Evening recap

Good evening Middle East Eye readers,

Israeli forces have killed at least 107 Palestinians and wounded 142 more over the past 24 hours in 13 "massacres", according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

This brings the Palestinian death toll in four months to more than 27,947, with over 67,400 wounded and 7,000 missing, who are believed to be dead and buried under rubble. 

Israeli forces have killed 340 health personnel and arrested 99 since 7 October, said Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesperson for Gaza’s health ministry, on Friday.

He added that at least 123 ambulances had been destroyed in the same period.

In other developments:

• An “escalation in fighting” in Rafah will mark another “devastating turn in a war” said Unicef executive director Catherine Russell on Friday. 
• A Lebanese-Australian professor of anthropology has been sacked by a leading German research institution after criticising Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza.
• Moroccan hashish sellers are refusing to sell their wares to Israeli criminals in protest at the war in Gaza, according to Israeli media.
• Next week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to travel to Albania to reinforce the country’s relationship with the United States.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the military to develop a plan to evacuate civilians from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
• Legal experts say that videos showing Palestinian detainees from Gaza who were stripped, bound, and blindfolded, which were filmed and posted online by Israeli soldiers, could violate international law.
• A British man stuck in Rafah with his family told Middle East Eye that MI5 proposed assistance for their escape from Gaza, contingent on his agreement to work for the spy agency.
• CIA director Bill Burns is slated to visit Cairo next week for discussions with Egyptian officials regarding initiatives to start talks for a new agreement aimed at securing the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza, Axios reported.