Gaza live: Fresh Israeli order forces over 170,000 Palestinians to leave their homes
Live Updates
Gaza ceasefire talks will be held in the Qatari capital on Thursday, sources close to the negotiations told AFP.
A source close to Palestinian movement Hamas and a second source close to the talks confirmed the Doha meeting. CIA director William Burns is also scheduled to take part in the ceasefire talks, a third US source familiar with the negotiations said.
Hamas told Reuters that it will not attend the negotiations.
"Hamas is committed to the proposal presented to it on July 2, which is based on the UN Security Council resolution and the Biden speech and the movement is prepared to immediately begin discussion over a mechanism to implement it," said senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri.
"Going to new negotiation allows the occupation to impose new conditions and employ the maze of negotiation to conduct more massacres."
US envoy Amos Hochstein said on Wednesday he believed an all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel was avoidable.
He insisted, however, that Israel and Hamas need to reach a peace agreement in Gaza without delay, as it would help to enable a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon.
Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group, has been engaged in cross-border clashes with Israel since 8 October, a day after the outbreak of the war on Gaza.
READ MORE: US envoy Hochstein says war between Hezbollah and Israel can be avoided
Israel has approved a new settlement on a Unesco World Heritage Site near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, its far-right finance minister said on Wednesday.
Bezalel Smotrich, who also heads civil affairs at the defence ministry, said his office had "completed its work and published a plan for the new Nahal Heletz settlement in Gush Etzion", a bloc of settlements south of Jerusalem.
All of Israel's settlements in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law.
"No anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist decision will stop the development of settlements," Smotrich, who lives in a settlement, posted on X.
Muhammad Abu al-Qumsan was on his way to register his newborn twins' births, when an Israeli strike killed them both, as well as his wife and mother-in-law.
The 33-year-old had just left Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, when he received a call telling him to return to the hospital.
“Five minutes after getting the birth certificate, I was getting their death certificates,” Qumsan told Middle East Eye.
His wife, Jumana Abu al-Qumsan, his twin children, a boy and a girl named Aser and Aseel, and Jumana’s mother were all killed by an Israeli artillery shell hitting their home on Tuesday morning.
READ MORE: 'All that was left was bones': Palestinian father mourns newborn twins killed by Israeli army
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to visit the Turkish capital Ankara and address the Turkish parliament in a special session on Thursday, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will attend the parliamentary assembly.
In his speech, Abbas is expected to highlight Israel's attacks in the occupied West Bank, as well as ceasefire efforts in the Gaza Strip.
Four in five school buildings across the Gaza Strip have been directly hit or damaged amid the ongoing Israel war on the Palestinian enclave, the head of the Unrwa said on Wednesday.
The war has deprived 625,000 children, including 300,000 Unrwa, from school for a year, Philippe Lazzarini added.
"The longer children stay out of school, the more difficult it becomes to catch up on learning losses," Lazzarini told Education Cannot Wait on social media platform X.
"The impact of the war in Gaza on children, particularly their mental and psychosocial wellbeing, is tremendous and will have lasting consequences."
🛑In #Gaza: 625,000 children including 300,000 UNRWA students have lost one year of school.
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) August 14, 2024
🛑 Four in five school buildings in Gaza have been directly hit or damaged. They need to be rebuilt or fixed to be used as schools.
I told @EduCannotWait :
➡️ The longer children stay…
Hamas officials have told Palestinian and Arab media the group will not be participating in the upcoming round of ceasefire talks involving Israel, the US, Egypt, and Qatar, which is expected to take place on Thursday.
Suhail al-Hindi, a member of Hamas' politburo, told Al Arabi Al Jadeed the group will not join talks until there are guarantees to implement a previously agreed upon proposal, which it accuses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of obstructing.
Hindi added that Hamas does not reject negotiating in principle, but demands a clear plan of action to enforce the proposals currently on the table before engaging in further talks.
Israeli troops shot dead two members of the Palestinian civil defence in Rafah, southern Gaza, while they were performing their field duties, the emergency and rescue service organisation said.
