Israel-Palestine live: Biden urges Egypt, Qatar to press Hamas for hostage deal

US Vice President Kamala Harris has warned that there is nowhere safe for civilians in Rafah to be evacuated to. 

"There is nowhere for these people to go and be safe,” Harris told reporters on Friday.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would push on with a ground offensive in Rafah - where over 1 million Palestinians are sheltering - with or without US support.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel will launch a ground operation in Rafah without US backing, if necessary.

He said that he told visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday that there was no way to defeat Hamas without an invasion of Rafah.

"And I told him that I hope we will do it with the support of the US, but if we have to - we will do it alone," he said.

France is working on a new UN resolution for a Gaza ceasefire after Russia and China vetoed a US-proposed resolution.

"Following Russia's and China's veto a few minutes ago, we are going to resume work on the basis of the French draft resolution in the Security Council and work with our American, European and Arab partners to reach an agreement," French President Emmanuel Macron said at an EU leaders' summit in Brussels.

On Thursday, France's foreign ministry said it had already started drafting a resolution with diplomats, stating that it would put it forward if the US resolution was not adopted.

The UN Security Council failed to pass a US-proposed motion for a six week truce in Gaza, after China and Russia vetoed. 

Vassily Nebenzia, Russia's ambassador to the UN, called on members not to vote in favour of the resolution.

He said it was "exceedingly politicised" and contained an effective green light for Israel to mount a military operation in the southern city of Rafah. The city is currently home to over 1 million displaced Palestinians, living in tents and makeshift homes.

"This would free the hands of Israel and it would result in all of Gaza and its entire population, having to face destruction, devastation, or expulsion," Nebenzia said.

He added that a number of non-permanent members of the Security Council had drafted an alternate resolution, which he called a balanced document.

Nebenzia said there was no reason for members not to support the alternative resolution.

US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said: "The vast majority of this council voted in favor of this resolution, but unfortunately Russia and China decided to exercise its veto."

Before the vote, she said it would be a "historic mistake" for the resolution not to be adopted.

Footage obtained by Al Jazeera shows an Israeli drone tracking and then attacking four young Palestinian men, killing them all in a series of strikes. 

The incident occurred at the beginning of January in the al-Sika area of Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza. 

In the footage, which was filmed by the drone and fed back to the command centre of the Israeli air force, the four men, who appear to be unarmed, are seen walking along a road that had been bulldozed by Israeli armoured vehicles. 

Around them are the scarred remains of buildings destroyed by Israeli air strikes and ground operations, which have been ongoing in the Khan Younis area since December.

The drone, which is one of a fleet that has been hovering over Gaza since the war began on 7 October, stalks the four men and then fires on them. The first missile kills two of them, with Al Jazeera reporting that "it was not possible to show the graphic footage after the first drone hit".

Read more: Footage shows Israeli drone killing four Palestinian civilians

The UN Security Council has failed to pass a US resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as part of a deal to release captives held in Gaza. 

Russia and China voted against the resolution. 

The resolution called for an "immediate and sustained ceasefire" lasting around six weeks that would protect civilians and allow for the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

Russia's ambassador to the UN described the resolution as politicised, and said it effectively green lit Israel's planned ground operation in Rafah.

The UK could halt arms sales to Israel next week, the head of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee has said, amid reports David Cameron, the foreign secretary, warned Israel that sales will stop if detained Palestinian suspects are denied access to the Red Cross.

Alicia Kearns, the Conservative MP who chairs the influential parliamentary committee, told LBC Radio on Thursday evening she would "be very surprised" if the government did not make a public determination within the week of Israel's commitment to international humanitarian law.

"If that assessment has changed - the last one was in December - then there would be a duty upon the government to suspend arms exports because it would know that there was a risk that they weren’t being used appropriately," Kearns said.

UK government is obligated to suspend licences for arms exports if it determines that there is a clear risk that British weapons could be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law.

Israeli news outlet Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Thursday that the UK government had conditioned the continuation of UK arms sales on imprisoned Palestinians suspected of being involved in the 7 October receiving visits from diplomats or the Red Cross.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office did not deny the report when asked about it on Friday.

Read more: UK could halt arms sales to Israel next week, says head of foreign affairs committee 

Editor's note: This update contains graphic details

Footage obtained by Al Jazeera showed part of a body of a Palestinian man who appeared to have been crushed to death by an Israeli tank. 

The video, taken from a phone camera, shows the corpse lying on the ground with a tank track imprint on it and on the road. 

According to Al Jazeera, the man was wounded with a cast on one of his legs and he had tried to crawl away from the tank before it ran him over. 

His body was found in the area around al-Shifa hospital, which has been under a telecommunication blackout and intense Israeli attacks. 

Israeli forces have carried out extrajudicial executions, intense shelling, deliberate burning of homes, arbitrary arrests and forced displacement of residents in western Gaza City as the raid on al-Shifa hospital enters its fifth day, according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. 

