Gaza live: Gaza death toll rises to 35,80

The United States on Friday evacuated 17 American doctors out of Gaza after they were stranded following an Israeli seizure of the Rafah Crossing closed the border with Egypt, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Friday.

US diplomats arranged for the 17 doctors to leave through the Kerem Shalom Crossing into Israel.

“They’re out. There was 20 American doctors, 17 are out now, came out today. And all 17, they wanted to, they wanted to leave — I won’t speak for the other three, but just, I can assure you that any of them that wanted to leave are out now,” Kirby said.

The White House said that Israel has assured them they they are willing to continue conversations before making major decisions on any Rafah operation.

The White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan will travel on Saturday to Saudi Arabia for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and also visit Israel to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Palestine’s envoy to the United Nations in an event in New York titled “1948-2024: The Ongoing Palestinian Nakba” shows the Israeli takeover of land is continuing but Palestinians are “here to stay”.

"The denial of our existence as a people continues, the denial of our rights continues, the denial of our statehood continues, but at least, Israel, unchecked and unhinged, has confessed to the Nakba it had denied so far,”

Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the UN Palestinian rights committee.

“Its extremist leaders say it unequivocally, they want a second Nakba, thus confessing to the first. A second Nakba that allows them to get rid of the Palestinian people once and for all, finish the job started decades ago.”

In a statement on Friday, Hamas said that the US-built pier off the besieged Gaza Strip is no alternative to opening all land crossings that should be under the supervision of Palestinians.

The statement added that the group rejects any foreign military presence on Palestinian land.

The Arab League announced on Thursday it was calling for a UN peacekeeping force on Palestinian Territories until a two state solution materialises.

The US has in recent months also been calling for a multinational Arab force to take over security in Gaza.

Sixteen Democratic lawmakers joined Republicans to pass a bill that would force the US to expedite all approved arms shipments to Israel, including those that the White House has delayed over concerns about its assault on Rafah.

The largely symbolic vote in the House of Representatives passed by a vote of 224-187, but has little chance of becoming law because it must pass the Democrat-controlled Senate.

The Biden administration also said it would veto the bill, claiming it “undermines” the president’s foreign policy.

The bill’s passage in the House of Representatives is notable, however, because 16 pro-Israel democratic lawmakers joined with Republicans in a sign of defiance of Biden’s decision to pause a shipment of 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs to Israel.

The lawmakers who broke ranks with their party include vocal democratic supporters of Israel such as Lois Frankel, Jared Moskowitz, Josh Gottheimer, and Ritchie Torres.

Read more: Sixteen Democrats join Republicans to override Biden's halt on bomb transfers to Israel
 

Attempts to “deprive the people of Gaza of urgently needed food is cynical”, said the Germany Foreign Office in a post on X.

Germany has been one of the chief supporters of Israel’s bloody assault on Gaza and provided weapons and diplomatic support to the country over the last 7 months of fighting in the besieged Strip.

Israeli strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon killed at least five people on Friday, including Lebanese and Palestinian fighters. Amongst the dead were also Syrian civilians, security sources told Reuters.

On Friday, a series of Israeli strikes on a coastal town further north than where previous strikes have taken place, killed a Hezbollah member as well as two Syrian civilians, the security sources said.

American business leaders and billionaires set up a Whatsapp group to shape public opinion on Israel's war in Gaza and urged New York City's mayor to use police to disperse a pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University. 

The contents of the Whatsapp group were reported by the Washington Post on Thursday. 

The group was set up on 12 October, days after Hamas's surprise attack on southern Israel, to "change the narrative" on Israel, including by conveying "the atrocities committed by Hamas... to all Americans". 

Among the business leaders in the group were the CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, Dell CEO and founder Michael Dell, and Joshua Kushner, a financier and brother to Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. 

The contents of the chat were supplied to the Washington Post by unnamed people with direct access to it. 

Read more: US billionaires joined Whatsapp group to 'change Israel narrative'

The Israeli military said in a short statement that a 20-year-old soldier from the Paratroopers Brigade was killed in fighting in northern Gaza today.

