Israel-Palestine live: US vice president calls for ‘immediate’ six-week ceasefire

A member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard navy serving as a military adviser in Syria was killed in a suspected Israeli strike on Friday, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported.

Other Iranian media reports said Colonel Reza Zarei was killed along with two fighters from Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

Zarei was killed in a strike on a building used by Iranian forces in Syria’s coastal region of Tartous, a senior security source from the alliance supporting Syria’s government told Reuters.

When asked about the strike, the Israeli military said it did not comment on foreign reports.

Reporting by Reuters

Rescue teams in Gaza pulled a body from under rubble on Thursday, after he was trapped there for nine days.

The child, suffering from dehydration and malnutrition, was immediately taken to the hospital.

The Israeli military has approached some Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip and asked them to coordinate future aid entry to sidestep the Hamas-run government and UN agencies. 

Middle East Eye has learned that representatives of at least two families in Gaza City and northern towns have been contacted by Israeli authorities who asked them to “cooperate with them”. 

They are requested to adhere to the instructions provided by the Israeli authorities to facilitate the entry of goods and receive and distribute international aid. 

It was not immediately clear whether the two families had taken up the offer and there are no signs that such coordination has taken effect as of yet.

The move comes after repeated Israeli targeting of local police and other civil servants who attempted to maintain law and order and coordinate aid distribution in northern Gaza. 

It also follows months of Israeli efforts to undermine the role of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (Unrwa), the largest humanitarian agency in Gaza.

At the same time, the military has tightened its aid blockade on more than half a million people in the northern Gaza Strip in recent weeks.

The siege has led to “pockets of famine” emerging there with several reports of people dying from malnutrition, as basic food items run out. 

Residents and experts fear that if successful, the Israeli-engineered family-based local governance system would fuel social unrest and chaos.

“Israel aims to inundate the Gaza Strip with a primitive governance system, resembling tribal rule, where each neighbourhood has its own leader,” Abdallah Sharsharah, a Gaza-based lawyer and human rights advocate, told MEE. 

“These leaders do not rely on popular will but on the strength of arms, as competing groups,” he added.  

Read more: Israel targets Gaza police and aid agencies to 'create chaos' 

The Brazilian government said on Friday that the killing of over 100 people seeking humanitarian aid in Gaza shows that Israel's military action there has no "ethical or legal" boundaries and renewed its call for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict.

"Humanity is failing the civilians of Gaza. And it's time to prevent further massacres," Brazil's foreign ministry said in a statement. "It is up to the international community to call a halt to it and avoid new atrocities."

On Thursday, Israeli forces shot dead more than 100 Palestinians as they waited for an aid delivery, according to Gaza health authorities.

Israeli officials have dismissed that death toll and blamed the deaths on crowds that surrounded aid trucks, saying people were trampled or run over.

"The Netanyahu government has once again shown, through its actions and statements, that the military action in Gaza has no ethical or legal limits," Brazil said, dubbing remarks by Israeli officials about the incident as "cynical".

Brazil and Israel have been in a diplomatic row over comments made by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva likening Israel's war in Gaza to the Nazi genocide during World War Two.

Reporting by Reuters

People in the Gaza Strip are risking their lives to find food, water and other supplies such is the level of hunger and despair amid the unrelenting Israeli assault, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

"The system in Gaza is on its knees, it's more than on its knees," WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told reporters in Geneva. "All the lifelines in Gaza have more or less been cut."

Lindmeier said this had created a "desperate situation", as seen on Thursday, when more than 100 people seeking humanitarian aid in Gaza were killed.

Gaza health authorities said Israeli forces shot dead the Palestinians as they waited for an aid delivery. Israel blamed the deaths on crowds that surrounded the aid trucks, saying victims had been trampled or run over.

"People are so desperate for food, for fresh water, for any supplies that they risk their lives in getting any food, any supplies to support their children, to support themselves," Lindmeier said.

While aid is reaching southern parts of the Gaza Strip, it is too slow to avert a hunger crisis even there. Aid barely makes it to northern areas that are further from the main border crossing and only accessible through more active battle fronts.

"The food supplies have been cut off deliberately. Let's not forget that," Lindmeier said.

Reporting by Reuters

Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories said that Jordan airdropped 48 humanitarian aid packages over northern Gaza today at four different locations.