The Geneva-based group said on Friday it had documented "shocking testimonies about a series of crimes systematically committed by Israeli forces" in the past 24 hours, which comes as communication with civilians at al-Shifa hospital remains cut. 

A resident of the city, Roula Saad, said: "We saw death before our eyes. They stormed the residential building where my family resides, and suddenly we found 50 armed soldiers in the middle of the living room. They ordered the men to strip naked and the women to follow them.

"They took us to the first floor, where they placed the men in a room next to us before taking them to al-Shifa hospital. As for us women, they ordered us to go down and head towards the southern areas of the Strip."

Another resident, who was not named, said her home was stormed by Israeli troops, who forced everyone out before setting it on fire. 

"Euro-Med Monitor received several pleas regarding severe torture and abuse suffered by patients and wounded individuals who were receiving treatment inside the al-Shifa Medical Complex, including besieging them, keeping them without treatment or food, dragging them on the ground and leaving them lying in front of tanks without clarifying their fate," the NGO said. 

It added that it had documented "dozens of extrajudicial killings, executions and arbitrary arrests in a humiliating manner.

"Euro-Med Monitor reiterates its warnings that the Israeli army has turned the Shifa complex into an open killing field for the fifth consecutive day.

"We emphasise that targeting what remains of the healthcare system in Gaza, exposing the lives of thousands of civilians including patients, wounded individuals, displaced families, medical teams, and journalists to direct targeting, stripping them of their civilian status, and separating families, all indicate a dangerous continuation of Israel's commission of genocide and the deepening of its catastrophic effects."

orensic. Sober. Clear-sighted. Scrupulous. Al Jazeera’s investigative unit has produced a film that tells the story of what really happened on 7 October.

This authoritative documentary does not flinch from detailing the atrocities and war crimes carried out by Hamas. But it shows beyond reasonable doubt that many of the lurid accounts that emerged from Israeli sources were false. 

Deeply inflammatory stories, whether concerning allegations of mass rape or the beheading and burning of babies, were either unsupported by evidence or straightforward lies. Yet, they prepared the way for the murderous savagery of the ensuing Israeli assault on Gaza, which has been described by the International Court of Justice as a plausible genocide.

Al Jazeera painstakingly analyses how these accounts entered the public domain. This involves a sustained look at Zaka, Israel’s emergency response unit of trained paramedics who handle terrorist episodes and homicides.

Al Jazeera shows how Zaka gave details of atrocities that never happened, including of burned and beheaded babies, which made headlines around the world and were used for maximum propaganda effect by Israel to gain sympathy.

Read more:  Al Jazeera's new documentary tells the 7 October story the British media will not by Peter Oborne

Israel has seized 800 hectares of land in the occupied West Bank, Israeli media said on Friday. 

The seizure was overseen by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and will allow for the construction of more settlements, which are illegal under international law. 

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the Palestinian presidential spokesman, condemned the move. 

He said the timing, which coincides with the arrival of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Tel Aviv, constitutes a "challenge to the Biden administration and the international community".

Israeli forces blocked hundreds of Palestinian worshippers from reaching al-Aqsa Mosque for the second Friday prayer during the month of Ramadan.

Wafa news agency said checkpoints leading to Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank were heavily guarded by troops, who turned away many people for not having permits, including old people. 

More than 50 percent of Palestinians believe Hamas should govern the Gaza Strip when the current war ends, while just 11 percent want Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to administer the enclave, a survey by a leading Palestinian polling institute has found. 

The findings were published on Wednesday by the Palestinian Center for Policy Survey and Research (PCPSR) in Ramallah and done in cooperation with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), as international alarm grows over the spiralling Palestinian civilian death toll in the Israeli offensive against Hamas, now in its sixth month.

Fifty-nine percent of the respondents in Gaza and the occupied West Bank said they wanted Hamas to run post-war Gaza, a five percent drop from PCPSR and KAS's last poll in December. 

Another 13 percent said they hoped the PA would return to control the Strip but only under the leadership of someone other than Abbas.

According to the survey, which was carried out between 5-10 March and sampled some 1,580 Palestinian adults in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, 70 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with the role Hamas has played during the course of the war, with 61 percent also approving of the role played by its Gaza-based leader, Yahya Sinwar.

The survey also found that 71 percent of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank believed that the attack on southern Israel on 7 October was “correct”, a drop of just one percent, according to the organisation’s previous poll published in December.

Read more: Poll shows Palestinian support for Hamas still high despite mounting Gaza death toll

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken landed in Tel Aviv Friday ahead of Gaza war talks, expected to be tense, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to an AFP journalist.

Blinken arrived from Cairo for the last stop of his latest Middle East tour and is expected to speak to the Israeli government on humanitarian aid distribution in the Palestinian territory and to urge Israel not to launch a ground operation in Rafah, where around 1.5 million people are sheltering.

Reporting by AFP

An Israeli combat helicopter carried out a strike in the occupied West Bank amid a manhunt for a Palestinian who wounded six Israelis during an exchange of fire. 

According to Israeli Channel 12, the Palestinian man was shot and killed after a four-hour-long gunfight.