confirmed number of people held in Gaza now stands at 229. 

Many Israelis remain missing since the Palestinian attack on 7 October, with their fate unknown.

Hamas has not given an exact figure on how many people are held in Gaza but said it stands at between 200 and 250. The group added that Israeli shelling has killed 50 of them.

Hamas has released four people so far, and said it plans to release all foreigners in its custody with no conditions.

Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Friday morning, the Palestinian health ministry has said. 

Three were killed in Jenin and one was killed in Qalqilya, it added.

The latest killings take the Palestinian death toll in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 7 October to 110, a sharp increase from this year's monthly average of around 20.

Egypt’s Al-Qahera news outlet said six people were wounded in a missile strike on the Red Sea town of Taba on Friday.

An investigation was launched to locate the source of the missile, which was not immediately clear. All people wounded in the incident have been released from hospital.

The reported attack comes about a week after missiles reportedly fired from Yemen, and possibly aimed at Israel, were intercepted by the US military.

Britain has deployed its border force to Egypt, where it is preparing for the evacuation of 200 British nationals stranded in the Gaza Strip.

Gillian Keegan, the UK's education secretary, confirmed to Sky News that Britain has sent border force officers to process British nationals once they are out of Gaza.

“We know that 200 [British] passport holders are there [in Gaza]. They’ve sought consular advice to be able to leave the country,” said Keegan. 

“We want the border force to be there to be prepared and ready if and when we can get the hostages out.

“It’s a very fluid situation, and there’s intense diplomacy going on … but we just want to make sure we have everything in place.”

Keegan did not specify whether the 200 British passport holders she was referring to were hostages taken by Hamas into Gaza from southern Israel or Palestinian Britons visiting their family in the besieged enclave. 

The minister also reiterated the British government’s call for a “humanitarian pause” to allow more aid into Gaza and nationals to be evacuated.

When asked about the frustration of British families at the government’s lack of action to evacuate their loved ones from Gaza, Keegan said the anger was misplaced and “should be directed to Hamas”, who launched a surprise assault into southern Israel on 7 October.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

As we near the end of the third week of Israel's war on Gaza, the Palestinian death toll keeps rising sharply, the threat of an Israeli ground invasion remains high and the Israeli army, police and settler violence escalates against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and inside Israel. 

Overnight, relentless Israeli air strikes continued to pound Gaza. The daily death toll has been rising steadily since 7 October, going from 200 to 300 people killed a day at the start of the war, to more than 700 killed in recent days. More than 7,000 people have been killed in total. 

Meanwhile, Israeli media reported that Israel would be willing to pay a big price for the release of some prisoners held in Gaza by Hamas. It's unclear what that price will be, but some reports speculate it could include allowing fuel into Gaza, the release of some Palestinian prisoners and a temporary ceasefire. 

Here are the latest updates from the last few hours:

• Israeli forces launched night raids in the West Bank cities of Jenin, Nablus and Jericho, clashing with Palestinian fighters and arresting dozens of people. At least one Palestinian was killed in Jenin.

• The Israeli army said it conducted a limited raid into Gaza for a few hours before retreating. 

• The Pentagon said US forces attacked two facilities in Syria allegedly used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in response to a spate of attacks against US bases in Iraq and Syria.

• A blast was reported in Egypt's Taba near the border with Israel. It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion. The Israeli army said it was aware of the "security incident".

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