The two men were named as Fire Sergeant Suhaib Adel Abu Taqiya and Sergeant Hussein Diab Abu Jamous.
The civil defence said the number of its members killed by Israeli forces across Gaza since 7 October has risen to 82.
US envoy Amos Hochstein said on Wednesday that he believes a war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah can be avoided.
When asked at a news conference after meeting Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a strong Hezbollah ally, whether Israel and Hezbollah could avoid a war, Hochstein replied: "I hope so, I believe so."
Reporting by Reuters
Israeli forces have killed at least 36 Palestinians and wounded 54 others in the past 24 hours, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
This brings the death toll since 7 October to 39,965, with more than 92,294 wounded and an estimated 10,000 missing, likely dead and buried under rubble.
Health officials report that around 70 percent of the victims are children and women.
On 2 August, funeral prayers for Ismail Haniyeh drew thousands to Doha's Imam Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab Mosque to honour the assassinated Hamas leader.
Notably absent from the funeral were representatives from the governments of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and Morocco.
Despite their critical policy differences, similar occasions in the past, such as the funeral of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, brought together Arab leaders in a symbolic display of unity and collective mourning.
For all their glaring contradictions, Arab states previously found it necessary to pay heed to the question of Palestinian liberation in the eyes of their populations, though more often with words than deeds.
However, since their violent suppression of the Arab uprisings, authoritarian regimes no longer need to legitimise their rule through declared support for Palestine. They now have a free hand to pursue deeply unpopular policies, including normalisation with Israel.
So, the absences in Doha are just the latest example of a shift in these regimes' style and substance that was more than a decade in the making and has become more pronounced since 7 October.
Indeed, several Arab states have offered Israel significant support since it unleashed its assault on Gaza. This has brought into focus a long-developing regional picture of how these states have been enlisted in the US-Israeli security order.
In prior eras, the sight of Arab regimes acting in open alliance with Israel would have been unimaginable. This raises questions about how such a reality has come to be and what impact the current moment will have on these alliances going forward.
Read more: Why Arab regimes' betrayal of Palestine may come back to haunt them by Abdullah Al-Arian
Israeli attacks on Lebanon amid exchanges of fire with Hezbollah since 7 October have killed at least 547 people, including at least 35 females and 20 children and teenagers, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
In its latest update published Wednesday, the ministry added that 1,765 people were wounded, with more than 100,000 internally displaced.
The majority of those killed are Hezbollah members.
#التقرير_التراكمي_للطوارئ_الصحية- 13-8-2024
— Ministry of Public Health - Lebanon (@mophleb) August 14, 2024
متابعةً للعدوان الاسرائيلي على جنوب لبنان، نشرت وزارة الصحة العامة التقرير التراكمي للطوارئ الصحية لـ 13 آب 2024.https://t.co/PGfg7ctqhg pic.twitter.com/OOtnfUg8Rm
At least five Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli drone strike and other attacks during the ongoing raid on the occupied West Bank city of Tubas, according to the city's governor.
Israeli forces are blocking ambulance teams from reaching Palestinians wounded by Israeli fire in the ongoing raid in the occupied West Bank's Tubas and Tammun, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has said.
An Israeli drone strike hit a group of Palestinians in a car in the northern West Bank city earlier on Wednesday. Their conditions were not immediately clear as medical teams have not been able to reach them.
Israeli forces regularly block ambulances from reaching wounded Palestinians during West Bank raids.
More than 10,000 Israeli soldiers were wounded in fighting and attacks or suffered from mental disorders caused by trauma since 7 October, the defence ministry has said.
According to the ministry's rehabilitation centre, nearly 37 percent, or some 3,700 soldiers, have suffered physical trauma to their limbs.
Around 35 percent suffered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or similar mental disorders.
Reservists make up nearly two-thirds of the total 10,056 soldiers who have been admitted to the rehabilitation centre since the war started, the ministry added.
According to the Israeli military, nearly 700 soldiers have been killed since the war started, including around 300 killed on 7 October and its immediate aftermath.