The European Commission said it would send 50 million euros ($54m) to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, next week.

The Commission will also increase its emergency support for Palestinians by 68 million euros ($73.5m) in 2024 to be implemented through partners such as the ICRC.

The Commission is allocating a total of 150 million euros to support Palestinians across the region, including 82 million euros of aid to be implemented through Unrwa.

"The Commission has assessed its funding decision for Unrwa in light of the very serious allegations made on 24 January that implicate several Unrwa staff in the heinous 7 October attacks," their statement said. "It took account of the action taken by the UN and the commitments the Commission required from Unrwa."

A joint statement signed by 17 prominent international NGOs is calling on the EU and member states to sustain their funding of Unrwa, citing the "humanitarian catastrophe" in Gaza and the Israeli advances on Rafah as their reasons.

"We urge the EU and Member States to take note that other aid agencies cannot replicate Unrwa's central role in the humanitarian response in Gaza, and amidst the current crisis many will struggle to even maintain their current operations without Unrwa's partnership and support," the statement reads.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on X that she was "deeply disturbed" by the images coming from Gaza and called for efforts to be made to "investigate what happened and ensure transparency".

"Humanitarian aid is a lifeline for those in need and access to it must be ensured," she said.

Before the question of Palestine became a central global ethical concern for our contemporary world, it was an ethical core of modern Arab identity. The belated European Zionist colonisation of Palestine was a flagrant injustice that unified Arabs from Morocco to Saudi Arabia and beyond.

It cut across regional, class, sectarian, and religious divisions. For that same reason, the question of Palestine has also exposed a gulf in the Arab world between western-dependent rulers and their populations yearning for meaningful self-determination and solidarity.

This chasm has increased massively during the current Israeli onslaught against Gaza, which many consider to be a genocide.

The same cannot be said about Arab governments, however.

Opinion by Usama Makdisi

READ MORE: Why Arab states are failing the Palestinian people

Two hundred parliamentarians from Israel's top military allies, including Australia, France, the UK and the US, have signed a letter calling on their states to end their arms sales to Israel.

"We will not be complicit in Israel's grave violation of international law," the letter reads. "The ICJ ordered Israel not to kill, harm or 'deliberately [inflict] on the [Palestinians| conditions of life calculated to bring about... physical destruction'. They have refused."

The signatories include US representatives Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush, UK former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and leader of the Australian Green Party Adam Brandt, among others. 

Veteran left-wing politician George Galloway is set to return to the UK parliament after winning Thursday's Rochdale by-election in a vote dominated by the refusal of the UK's main parties to back a ceasefire in Gaza.

Galloway, representing the Workers Party of Britain, won almost 40 percent of the votes and nearly 6,000 more votes than his nearest rival.

Speaking after the results were announced, Galloway took aim at both opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer, who is facing growing dissent in his own party over his failure to support an immediate ceasefire, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

"Keir Starmer - this is for Gaza," said Galloway, who was a Labour MP from 1987 until he was expelled from the party in 2003 over his opposition to the Iraq war.

READ MORE: George Galloway strikes blow 'for Gaza' in Rochdale by-election

Israeli settlers are targeting Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank following yesterday's killing of two people near the Eli settlement.

Palestine's Wafa news agency said that settlers set up six caravans near the village of Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya, south of Nablus. Nablus is the closest city to the Eli settlement.

Settlers also attacked the homes of Palestinians in the village of Jalud, southeast of Nablus.

Additionally, Al Jazeera reported that an attack took place on the Fawar refugee camp south of Hebron.

China's foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, said her country "strongly condemns" the killing of over 100 Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza City on Thursday.

"China is shocked by this incident and strongly condemns it," Mao said. "We express our grief for the victims and our sympathies for the injured.

"China urges the relevant parties, especially Israel, to cease fire and end the fighting immediately, earnestly protect civilians' safety, ensure that humanitarian aid can enter and avoid an even more serious humanitarian disaster."

The Times of Israel reports that the Israeli army's Bislamach Brigade, the School for Infantry Corps Professions and Squad Commanders in wartime, has replaced the Paratroopers Brigade in Khan Younis, as the latter were recently withdrawn.

The brigade joined the fight in the Palestinian city under the 98th Division.