Gaza live: Several dead including Hezbollah commander after Israeli strike on southern Beirut

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also said on Friday that a military approach alone was not the solution to Israel's war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

"The past weekend has dramatically demonstrated that a purely military approach is no solution to the situation in Gaza," she told reporters after meeting with her Israeli counterpart Israel Katz in the coastal Israeli city of Tel Aviv.

Baerbock was referring to the recovery of six more dead hostages announced on Sunday.

Their deaths have ramped up domestic pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seal a deal with Hamas for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage exchange deal.

Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted on a military solution as the only outcome of the Gaza war, leading to many accusing him of jeopardising chances for a ceasefire deal.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is currently in Israel, where she met her Israeli counterpart Israel Katz.

Speaking to reporters following her meeting, Baerbock called for "a ceasefire now" and also spoke out against hawkish statements by Israeli officials about the West Bank, where the army on 28 August launched a raid in multiple cities that has left at least 36 dead. 

Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel's far-right national security minister, said in a post on X on Friday that he had asked Netanyahu to make the defeat of Hamas "and other terrorist organisations" in the West Bank one of the aims of the war in Gaza.

"When members of the Israeli government themselves call for the same approach in the West Bank as in Gaza, that is precisely what acutely endangers Israel's security," Baerbock said.

Reporting by AFP

Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir requested Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to include the defeat of Hamas in the West Bank in its current war objectives.

"We must not repeat the mistakes, war on Hamas – also in Judea and Samaria!," he said on X, using the Israeli name for the West Bank.

Ben Gvir's post included a copy of a formal letter and a plea for Israel to not repeat the mistakes it made on 7 October.

פניתי לראש הממשלה, בבקשה לכלול את הכרעת חמאס ויתר ארגוני הטרור ביהודה ושומרון כאחד ממטרות המלחמה.

טבח השבעה באוקטובר יצא לפועל בעקבות קונספציה חמורה שאסור לחזור עליה גם ביהודה ושומרון. אסור לחזור על הטעויות, מלחמה בחמאס — גם ביהודה ושומרון! pic.twitter.com/WvEvRKjO8J

— איתמר בן גביר (@itamarbengvir) September 6, 2024

Footage originally shared by Israel's Channel 14 correspondent showed Israeli soldiers detaining Palestinian children, women and men in Jenin, occupied West Bank, and forcing them to walk in one line.

This is not Gaza. This is in the West Bank

Israeli soldiers share footage with Netenyahu’s channel 14 depicting them humiliating young Palestinian girls, women and elderly in Jenin during their invasion to the city pic.twitter.com/y2DZz1rImP

— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) September 6, 2024

The Israeli army said in a statement that it will continue its operation in Jenin, occupied West Bank, "until its objectives are achieved".

This comes after Palestinian media reports saying Israeli troops have withdrawn from the city following a 10-day raid and siege.

The Israeli army said it killed 14 Palestinian fighters in the area, included a Hamas commander, and detained 30 wanted people.

A car was set alight and the word "revenge" in Hebrew was written near a star of David on a wall in Khirbet Abu Falah, near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Little more information is known of the apparent Israeli settler attack on Palestinians.

דיווח פלסטיני: מכונית הוצתה בכפר הפלסטיני אבו פלאח ליד רמאללה. על קיר בכפר רוססה כתובת גרפיטי בעברית - "נקמה"@nurityohanan pic.twitter.com/SDmeJyQyVC

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) September 6, 2024

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates:

• Israeli attacks on Gaza City's Zaytoun and Sabra neighbourhoods have killed six and three Palestinians respectively
• Israeli forces have withdrawn from Jenin, occupied West Bank following ten days of intense deadly operations there, with Palestinians worried about their potential return, the Wafa news agency reports
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that 90 percent of the Gaza ceasefire deal has been agreed on, but some "critical issues" remain, such as the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt, which Israel insists on keeping a presence on
• Blinken also said that a Gaza ceasefire deal would make Saudi-Israeli normalisation feasible before the end of Biden's presidency
• Speaking to Fox News, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that "there’s not a deal in the making" and that comments from the White House regarding closeness to a Gaza deal were inaccurate

A new poll released by Israel's Maariv newspaper finds that around 48 percent of Israelis prefer ceding control of the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt in order to secured a captive and ceasefire deal.