His death brings the toll of slain troops during the Israeli military's ground offensive in Gaza to 280.

Israeli forces rescued the bodies of three hostages from the Gaza Strip, chief military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Friday.

Hagari identified the hostages as Shani Louk, Amit Buskila and Itzhak Gelerenter, who he said were killed by Hamas at the Nova music festival and their bodies taken into Gaza.

The children's YouTube sensation Ms Rachel is known for her cheerful attitude, colourful outfits, educational games and songs for toddlers. 

But this week, the instantly recognisable social media performer became the target of pro-Israel supporters after she launched a fairly innocuous fundraiser for children in conflict zones, including Gaza.

"The idea is: I'll make videos for little ones and all the money raised on my end will go to Save the Children’s Emergency Fund, which will go to children living in conflict," Ms Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Accurso, said in a video posted on her Instagram.

The planned initiative, "Messages of Love To Children, For Children," would be on Cameo, a platform which allows users to purchase personalised videos, from which she would fundraise for Gaza, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ukaine.

"Hopefully I can make little ones smile by giving them a personal video," she continued. “Children should never experience the horrors of war."

Read more: YouTube star faces backlash from Israelis for launching Gaza fundraiser

The civil defence in Gaza says its teams cannot reach areas in northern Gaza, including Jablalia refugee camp, that are being pounded by Israeli shelling.

“What makes it more painful is that our teams remain unable to meet the appeals of our people whose homes were affected by the Israeli bombardment,” it said in a statement on Telegram, warning of "ugly scenes of massacres" in Jabalia camp and the Tal al-Zaatar and Al-Qasasib neighbourhoods.

Israeli forces appear to be using Gaza’s civilian structures, including a cancer hospital and a school, as military bases, according to The Washington Post.

According to the report, which is based on satellite imagery and other visual evidence, Israeli troops are commandeering civilian structures and razing homes as part of efforts to build a strategic corridor which will carve Gaza in two.

Israeli troops appear to be using the the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, which specialised in cancer treatment before it was forced to close due to Israeli strikes and lack of fuel, as a base for operations.

Images of Israeli soldiers using the hospital as a sniper position were shared online, and geolocated by the Post.

Additionally, structures within hundreds of acres around the hospital have been razed, including greenhouses, Israa University and the and the Palace of Justice, which housed Gaza’s high courts.

“Israel has not provided cogent reasons for such extensive destruction of civilian infrastructure,” Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in February.

According to the report, Israeli forces also appear to have occupied local civilian structures, including a former school,  and are now using them as military outposts.

Wafa news agency is reporting 'multiple' casualties in areas across Gaza, with at least three Palestinians killed and others injured in Israeli strikes on Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza and Rafah.

The agency also reported that civil defense teams had retrieved the bodies of six Palestinians following an Israeli air strike on a house in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Since midnight, Israeli strikes on the camp have intensified, with the entire camp now under fire.

Meanwhile, an Israeli strike targeting  a home in Al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, killed three people, according to Wafa.

The agency added that Israeli forces continue to besiege displaced families sheltering in schools near Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza.

Listening to UK government ministers, one could be forgiven for concluding that the sole purpose of the encampments now proliferating on campuses across the country is the harassment and persecution of Jews.

Their protest against genocide in Gaza and their demands that universities divest from an apartheid regime are all but obscured by the declarations of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, that antisemitismwill not be tolerated and “we will not stand by as Jewish students suffer”. (Note not if but as).

Threats were made in advance to back a "police crackdown" and vice chancellors were urgently summoned to a Cobra-style meeting in Downing Street. Given the government’s pro-Israel policy, it was hardly likely to welcome the protests, but this knee-jerk resort to anticipating and decrying antisemitism - based, as with the national demonstrations, on the flimsiest of evidence - reveals a longstanding pattern.

READ MORE: The UK government's cynical manipulation of Jewish fears to silence Israel critics, Opinion by Gwyn Daniel