Gaza live: Gaza death toll rises to 35,80

At least five people have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a family home in Khan Younis, Al Jazeera Arabic is reporting.

Palestinians are fleeing to Khan Younis, among other areas, following evacuation orders from Rafah.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem visited Gaza City, his church said, where he delivered a "message of hope, solidarity and support" to the people in the war-torn Palestinian enclave.

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said that Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa "entered Gaza and reached the parish of the Holy Family for a pastoral visit".

The archbishop presided over a mass and paid a courtesy visit to another parish, and the Patriarchate said he "met the suffering population to encourage them and to deliver a message of hope, solidarity, and support".

The visit was the vist stage of a humanitarian mission to deliver aid which includes food and medical assistance to people in Gaza.

Over three percent of Gaza's tiny Christian population of 1,000 have been killed in Israel's war on Gaza, and 80 percent of their homes have been destoryed. 

The Arab League is set to call for a UN peacekeeping force to be deployed in occupied Palestinian territories until a two-state solution with Israel is achieved, according to media reports.

According to BBC Arabic and Saudi-funded Asharq Al-Awsat, the call will be made in the final statement of the Arab League summit being held in Bahrain on Thursday.

The regional body will highlight the need to establish a timeline for a political process that leads to a Palestinian state.

It will also urge full recognition of Palestine by the UN Security Council on the pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The call will come as the issue of “post-war governance” in Gaza, which assumes Hamas will no longer exist as a capable governing and military force, continues to be raised by international and Israeli officials. 

READ MORE: Arab League will call for 'UN peacekeeping force' in Palestinian territories, reports say

Lebanese media reports that a drone has targeted a vehicle on the road between the towns of Ramiyeh and Qana in south Lebanon. 

Ambulances are currently heading to the scene.

Prominent Israeli academic Ilan Pappe said he was interrogated by the FBI after arriving in the US on Monday.

Arriving at Detroit airport, the academic - known for his stridently anti-Zionist views and research - said he was subjected to two hours of questioning.

Amongst the questions, he was asked whether he was a Hamas supporter and whether he regarded the Israeli assault on Gaza as a "genocide".

"The two man team were not abusive or rude, I should say, but their questions were really out of the world!" Pappe wrote on Facebook.

"They had long phone conversation with someone, (the Israelis?) and after copying everything on my phone allowed me to enter."

READ MORE: Israeli anti-Zionist academic Ilan Pappe interrogated by US intelligence on Gaza views

Gaza's health ministry said that 39 people were killed in Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 35,272 Palestinians killed since 7 October.

Additionally, 72,205 people were wounded since the start of the war.

Al Jazeera reports that 11 branches of the same money exchange company were raided by Israeli forces in the West Bank last night, as Israel accuses the company of dealing with "terrorist groups".

The company reportedly lost around 4 million shekels in the raids, or over $1m.

Israeli forces also confiscated computers and safes, along with everything inside them.

Similar Israeli raids took place in December, when they raided the branches of several exchange companies, amounting to a loss of around $300,000.

Political parties of the Netherlands's new right-wing coalition have agreed to look into the "appropriate time" in which they will move their country's embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

the draft agreement, which Dutch media report was finalised on Wednesday night, follows November's Dutch general elections, which saw the far-right, pro-Israel Party for Freedom receive the highest share of votes.

The party now has 37 of the Dutch lower house's 150 seats.

Geert Wilders, the head of the party, is known for his anti-Islam stances and was found guilty of inciting discrimination against Moroccans against Muslims in 2016.

Hezbollah said it fired 60 Katyusha rockets on three Israeli military bases in the Golan Heights on Thursday morning.

The group says the attack was a retaliation for Israel's series of overnight strikes near Baalbek in Lebanon's north-east.

In a column last month, Washington Post associate editor Ruth Marcus criticised the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) finding that it is "plausible" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

She asserted that "somehow Israel seems always to be held to a different, higher standard than other countries. The ICJ's ruling is the latest manifestation of this familiar double standard, from an entity from which we should be able to expect better".

The ICJ's finding doesn't stem from holding Israel to "a different, higher standard". Haaretz reported that, during the first three weeks of Israel's offensive in Gaza, 61 percent of those Israel killed were noncombatants, whereas author Yagil Levy points out, "in wars fought during the 20th century, up until the 1990s, about half of those killed were civilians."

Similarly, The New York Times reported that "experts say that even a conservative reading of the casualty figures reported from Gaza shows that the pace of death during Israel's campaign has few precedents in this century".

READ MORE: Why Israel deserves to be singled out for criticism, opinion by Gregory Shupak

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported that over 15,000 children have by killed by Israeli attacks on Gaza since the start of the current war on 7 October.

Over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since that date.

Arab League leaders are meeting in Bahrain on Tuesday for a summit focusing on Israel's war on Gaza.

This marks for the first time the bloc is meeting since the extraordinary summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in November, which also involved the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

At that meeting, members condemned Israel's "barbaric" actions in Gaza but did not approve of any punitive economic and political steps against Israel.

The AFP reports that this could change at today's meeting.

The US military has finished building a floating pier in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, with officials saying they are ready to begin ferrying aid to the besieged Palestinian enclave.

The pier's completion comes two months after US President Joe Biden ordered it, and follows Israel's seizure and closure of Gaza's Rafah border crossing with Egypt, stripping millions of Palestinians from much needed aid.

While the pier is supposed to support aid deliveries, it is not expected to replace the cheaper and more efficient land deliveries that are now largely blocked off.

Though it is a US-mandated project, American officials insist that their troops will not set foot in Gaza.

The Israeli army announced it is sending an additional brigade to Rafah, southern Gaza, as the government is expected to approve a widening of operations in the city that once housed over a million displaced Palestinians.

At least 600,000 Palestinians have already fled the southern city to other areas in the south and centre of the Gaza Strip since Israel intensified its military operations last week.

Israel’s military also said that five Israeli soldiers were killed and at least seven were injured by an Israeli tank in what seemed to be a friendly fire incident in northern Gaza.

Baalbek, north-eastern Lebanon, was hit by an intense series of Israeli strikes in what seems to be the strongest attack on the area since the beginning of the war in Gaza.

Additionally, three Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli forces during a raid on Tulkarm in the West Bank, the Wafa news agency reports.

Israeli forces reportedly stormed several money exchange shops in the city, vandalised and stole from some of them, and arrested at least one of the shop owners.

READ MORE: Israel sends additional brigade to Rafah as five soldiers killed in Jabalia friendly-fire

A group of demonstrators joined today’s House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on "Antisemitism on College Campuses", on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. 

During the meeting, the protestors raised their hands, which were painted in red, in solidarity with Palestinians killed in Gaza.