On the other hand, 37 percent prefer keeping control of the narrow corridor, even if it means not having a deal.

The results are closer when only Jewish respondents are considered, where 44 percent are in favour of ceding control against 42 percent who would prefer keeping Israeli control over the corridor.

This shows wide rejection of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's insistence of maintaining Israeli control of the narrow strip of land between Gaza and Egypt, a move many have said is jeopardising chances to reach a ceasefire deal.

Despite this, the poll finds that Netanyahu remains one of the most political Israeli politicians, outperforming all his rivals in head-to-head match-ups except for Naftali Bennett, who earned 49 percent of the votes to Netanyahu's 34.

Palestine's national football team drew against South Korea during their World Cup qualifier game in Seoul.

The team was met with an outpouring of support from South Korean attendees, carrying Palestinian flags and wishing for both teams to qualify for the World Cup in 2026.

🇵🇸 Palestine cheering team at the Seoul World cup stadium#Fidai #BanIsrael #fifa #fifabanisrael #banisraelfromfifa #endthegenocide pic.twitter.com/fEJoSNTjcy

— 🍉 팔레스타인평화연대 - BDS Korea 🇵🇸 (@pps_kr) September 5, 2024

Our live coverage from Gaza will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are some of the day's key developments:

• Israeli forces have killed 40,878 Palestinians in Gaza since war began on 7 October, the Palestinian health ministry said on Thursday

• Medical sources told Al Jazeera Arabic that at least 15 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes across various areas of the Gaza Strip since dawn on Thursday

• Israel's ongoing war on Gaza is projected to leave at least 625,000 students without access to education

• August saw the highest number of rockets fired from Lebanon amid the ongoing war, the Israeli Shin Bet security agency claimed on Thursday

• Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant stated that the military's ongoing major assault in the occupied West Bank, which has resulted in at least 39 Palestinian deaths, is part of a strategy he referred to as “mowing the lawn”

• A deadly Israeli airstrike in Gaza City targeted a group of people near a school in the Zeitoun neighborhood

•  Armed Israeli settlers have raided several homes in the village of Bireen, southeast of Hebron in the occupied West Bank

• Israeli forces say they have killed six fighters from Islamic Jihad in the town of Tubas and in a nearby refugee camp in the occupied West Bank in a drone strike

• Hamas's lead negotiator Khalil al-Hayya called on the US to press Israel for a truce in Gaza on Thursday, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of blocking a ceasefire

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told Jewish donors on Thursday that US universities would lose accreditation and federal support over what he described as "antisemitic propaganda" if he is elected to the White House, Reuters reported. 

"Colleges will and must end the antisemitic propaganda or they will lose their accreditation and federal support," Trump said, speaking remotely to a crowd of more than 1,000 Republican Jewish Coalition donors in Las Vegas.

Earlier this year, a nationwide student protest movement erupted, with students demanding an end to Israel's military offensive on Gaza and an end to financial investments by US universities in companies profiting from the war on Gaza. 

Israeli forces have raided the Balata refugee camp, east of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus city and injured a 30-year-old Palestinian man, Wafa news reports.

A fleet of Israeli army vehicles accompanied by a bulldozer stormed the camp while firing live rounds, Aljazeera reported.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society says its teams transported the man to a nearby hospital for treatment.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health says at least 39 people have been killed and 150 wounded in the occupied West Bank since August 28 when Israeli forces launched a large-scale incursion into several towns and cities.

This brings the total number of Palestinians killed across the West Bank since 7 October to 691.

Senior Hamas member Abdulrahman Shadid has called for the “expansion of resistance” in the occupied West Bank, Aljazeera reported.

“Our people … across the West Bank should work on strengthening and engaging with the resistance because the occupation’s plan is to target every house, every village, and every street,” Shadid said in a statement.

It is an “ethical, national, and religious obligation”, he said, adding that the Palestinian people will not “give in to the enemy”.

Hamas's lead negotiator Khalil al-Hayya called on the US to press Israel for a truce in Gaza on Thursday, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of blocking a ceasefire.

"If the US administration and its President Biden really want to reach a ceasefire and complete a prisoner exchange deal, they must abandon their blind bias towards the Zionist occupation and exert real pressure on Netanyahu and his government," Qatar-based al-Hayya said in a video statement.